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Lou Anna Simon

president of Michigan State University

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ6685344
Source-derived summary

Lou Anna Kimsey Simon is an American academic administrator who served as the 20th president of Michigan State University (MSU) from 2005 until 2018.

Simon was named interim president of the university in 2003, then was appointed president in 2005. She served as chair of the executive committee of the National Collegiate Athletic Association from and as chair of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Detroit Branch from 2013 to 2015. She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 2016. In December 2017, MSU appointed her John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor in the College of Education.

The following month, Simon resigned as university president amid claims that she had ignored reports of sexual abuse by Larry Nasser, an MSU sports physician. She retired from her teaching job at MSU in 2019.

Education

Simon received her Bachelor of Arts in mathematics from Indiana State University in Terre Haute in 1969. She earned a Master of Science in student personnel and counseling from Indiana State University in 1970. In 1974, Simon earned a Ph.D in higher education from MSU. She is married and lives in East Lansing.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Lou Anna Simon” as president of Michigan State University. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2005, 2018, 2003, 2013—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Anna, Simon and president can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as president of Michigan State University. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6685344. VIAF identifies the subject as 41397097. The Library of Congress control number is no90000849. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2005, 2018, 2003 and 2013.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Lou Anna Simon”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Lou Anna Simon primary sources, Lou Anna Simon archive and Anna research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Lou Anna Simon”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Lou Anna Simon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.