The Wayne State University Board of Governors has called a special meeting to discuss "leadership transition plans currently underway."
That's amid media reports that Wayne State University President Kimberly Andrews Espy has resigned.
Espy has been in charge at Wayne State for two years. She is the first woman to hold the role in the university's 92-year history.
Her tenure has been marked by administrative turmoil. That includes criticism over how the university handled demonstrations calling for divestment from Israel last year, and a continuing leadership turnover at the Wayne State University School of Medicine.
The university's former medical school dean, Dr. Wael Sakr, was placed on leave without a clear explanation last month, and this weekend, Dr. David Rosenberg, the interim medical school dean selected to replace Sakr, resigned.
Faculty in the medical school were told not to contact Sakr, according to Jennifer Moss, the president of the Wayne Academic Union.
Rosenberg took issue with how the university appointed him, he said in his resignation letter.
He said he accepted the position before he learned the medical school’s executive committee had not been consulted.
"The Executive Committee, as the elected official body representing the School of Medicine Faculty, should be integrally involved in any decision of this import,” Rosenberg wrote. “While I was told that this was an emergent and temporary situation, in hindsight, I should have inquired whether this had been done.”
Rosenberg, who described himself as a "close friend and colleague" of Sakr, wrote that he had no desire to be the medical school’s acting dean, noting that when he had previously been asked to serve as dean, he had declined. In his resignation letter he said he accepted the position this time because he wanted to “serve the University I revere during an emergent and temporary situation.”
Rosenberg said he is returning to his primary positions as chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences and director of the Institute for Brain Health.
Moss, the union president, said Wayne State's actions reflect a recent trend of a “real erosion of the faculty governance that is supposed to happen at this university.”
Notice of the special board of governors meeting went out about 24 hours before the meeting is scheduled to take place, on Wednesday at 5 p.m., in the McGregor Memorial Conference Center on the Wayne State campus. The meeting is open to the public.
