LANSING - Elizabeth Battiste was an undergraduate at Michigan State University when she first met Scott Westerman, then the executive director of the Michigan State University Alumni Association.

It was August of 2010. They were at a Lansing networking event. Westerman would become a mentor for her and tried to be a father figure, Battiste said. He gave her money and gifts. He said she should work for the Alumni Association.

The two sat down at a Lansing restaurant the following year, and Westerman tailored the responsibilities of her paid internship around her goals.

Then Westerman made unwanted sexual advances toward her in a hotel room in December of 2011, and the work environment became “extremely uncomfortable," she said.

Westerman also sent her "multiple communications of a sexual, intimate and romantic nature in the form of email and text messages," according to a report on a Title IX investigation conducted by MSU.

The investigation concluded that Westerman's conduct was "severe, persistent, and pervasive" and that he had violated the university's policy on sexual harassment.

Battiste's name is redacted from the report, which was released by the university in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, but she agreed to speak publicly about her experiences.

Westerman notified university officials in April he planned to leave his position and move to Florida to be closer to family and return to the private sector.

He did not respond to an email sent Wednesday seeking comment.

In August, after MSU first announced the finding that he had violated university policy, Westerman said: "I disagree with the findings and regret the distraction it has caused."

The night Battiste found herself in Westerman's hotel room, she'd been drinking with friends, the report said. She called him to come get her because she didn't want to stay in the hotel where she was booked.

There were two beds in his room. She lay down on one. He asked if he could hold her, the report said. She said no.

He then told her "I wish I could have sex with you so you could know what it's really supposed to feel like," the report said. She tried to brush it off and go to sleep.

Westerman would later tell investigators he didn't recall such an incident, but "I wouldn't have done that."

In months that followed, Battiste tried to distance herself from Westerman, she said. She began missing work and arriving late because of her discomfort and anxiety around seeing him.

She was fired two weeks before the scheduled end of the internship and the start of her first full-time job in August of 2012. She believes her attempts to distance herself were the true reason for her termination.

Westerman’s behavior “caused an unreasonable interference with (Battiste’s) performance at work,” MSU investigators wrote in their report, causing a hostile environment.

Battiste said she’s always been open about not having strong parental figures in her life growing up. Westerman knew that as well, she said.

“He tried to portray all of these inappropriate communications as this is really how parents act,” she said.

Several years after she’d graduated, amid the fallout from the Larry Nassar sexual assault scandal, Westerman contacted her, she said.

He said he was trying to be helpful with the sexual assault program at MSU, which he knew Battiste was actively involved in as a student, she said.

She’d previously served as a peer educator with the Sexual Assault & Relationship Violence Prevention Program and met with women at the hospital as they were undergoing nurse examinations. Even now, she volunteers her time for local organizations that work with assault victims.

“I thought he was an inappropriate person to be involved in that,” Battiste said,

She went back to her emails and texts with Westerman over the years. She physically printed them out, and seeing them all assembled, it clicked that their conduct was not appropriate, she said.

“I don’t think fathers should be communicating with their children that way,” she said about the texts and emails with content about sex and relationships.

She reported Westerman to MSU's Office of Institutional Equity in February and brought physical copies of the inappropriate texts and emails.

Westerman told investigators that the relationship was parental and never became romantic.

He said communications about sex and relationships were example of him offering advice and information that could be of interest to Battiste.

Asked about an article he sent to Battiste from the New York Times called “Teaching Good Sex,” Westerman said the article wasn’t just about sex but about “emotions”, according to the report.

“(Westerman) stated that (Battiste) told him that she was not feeling the 'deeper relationship' when she had sex,” investigators wrote. He also told investigators that Battiste would discuss relationships with him.

Battiste said she never started any conversations about sex with Westerman and would generally ignore him when he sent emails about it.

“I certainly didn’t proactively talk about any sexual relationships I had,” he said. “He seemed very interested in talking about those things.”

Years later, she came to understand that the gifts and money he’d given her were attempts to groom her.

“Even now people are asking where do we draw the line, and I’m proud of the fact that my complaint led to a thorough report that has very explicit evidence of sexual harassment and can be a standard moving forward that, if you do this type of behavior, that’s inappropriate,” Battiste said.

Contact RJ Wolcott at (517) 377-1026 or rwolcott@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @wolcottr.