Michigan State Board Of Trustees Is A Mess

Happy Wednesday all. Today being a slow news day in regards to MSU sports, I am giving you this piece. I have read your comments on all the articles over the past month plus and I have felt the massive amounts of animosity toward the MSU Board of Trustees. Certainly, there is much to be unimpressed with. For the less tuned-in, here is a brief list of some of the dysfunction going on with the Board:

• Trustee Brianna Scott has called on Board chair, Rema Vassar, to resign among accusations of bullying other board members and violating ethics codes.
• It was reported to the Board that the individual who leaked Brenda Tracy’s name to the media was someone on the Board, though it has not been stated who.
• As part of the Nassar investigation, the then-Attorney General requested a release of over 6,000 documents from MSU that allegedly contained information on whether or not anyone at MSU knew about the abuse prior to the news going public. The board refused to release those documents.
• MSU has had the same interim president for over a year in Teresa Woodruff. She is the fifth president in the past five years, and she has already stated that she does not want the position permanently, so apparently there should be a search for a new president going on.
• There is also a great deal of disapproval for the performance of current Athletic Director, Alan Haller. The Board does have the ability to remove him and find his replacement.

And I am sure I am leaving some things out. Basically, it is playing out like a reality show right now with factions forming, people not trusting each other, and, collectively, they are doing a bad job.

So I thought to myself, why can’t The Only Colors be the point of origin for some positive change? We are obviously a community of Michigan State University faithful that wants nothing but the best for our school. Let’s try to help out MSU by getting better people on its Board of Trustees. Yes, I am talking about political action. There will be two spots on the Board of Trustees up for grabs in the 2024 election cycle (for a term that will begin on January 1, 2025) including the seat of board vice chair Dan Kelly. In other words, there will be two openings for new people to get into a position to influence the most major decisions that MSU faces. And I think those two seats need to be filled by a pair of TOC community members.

Certainly, there are some among you who either have political experience or political aspirations. Who among you wants to volunteer to run for these seats? I’m going to volunteer myself if none of you do, and I am quite certain I am not the man for the job. But it is not just about the two people who will run. Whoever among you becomes a candidate is going to need people to help their campaign. And the more the merrier. I know how much time many of you spend on this website, so I am confident that you have some extra time that you could dedicate to working on a campaign.

To be clear, I am not attempting to create a political party or anything like that out of TOC. Nor will this blog be able to officially endorse a candidate (Okay BBD, I hope this covers the legal requirement). But I do feel like this is a large enough community of like-minded people (read: MSU fans) that we can be a place to start these conversations before creating a different place to keep those conversations going.

So what do you say? Who is ready to help out MSU? Who is ready to run for a seat on the Board of Trustees or to assist with the campaign? We can codename this operation “The Only Campaign”. We can start with two and then run another two every two years when seats come up for grabs (there are eight seats and each term is eight years with two seats up for election every other year) until we take over completely. Clearly, we are the only people in this state who know what needs to be done and how to do it. Have I inspired you all?

Speaking of voting, it’s time for a quick survey. (Note: this article and this survey were written prior to the Nebraska game.)