From pain to pride: MSU’s interim president reflects on year of healing and resilience

EAST LANSING, Mich. (WILX) - Painful, but proud. As Michigan State University’s Interim president Teresa Woodruff prepares to hand over the reigns to a new president in March, she’s looking back on a painful year of healing and resiliency.

Tragedy, trauma and a test of leadership. Just three months after becoming MSU’s Interim President, Teresa Woodruff found herself navigating a difficult journey. During a campus vigil shortly after the shooting, she told the campus community, “Our presence here tonight demonstrates there is comfort and hope in the community of the bereaved, for we are not alone.”

President Woodruff was not alone. Within moments of the attack, other leaders who have experienced mass shootings reached out to her. She said, “The Virginia Tech President called me, and the Mayor from Highland Park in Chicago called me right away. So I had people calling to give me a sensibility of what leadership was going to look like in that moment and that was very pivotal.”

Calls that would prove pivotal in the hours and months that followed. The MSU Interim President said, it was valuable advice on how to lead a grieving campus community. She said, “We have, over the last year, developed ways to wrap our warm academic arms around everyone, which means those most affected by that event on that evening. But we’re all affected, and I see the coming together that we had on Spartan Sunday last year.”

Woodruff gets emotional thinking back to that time. She admits, as a leader, she’s been focused on helping everyone move forward. “We’ve taken the input from the community to bring wisdom and discernment to those kinds of decisions that have changed some of our daily behaviors, but to allow for this broad, open public space to continue to feel to be that warm welcome environment but also with measures of safety that I think are prudent.”

She says there have been efforts on several fronts, everything from public safety enhancements to help for those directly impacted. Last April, the university set up The Office for Resource and Support Coordination to help people heal. Woodruff said, “But knowing that not all of us are on the same path. And those on the same path may not be at the same point in their emotional thoughtfulness.”

This leader has spent the last year learning about resilience. She says Spartans have shown their strength by learning from and leaning on each other. “That is one of the outcomes of what February 13 will continue to mean. It will be a moment that continues to echo into our future and we will continue to be a resilient community, not just for ourselves, but as that beacon to others as we continue to help others through these times of this kind of tragedies and many others.”

Interim President Woodruff says she will be there to help other leaders who find themselves dealing with a similar tragedy. On February 13, 2024 she’ll be on MSU’s campus, finding comfort among her Spartan Strong community.

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