LANSING — Michigan State University's next president is Samuel Stanley Jr., a medical doctor who is the current leader of Stony Brook University in New York.

The board hired Stanley, the first president from outside the university since 1985, at a special meeting Tuesday morning.

"Today represents a pivotal moment in MSU's 164-year history," board member Melanie Foster, who co-chaired the search committee, said. The board voted unanimously.

Stanley is first permanent president at MSU since Lou Anna Simon — who is currently facing criminal charges — stepped down in the wake of the Larry Nassar scandal. Since then, two other interim presidents have served, including former Michigan Gov. John Engler, who was forced from office.

Stanley has been president at Stony Brook, a public university on Long Island and part of the State University of New York system, since 2009.

Stanley, from Seattle, has a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He did his resident training at Massachusetts General Hospital. He went to Washington University in St. Louis in 1983 for a fellowship in infectious diseases, eventually becoming a professor in the Departments of Medicine and Molecular Microbiology. In 2006, Stanley was appointed vice chancellor for research at Washington University.

His academic record was key to the board, Byrum said, noting his time as a professor as well in administration at universities. She said the board heard from students and faculty who wanted a person who had been in many positions in academia.

More:Samuel Stanley Jr.'s official biography

Stanley steps in to lead an university rocked by scandal and controversy, something he acknowledge in his remarks.

"I'm so excited about the trajectory you are on," he told those at the board meeting. "At the same time, I see a community ... that needed healing. I want to meet with the survivors and hear their voices and thoughts. What happened at MSU will not be forgotten. Instead, it will drive everything we do."

First came news that Nassar, a staff doctor at MSU and doctor to the U.S. Olympic team, had sexually assaulted hundreds of young women. Then came news that MSU had known about his abuse and cleared him of abuse allegations years before he was arrested.

Nassar's boss, William Strampel, is facing criminal charges of sexually assaulting students himself and not providing proper oversight to Nassar. MSU knew about Strampel's issues with female students for more than a decade, but did nothing.

Strampel's boss, Simon, resigned at the beginning of 2018 under intense campus and public pressure for what many regarded as insensitive comments and actions toward Nassar survivors. She has since been criminally charged with lying to police about what she knew about Nassar.

MSU's board then brought in Engler as interim president as pressure mounted from legislators who said they would strip MSU's state funding. Engler, a power player in Republican circles for decades, mollified legislators and forged a $500 million settlement with more than 300 Nassar survivors. Another 160-plus Nassar survivors have sued MSU in a second wave of lawsuits.

But Engler had missteps as well and drew criticism for, among other things, accusing a Nassar survivor of taking kickbacks from attorneys, hiring his cronies to prominent and lucrative spots in his administration and repeated offensive comments toward sexual assault survivors.

More:Stony Brook U, home of new MSU president, under 3 federal sex assault investigations

More:John Engler resigns as Michigan State University interim president

More:Settlement talks stall between MSU and Nassar victims in 55 lawsuits

After November 2018 elections brought new board members to MSU, Engler was forced out. Satish Udpa, executive vice president for administration, was named acting president.

At the same time, a committee made up of board members and representatives from various groups was searching for the next permanent president. That search occurred completely behind closed doors.

The names of those applying or making the cut as finalists are not known to the public.

The board has said since the beginning of the search the only way to get quality candidates is to keep every name secret.

"These high-caliber candidates will not remain in the pool for consideration if their identities are made public," the committee said in a February update. "All members of the search committee and the Board of Trustees have signed confidentiality statements. The commitment to confidentiality is crucial to attracting and hiring the best possible person to be the next president of MSU."

The closed search has rankled many on campus, including an advocacy group named Reclaim MSU, which issued the following open letter to presidential candidates earlier this year.

"We recognize that most recent searches for university presidents are conducted confidentially. However, MSU is not like most universities. On our campus, hundreds of student athletes and patients experienced decades of sexual abuse because university officials ignored them," the group said.

"Our former president has been charged with lying under oath regarding the Nassar investigation. And our interim president has claimed privately and publicly under oath that survivors are lying. At the same time, he lies about the reasons that MSU closed the healing assistance fund set up to help support survivors of Nassar’s abuse and their families. We are advocating for an open search and will continue to do so. However, we urge you to engage publicly with the entire MSU community. We need you to challenge MSU’s secrecy and lack of accountability. Now, before you are hired."

Michigan law exempts university president searches from open meeting act and public records laws.

In keeping the search closed, MSU mirrors a trend across much of higher education. Oakland University was a notable exception in its last search for a president. It held candidate town halls with finalists that were open to anyone.

Contact David Jesse: 313-222-8851 or djesse@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @reporterdavidj