Wayne State University celebrated the arrival of its first woman president with the official installation into office of Dr. Kimberly Andrews Espy on Monday, March 18, 2024 at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Board of Governors Chair, Shirley Stancato, and Vice Chair Bryan C. Barnhill II invested her with a large silver medallion and chain that President Espy will wear on important official events of her choosing.
In her acceptance of the presidency, Dr. Espy made it clear that community and students are her main priorities. She affirmed her determination to grow Wayne State University’s proactive collaborations with Detroit’s many diverse communities: alumni, ethnic, racial, working class, corporate, scientific, governmental, and social service. She will strengthen Wayne State’s leading role as the social mobility university of Michigan.
Dr. Espy’s celebratory and unifying sense of mission in service to the greater good is a reflection of her deep rootedness in family and her professional field of care for children who are misunderstood by society.
She was introduced by her husband and partner, Paul Hoffman. They raised seven children while pursuing demanding careers. Top scientists from the Department of Energy and the University of Houston appeared to praise Dr. Espy’s humanity and professional expertise.
There is no doubt that the investiture ceremony, with all its pomp and rituals, was either Dr. Espy’s empowerment of a dormant urge by Wayne State to tell its story of what it does every day, every month and every year to serve the working people of Detroit and Michigan. It does it without the massive resources of a UofM-Ann Arbor or an MSU.
I have been at Wayne State for thirty-five years. If any of the previous three presidents had an investiture ceremony, it must have taken place in a secret room somewhere out of public view. Other presidents came to adjust to the existing administrative culture of the university. This was the announcement of a new era.
Dr. Espy was deliberately chosen by the elected Board of Governors, led by past Chair Mark Gaffney, labor union leader and WSU faculty, to be a Transformational President.
President Espy found a good fixer-upper with an under-appreciated record and a promising future.
The ceremony was a tour-de-force of 360-degree DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). On stage to deliver praises for President Espy’s vision and actions were representatives of the most diverse organizations in the university, city and state.
Individual students, the Student Senate, a student choir and faculty members represented WSU’s internal diversity. The mayor, the county executive and the lieutenant governor came to join the party. The corporate community sent a representative to offer its alliance.
Eva Garza Dewaelsche, President and CEO of SER Metro, the national leader in occupational training for the most needy in society, reflected on her experience as a member of the search committee that found Dr. Espy. See Garza Dewaelsche’s speech reprinted in its entirety on this page.
President Espy was also given “The Academic Mace of Wayne State University” that according to a message from the Office of the President, “is a ceremonial scepter whose features relate to the ancient maces used by universities worldwide.”
“The 51-inch mace consists of layers of carved ebony held in place by a tubular shaft. It serves as a symbolic weapon to protect and proclaim the ideals of harmony, truth, justice and learning.”
Dr. Espy, I believe, considers it the authority to lead by example.
More to come in future months.
