Presidential Search
About the Process
Wayne State University (WSU) is among the nation’s premier urban universities and is seeking a new President at a time in its history when it has made extraordinary strides as a national research university with urban teaching and service missions; raised an unprecedented $818 million for the Wayne First capital campaign; expanded its global presence; and spearheaded public-private partnerships for campus development that are helping to revitalize Detroit.
Wayne State University is classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a “Doctoral/Research University – Extensive (very high research activity),” a distinction held by fewer than 100 universities in the country WSU has earned acclaim for its more than 350 academic programs at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels and professional degrees inpharmacy, business, law, and medicine. Wayne State University has the largest single campus medical school in the nation, connecting it to numerous specialty hospitals and research centers and training a high percentage of Michigan’s physicians.
Wayne State University is a constitutionally autonomous public university. The responsibility for governance of the University is vested in an eight-member Board of Governors, whose members are elected for eight-year terms by the voters of the State of Michigan. The President of the University serves ex officio without vote and is the Board’s presiding officer. The State Constitution provides that the Board of Governors “shall have general supervision of its institution and the control and direction of all expenditures from the institution’s funds.” These provisions have been broadly interpreted by the Michigan courts to confer constitutional independence upon the university.
Wayne State University enrolls 33,000 students, of whom 80 percent are from metropolitan Detroit and the remainder from outstate Michigan, other states, and 150 foreign countries. The student body is 58 percent women, 47 percent minority persons, and about 58 percent of the students attend WSU full-time. Most students commute to the university from their homes in metropolitan Detroit, but the number of students living on campus has more than doubled as a result of the construction of three new residence halls in the last 10 years.
The university is organized into 11 colleges and schools. Its full-time faculty numbers approximately 1,800 and includes nationally recognized scholars trained at universities across the United States and from numerous foreign nations. The university also has a large number of committed and talented adjunct faculty who represent professions, business, and other organizations in the metropolitan area.
WSU is an integral part of the economic life of southeast Michigan, andone of the largest employers in the City. It operates with a total annual budget of $778 million, and the university’s public service programs total $$43 million. The university’s School of Medicine, the largest single-campus medical school in the nation, is located on the central campus of the world-renowned, seven-hospital Detroit Medical Center. Its affiliations include: the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Center, Crittendon Hospital and Medical Center, Oakwood Heathcare System and Veterans Administration Medical Center-Detroit. (aren’t there more – e.g. Crittendon?)
Located in the heart of Detroit’s University Cultural Center, Wayne State offers faculty and students a culturally diverse and vibrant urban setting. The campus includes more than 100 buildings on 203 acres of landscaped green space. Major additions to campus include a new recreation and fitness center, and work has just begun on a new medical education commons and an engineering development center. The university also operates substantial extension campuses in nearby Oakland and Macomb counties.
Wayne State is a state-supported university that receives 42 percent of its revenues from State appropriations and 50 percent from student tuition.
The university traces its origins to the Detroit Medical College, established in 1868. The various colleges then in existence, except for the Law School, were brought together as the Colleges of the City of Detroit in 1933 and renamed Wayne University in 1934. In 1937 the Law School became part of the university. Other colleges were organized through the university’s history: The School of Public Affairs and Social Work (1935), the College of Nursing (1945), the School of Business Administration (1946), and the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts (1985). Wayne University and its various colleges became a state university in 1956.
