Demetri L. Morgan
You know, obviously since the 80s, we really had to wrestle with is higher education a public good, right? I think we’ve come back to that conversation. And I think these are the the kind of reverberations of us as a society not really having coherent and consistent understandings of whether we think higher ed is a public good. And the reason I come back to that is because if it is a public good, then we should want as many people involved in the governance apparatus as possible, since it impacts many, many of us, all of us.

Keith Edwards
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW, I’m your host Keith Edwards. Today we’re discussing academic governance boards and legislatures and political interference in higher education. We’re highlighting the recent conflict between the Michigan State Board and its president Samuel Stanley Jr, who resigned on Thursday, October 12. We’ll expand on this specific case study to explore the politically motivated interference in higher education we see from boards, legislatures, governors, and more. We’ll also explore what higher ed leaders can do to maintain integrity, effective governance, academic freedom and education that serves the individual and public good. I’m grateful to have a guest today with expertise and experience to help us all unpack all of this. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education, and student affairs. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays find details about this episode or browser archives. It’s student affairs now.com. Today’s episode is sponsored by Symplicity. A true partner Symplicity supports all aspects of student life with technology platforms that empower institutions to make data driven decisions. This episode is also sponsored by LeaderShape. Visit leadershape.org To learn how they can work with you to create a just caring and thriving world. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards, my pronouns are he, him, his. I’m a speaker, consultant and coach and you can find out more about me at keithedwards.com. I’m broadcasting from Minneapolis, Minnesota at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of both the Dakota and the Ojibwe peoples. Let’s get to our conversation. I’m so grateful to have four guests today. Let’s begin with introductions. Felecia, why don’t you go ahead and kick us off.

Felecia Commodore
Hi, everyone. My name is Dr. Felecia Commodore. I am an associate professor of higher education at Old Dominion University, which is located in Norfolk, Virginia, which is located on the lands of the Algonquin, which is also known as the Chesapeake. Indigenous people. It’s also the in the land of where the first enslaved Africans were brought to the United States of America. And so we wrestle with living and working in a place that was built on the backs of stolen land, stolen bodies and stolen labor. I do research in the area of leadership, governance and administrative practices with a particular focus on minority serving institutions in historically black colleges and also research in the areas of the role of boards and advancing equity at institutions, including organizational culture, organizational behavior, and decision making processes. So I’m really excited to be here be part of this conversation.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, thanks for being back with us. We had a previous conversation about a year ago about boards and legislatures now we’re, we’re diving in deep again. So thanks for coming back to us. And on that conversation, we mentioned some Demetri work. So go ahead and tell us a little bit more about you and your work as you join us here today.

Demetri L. Morgan
Yeah, thanks so much, Keith. Hi, everyone. My name is Demetri. I use he him pronouns and I’m a faculty member at Loyola University, Chicago. And Loyola is currently on the traditional ancestral homelands of the Council of three fires the Ottawa Ojibwa in Potawatomi. And I similar to Dr. Commodore do research on board of trustees in governance. But I also think more broadly too, as well about higher ed’s role in a diversifying democracy. So what role does higher education need to play as we think about what’s happening in society and in the world more generally. So I focused on a lot of different things that helped me understand that phenomenon, including student activism. I explore STEM education and its role in the labor force. And then as well as governance. So really excited to be in community with you all today. Yeah.

Keith Edwards
Well, thanks to the both of you who are gonna help us take this Michigan State example and see the broader implications with your expertise. And we have two folks from Michigan State here to help us really unpack this case study. Kris Renn, let’s begin with you.

Kristen Renn
Thanks so much, Keith. And thanks, Felicia, and Dimitri for getting us started. My name is Kris Renn, my pronouns are she her. I am a professor of higher education, higher adult and lifelong education at Michigan State University, where I also serve as Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies for student success research. And many folks who might be listening in was sort of know me from some I work on student identity development. I do work on LGBTQ students and multiracial students. I have not formally studied governance although I did work at the Massachusetts Board of Higher Ed for a year. I just find myself embroiled in it. It has landed as I say, you know when it when it comes to doors stick as you can’t pretend it’s not there. So taking you as a senior faculty member, I have some certain kinds of privileges to act in these spaces. And so that’s what I’m doing. And I would like to acknowledge that in Michigan State University is on the land of the Anishnaabe, a three fires Confederacy. And also we are at land grant university from the first moral Land Grant Act. And so we have a particular obligation to think about our role in the ways that the moral Land Grant Act was used for genocide and displacement of people and our university benefits from land in northern parts of Michigan and sits on land that was seated in the 1818 Treaty of Saginaw.

Keith Edwards
Awesome, well, thank you for that. And thank you for being here to help us all. And Brendan is here with us as well, also from Michigan State. Tell us a little bit more about you.

Brendan Cantwell
Hey, great to be here. My name is Brendan Cantwell, and I am Associate Professor of higher adult and lifelong education at Michigan State University, I use he him pronouns. And my work focuses on the politics and political economy of higher education in the United States and around the world, I do a lot of work comparatively. I am interested, I’m really interested in the way that broad social and political dynamics, shape higher education and the way that higher education contributes to those dynamics. And so a lot of the governance work that I have done in the past has actually been comparative, not in the United States. But like, like my colleague, Kris Renn, I’ve been hoisted into a hyperlocal. of governance, because Michigan State University has been for several years a, a rich source of data.

Keith Edwards
Great, that’s great. Well, thank you all for being here. Let’s, let’s get into it, Kris, and Brendan, you’re not only faculty members at Michigan State, as you just articulated, you’re also leaders and scholars of higher education. And you’ve both been outspoken and recently led a teach in on academic governance that Demitri was able to be a part of, as well. And this teach in one of our student affairs colleagues called it and I’m going to, quote, probably the most punk rock thing I’ve seen in academia. And I don’t know what they mean by that. But I’m excited. So please help us bring us up to speed with what has happened at MSU. And what you see ahead.

Brendan Cantwell
Yeah, Chris, do you want to start or should should I go?

Kristen Renn
Brendan, why don’t you give folks like the larger scope? Like why is Michigan weird? Like, why does? Why does the state

Brendan Cantwell
That’s that’s a really good place to start. So why is Michigan weird? So one of the reasons that Kris and I and some of our colleagues thought that doing the teach in would be a good idea. And I’m not sure that any of us are often called punk rock, anything. Happy? I’m kind of kind of honored to hear that is because Michigan’s governance structure is so very unusual that we thought that there’s like a general low baseline across higher education, knowledge of governance. And I don’t mean, just folks involved in student affairs and higher education work, but like, you know, staff and other domains, faculty who, you know, if you’re teaching in the biology department, do you ever think about university governance? Well, maybe not that much. And then you layer on the fact that Michigan has a really distinctive structure, that it would be important to help the community understand some of the context that makes the particular situation at Michigan State possible. And so that context is that Michigan has something, what we might call like

Brendan Cantwell
its own, if you have the scale of state of state governance systems in the United States from like really consolidated, really sort of coordinated by the state government on one end, and then not a lot of state coordination at all. On the other end, Michigan is here at this not a lot of coordination level. So in the 1963 constitution of the state of Michigan, universities are granted something called constitutional autonomy. And what that means is that the state has very, very limited oversight of the universities. There’s no involvement from a State Department of Education. There’s no State Office of Higher Education or coordinating board or statewide governing board. The Constitution provides that each public university and I’m talking specifically about four campuses here, will will have its own governing board, that the state is obliged to provide an adequate appropriation to the institutions. And then it lays out the process for the selection of the governance boards. So Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, and Wayne State University, which are historically, the three kind of research universities in the state have elected directly elected governance boards. And the remainder of the public four year universities have governance boards that are just for that campus, but are appointed by the governor and approved by the legislature. So the elected governance boards for the three campuses that we mentioned, that the candidates get nominated by the political party, so the Democrats and Republicans, they get nominated for reasons that often have nothing to do with higher education in any way. Sometimes it’s just name recognition. And the parties want to put somebody who they think people will know and vote for other times. And increasingly, in more recent years, it’s been about folks who are really sort of party activists and strongly aligned with the primary base of the party. So that’s sort of people who go to state party conventions, and are really into like pushing the party platform forward. That has led to candidates particularly on the Republican side, but also on the Democratic side, who are running on questions running for a board of trustees on questions that don’t necessarily have a lot to do with the university. So I remember doing a content analysis from the election two years ago, and looking at all the the platforms that the candidates put out, and their websites, and they would run on things like being pro life or supporting the Second Amendment. So people tend to vote, tend not to have a lot of information on the candidates, there tends not to be a lot of information available for people, even if they wanted to get that information, which they don’t really want to get. And so they vote like I’m voting for Republicans this year, they vote for the Republican candidate, those people are elected, they become trustees or regions, depending on the board. They’re elected for an eight year term. And everybody kind of forgets about them. And they’re not attached to a coordinating board, they’re not attached to any kind of state structure that might help with onboarding, that might help with training with sensemaking, about the role of Trustees. And so they are the legal university there it and they’re just kind of put there by the voters with not a lot of preparation and not a lot of support or help to understand higher education, their role in it. So that’s the kind of big picture story for how we got to the situation, how we couldn’t get to the situation that we’re in. And I think well, update us about what that situation is.

Keith Edwards
Yeah. Before we get to that I also am making an assumption here that to that if they want to have a political future that the way to do that is to be very activist in their roles, right to to garner more attention to garner favor to garner that is that what we’re seeing here a little bit,

Brendan Cantwell
You know, I think that that’s true. I’m not sure that we have like a firm empirical base to say that the governance board is a good spot for launching a political career. But it is definitely true that it seems like the kind of more attention that you can get, that are particularly in a really super polarized political environment where something called negative partisanship is the most powerful sort of organizing force. And negative partisanship is like your hatred for the other side, rather than your actual support or belief in particular policies or issues. And so I think, and I’m, you know, there was a Board of Trustees meeting today and one of the Republicans who is on the sort of firebrand spectrum of this said some really horrible things about faculty members. Really, really horrible things. And I think that plays into this whole sense of negative partisanship, these folks are different than us. They don’t like us, we don’t like them, we’re against them. And so whether it’s specifically to like launch into a different kind of political career or whether it’s just really strong commitment to partisan identity, and that is animated by negative partisanship, I’m not sure but definitely, there are inclinations and maybe incentives to really a tip to not think about the university in nuanced terms and really think about everything through this partisan lens.

Felecia Commodore
Yeah, I just wanted to jump in on A little bit too. And it’s kind of a question comment, maybe. But I imagine,

Keith Edwards
Your specialty by the way,

Felecia Commodore
I try to stay on brand. Verna and Chris, maybe you can give some insight, but I imagined that though they may not be passed to. We can’t we’re not really sure if they’re passing like, like political aspirations. The if a party is able to garner a majority of those elected seats, it is a bit of a poll test for political parties to see where they are landing in the general populace for the state. Right. So if we can get if a party can get a majority of those seats, right, with these people running on platforms that are connected to that political party, it does send a signal out to the party that we’re doing well, right with the general populace. So I wonder if if they do serve as kind of a poll test for the larger more general elections that are that are coming up for those those parties?

Brendan Cantwell
Yeah, I think so. I think it works both ways that like, the Republicans are up and they’re going to win the seats, because people are putting down shallot, but I think it definitely is an indication of, you know, where where the public is in terms of alignment with the parties. But I also think it’s in, you know, universities are pretty big resources to control. And if you have partisan control of them, then, you know, I think it’s important to be able to capture these institutions that command a lot of resources, public and private money. So you have a say, there’s a partisan controlling the direction of those resources. And you then have a platform to wage these kinds of cultural war fights over critical race theory over transgender issues. And so, you know, I think that it’s actually a political prize, as much as like a way to register, it’s that it’s also a prize itself.

Keith Edwards
But it’s a lot of good context, Kris, help us understand, now that we understand the board what is going on as we think about this case study, and then also the broader implications.

Kristen Renn
So I’m gonna start back in April, those of you who are tuning in who come through Student Affairs, when I say the words, the Business School held a Gatsby Gala. You are probably thinking, what good could ever have come from a business school event called a Gatsby Gala. And I will tell you, no good has come. Well, maybe good has come about but much ale has a bit. Alright. So in April, there is this event. And unbeknownst to most of campus at this event, was alleged, has been investigated and has been shown that there was a title line violation that the then dean of the business school witnessed, but then dean of the business school in April did not report Michigan State University, we many universities, but we are given our relatively recent history with sexual assault on campus. Title Nine. We are very all aware from RAs and instructors through Provost and presidents and Dean’s mandatory reporters, the Dean did not report this. This is all on the record. I’m not just making this up. So in August, when the title nine investigation got to the point where it was known that the Dean had done this, and not reported seeing this, and that reported it, but Dean did not do it, the Dean saw it and didn’t record it. He was called him the provost office, I believe probably called him and was asked to resign. So the provost called for the resignation and the dean did resign, it is now after that, so very much established. In fact, these are all true things. But at that time, the Board of Trustees, they decided that they would hire an outside law firm to investigate the provost action in dismissing the dean. Now the Deans all report to the provost, the provost has complete personnel authority over Dean’s can fire them for no cause at all, this would seem to actually be a cause. But this is completely within the provost purview. The President supported the provost. But this did not stop this outside law firm from from being paid. And it is still an ongoing investigation of this action that constituted too many of us it was like the loudest alarm bell I should imagine hearing in my head of like, oh, we the board is investigating the provost for complete with a purpose for your a Personnel Action. So many of us are like war. That sounds bad. Other for campus. We’re kind of upset by that because of our recent history of cataloging like Well, maybe it’s okay. The board investigates the title nine, doing their due diligence, I was like, on the other hand, the provost dismissed the dean for not doing the right thing and title nine. So if we’re going to lean in any direction, it’s not that we’re actually why don’t we like we’ve had a problem with that as so. That’s going on. A few weeks after that was announced and anonymous board members leaks to the Detroit Free Press that the board or trustees is in conversations with the President and that they have given him until Tuesday of that same week, two days later to step down or be fired. So that goes out in the paper. This hits campus sideways. And then over the next several weeks, there is confusion. There’s speaking out by different board members. There are several public meetings of different sorts where different board members say different kinds of things. So board members are speaking out of turn, they are not directly addressing this example of what I called in the speech, an example of startling overreach on the board’s part and an ethical violation of their own board of conduct and ethics. Plus or all going on. So the real, the real problem here like, well, that’s the problem. Why did you have a teach in and one of the board do it was this overreach into this level? We part of why we organize the teaching was to help some of our colleagues and students understand that a board that can overreach on a dean appointment can overreach to overturn a tender decision can overreach take the critical race theory course that we teach in the codification out of the curriculum, we have people running for our board right now who have said that’s exactly what they want to do. So putting not just drawing the line in the sand, but getting people back into their appropriate roles and economic governance and getting the board into its role is really important to us. The board has made clear in a three page single spaced letter that they clearly lawyer it up, that they have the legal right to do this investigation. And nobody on campus has said they don’t have a legal right. We’re just all pushing back from academic government saying like, you have the legal right, that is not your job. However, your job is to be staying at this level with the President, the provost makes personnel decisions. This is an academic decision of the university. So that’s kind of the current situation, there’s been a parade of votes of no confidence in the board or undergraduate students, government, Graduate Student Government, Faculty Senate, this morning were released the results of what’s called the academic Congress, just like all the people, and it was 17 119 to 700 to 179, I believe in favor of no confidence in the board. So we have all made quite clear we have no confidence, and as a result of having no confidence.

Keith Edwards
That’s like a 10 to one. You got you got a whole bunch of faculty degree on and each margin.

Demetri L. Morgan
Yeah. And that yeah, what’s so interesting about it in my spouse said this the other day, very rarely in higher ed, do we see the students, the staff, the majority, the vast majority of faculty agree on anything. And so for Michigan State to have so many of their shared governance like structures and apparatus to be, you know, in opposition to what the the trustees have done over the last couple of months is is, you know, I shared this with with Kris and Brendan, but it’s it was almost refreshing to be like, oh, like canvases can still like be activated and share information and teach each other and sort of engage in these apparatuses. So it’s unfortunate what they’re all coming together around, but it is it is heartening to see some of that kind of fight still be in apparatuses that exist?

Keith Edwards
Well, we want to we want to talk about some of the broader implications. But before we move there anything else that would be helpful for our audience to understand about what has, is, or will be happening with Michigan State?

Brendan Cantwell
You’re gonna get a new president in the interim first, we don’t know who that is how that process unfolds, and who they pick is going to be important for understanding whether the board is recalibrating or not. Right.

Keith Edwards
Right. So there’s this hope that is the board listening or the understanding, and then this will be the first test of whether that’s happening, or if they’re, they’re digging in and going the other direction? I mean, one of my my thoughts from an outside perspective is who’s going to be your next president? Who would take that job? You know,

Brendan Cantwell
Are you interested?

Keith Edwards
No. But I, you know, it’s a real concern of like, managing a university at that level of that size of that scope of that complexity, with all the history with all the challenges, all the everything and then add this. There’s not a lot of people who have the capacity and talent and credibility to do that. And you’re narrowing the ability, the the scope of candidates with this kind of engagement with this President and some past president and

Felecia Commodore
it would seem also having to navigate an overactive board.

Demetri L. Morgan
Right, yeah. And, you know, might see some of my Florida stuff in the background, very proud University of Florida, graduate and proud most of the time, but to your point, Keith, like, you know, for many people that know, like, Senator, Ben Sasse, is, you know, the heir apparent to the president role, but, to your point, some of the rationale that people are giving for a while that appointment of why there was only one finalist for you know, this this top, you know, public research university, was because there’s only so many people that could deal with sort of the overactive governor, you know, a really You know, sort of pent up student body and faculty base, that the number of people who would want to step into that position narrowed it a lot. And we would imagine, you know, most academics not wanting to sit in that sort of hyper political space. So it makes sense, to a point, right makes sense to some people, right to a point, a sitting a sitting, you know, Senator who, you know, has clear, you know, political allegiances to a particular party. So, I do think that’s a really astute point, like, how that limits who can play the role when when trustees start to get into some of these things.

Keith Edwards
And then the trickle down to who will be Provost and who will be Dean who will take on other leadership roles? Well, we’re starting to move in this direction. So let’s go ahead and do it. So we have a Felecia and Demitri, you’ve been seeing boards influence on higher education? And how are higher how higher ed can navigate governance effectively to serve students in the community? How is what we’re seeing at Michigan State, reflective of other trends you’re seeing for higher education in the US? Demitri, want

Demetri L. Morgan
to kick it off? Yeah.

Demetri L. Morgan
Okay. Yeah, so one of the things that we talked to board, when we hear from boards a lot is that they don’t want to get into the weeds of campus. And what that has done, at least in the DEI space, is allowed boards to cede a responsibility to being involved in helping their institutions transform themselves to be more equitable for students with minoritized identities. So in that lane, we, we always say, you know, board’s would never not know where their dollars are being spent. Why? Why should they not know more about the DEI work that’s going on? The flip side of that call into that work is what we’re seeing at Michigan State when the board chooses, almost randomly, but not randomly, to get really deeply involved into something, and to be involved in a way that is disruptive to the campus community. And so for me, that’s, that’s where the line is, right? We want boards to we don’t want rubber stamp boards, because that can be problematic. And we in Michigan State is also an example of that, unfortunately. So we don’t want rubber stamp boards, but we don’t want board overreach. And so what we’ve been trying to think and dream up is what are we calling boards into? What are the frameworks and parameters parameters that we can give trustees that we can provide to boards that we can train people on, to help us imagine a different way to do governance. And right now, what we’re seeing you I would argue on a national landscape is that tension of we don’t know what to do. We don’t we don’t know how to be not hands on and overreach. But we also, you know, there’s a lot of boards that are super comfortable being rubber stamp boards, and that can lead to harm, too. So how do we start to dream and imagine a different approach?

Felecia Commodore
Yeah, I’m gonna add to amplify some of the things Demitri has said, I think, too, for me to think Michigan State kind of is representing two things that I think are going on now that are that are rising to the top of our consciousness in higher ed. And I think one to the point that Demitri brings around training. One of the things I’m so I too struggled with, like, did we do this, right, like did did we do this, but I’m going to say, no, people didn’t hear our whole message. Right. So I think and one of the things in calling boards in to be more proactive in areas of DEI on their campuses. What we also encourage right is they get trained in these areas. I think one of the things we see happening is that there’s an assumption that because people have been leaders, quote, unquote, in other areas, and other sectors that they understand leadership in higher education. And what we find with board members is many of them don’t know what it means to be a board member, they don’t know what that entails. Many, we know that demographically, most of our board members are not people from higher ed or who study higher and understand hire ed, right. So they bring in principles of governance and leadership, and management, that don’t necessarily always align with the principles and the structures and the governance practices that are norms and higher education. And so when we when when we’re like, oh, we want you to we don’t want to see the title nine oversights that we saw historically, there’s sometimes there’s an overcorrection, because they move in the way that we see Board of Directors move in corporations very swiftly and very, you know, whatever the consensus is, in that little group of people, right, as opposed to a more shared governance structure, more representative governance structure, and we’re boards are partners, with the folks on their campuses. And so I think that is something we’re starting to see across higher ed is that boards are moving in ways that they think are appropriate for higher education. But what is exposing is that they don’t really know how higher education works, and some would say may not care. The second thing that may be going that is going on, and I think if we look back to 2020, there was a canary in the coal mine. And that canary was that we saw administrations and boards moving and making decisions without the input of faculty. And we, and justifying it right by we have a crisis, we have to navigate this crisis quickly and swiftly. And shared governance doesn’t allow us to do that. And I think we started then to see faculty start to get activated, like, wow, people are making decisions about our lives, about our students lives and not consulting us. Right. And that I think, was our canary in the coal mine and brings us to where we are now, where around the country, we’re seeing situations like MSU, and other institutions where boards are moving in administration, the administration’s are moving without the input of faculty. And faculty are like, wait a minute, we matter here. We are very invested stakeholders in this in this governance structure, and our voices should be heard. And so I think we saw it coming. But unfortunately, like the board, some faculty don’t have any clue how their institution works. So it wasn’t until these things started happening, that faculty even realized that they had started to be pushed and isolated out of decision making structures at their institutions. And so unfortunately, I do think what we’re seeing, and not just at Michigan, but in many states, is coming to the head of what happens when faculty gets slowly but surely erased from the governance structures and from the decision making processes at an institution. And now, we’re trying to figure out how to get back on track while also moving quickly in crisis mode.

Keith Edwards
I think it’s a great point. And I love to meet you your language about imagining what board involvement could look like, and we should talking about training. I think the disconnect for me, though, is some of this doesn’t seem seems disingenuous, right? It’s not that they have the institution’s best interest. It’s not that they want to create the most effective leadership structure. It’s not that they have different views about doing that some of it feels as I see what happens in Florida, and Texas, and Idaho and other places. I’m sure we have board overreach because of lack of training. And I’m sure we have board who are not as involved in certain things because they don’t know and they don’t understand. That seems to be a problem, right and a problem we can address. But then there’s this disingenuous like, I’m using this to advance my politically career. I’m using this to score points with the base back to Brendan’s comments about negative is it negative partisanship? Yeah, right. And scoring points. So how do we navigate? Probably the both and and you know, boards are 30 people, eight people, 12 people, and we probably have some people there who are genuinely interested in advancing the institution and maybe need help being effective in doing that. And we maybe have others who are less genuine about that. Can we navigate? Yeah, well, that’s about how we navigate that and beyond Michigan State and other places. Go ahead,

Felecia Commodore
Brendan. Yeah. Oh, go ahead, friend. I’m sorry.

Brendan Cantwell
I’m sorry. I was just gonna say I think that, yes. 2020 and the pandemic that Felecia brought up. I think that’s a really astute point. In terms of have like, you know, boards and presidents to sign they gotta act alone quickly. And maybe in an emergency, sometimes you do. But it does set that precedent I want to go even back a decade before to tool 2010 and the midterm election and the two party revolt. And so that we need to separate I think, often not always, but public and private boards, in terms of this assumption of good faith that you were talking about Keith, and that, you know, from 2010, onward Republicans and a very kind of different Republican Party than we had in the recent past took over so many governorships and state legislatures. And they built over that the ensuing 12 years, a huge cadre of really, really far right, trustees in public higher education around the country, like this gentleman in Minnesota who just had to resign for saying some super racist stuff about a University of Minnesota campus. And so, you know, this happened, it feels like it happened overnight. But it started a long time ago. And that process, these processes unfold over time. And sometimes it’s only looking back that we realize the consequences.

Felecia Commodore
I wanted to, to kind of speak to the thing you were speaking about Keith and and I’m gonna push back a little bit, because I don’t know that I buy in that what some of these folks who seem to be pushing a particular platform or using the trustee ship as a platform for their own political views is disingenuous. I think that it actually is them seeing them bringing their values to the table, and by their standards and values, they are making the institution better, right. And so look at some of my research around board composition. In the presidential selection process, though it was particularly in the private HBCU space. One of the things I found was that the board members knew they were supposed to be objective and really tried to be objective in the process, the reality was the way in which they evaluated candidates aligned with their personal values. All right. And so I think what we really have to ask ourselves is what what happens when the the values of the board and board members that sit around that table do not align with the mission of the institution? And how do we reconcile that within the structures that we have? And I think that’s more so what we’re wrestling with, I don’t think they’re disingenuous, I think they genuinely think they’re doing what’s best.

Keith Edwards
Thank you. I appreciate that. Felicia.

Kristen Renn
I would jump there and add that Mike Besito, who was able to be with a teacher last week, did some conversation please like, you know, there’s some that like, I think there’s a range right at the like, the ones who don’t know what they’re doing, but could be trained up the ones who really think they’re acting in the best interest. But we would disagree on what the best interest of the institution is, I want to throw in isn’t actually an answer to your question, Keith. But that’s, you know, that’s what professors do. It’s more of a comment than a question, but it’s actually just an answer to a different question you didn’t ask. One of the things I’ve been thinking about at Michigan State is, is this an opportunity for us to think about I mean, even once we get faculty governance and the board members kind of back in line, we have 1000s of employees who are not in any way represented in our governance system. Grad student employees, custodians cooks, IT people like all these other people who currently have no say, like, they’re not students. And, you know, they, where’s their say, and, you know, like, most places we are, the percentage of instruction at Campus happening by tenured faculty is decreasing. But even before that, like there’s just 1000s of people like my student affairs colleagues, like just 1000s people, and they may be represented by unions, but the unions are not a governance organization. Is there a possibility in this constitutional crisis, as it were, for Michigan State to think about, hey, you know, could we elevate and create spaces for that? And that’s one of the things that I think about as an opportunity in this rest as we begin to settle in, but the board is supposed to be doing and the rest of us but just say, like, what about the rest of those people? Like, they shouldn’t just rely on the faculty to think they know what’s best for the institution, either, right? Because that’s not going to be best for everybody. So I do feel like it’s, it’s a chance to think again, about just governance in general. And why the reliance on tenured faculty, and there are some reasons for parts of that, but there’s a whole bunch of folks not in that conversation as well.

Keith Edwards
I love you framing this is an opportunity when sometimes the crisis can evoke real change that has maybe been long needed, but not been possible, and this might be an opportunity for that. What would you add here, Demitri?

Demetri L. Morgan
Yeah, I was just gonna say one of the things that I and I appreciate, Kris kind of bringing us out to the macro level too, because that’s where my mind went. Were in Brendon brought us back into the history as well. But, you know, obviously since the 80s, we really had to wrestle with is higher education a public good, right? I think we’ve come back to that conversation. And I think these are the the kind of reverberations of us as a society not really having coherent and consistent understandings of whether we think higher ed is a public good. And the reason I come back to that is because if it is a public good, then we should want as many people involved in the governance apparatus as possible, since it impacts many, many of us, all of us. But if it’s a private good, then yeah, having a few small actors make decisions about things like corporations. Yeah, you know, if Mark Zuckerberg wants to make Mehta and you know, fine, like it’s a publicly traded, but it’s, it’s a company, right, like, whatever. So I think, you know, I want us to also see that in this too. Why Why should you care why, like, you might be asking yourself, like, you know, student affairs professional that so and so University, like Michigan State’s great love the loves party, but okay. But I think this, this shows up on so many of our campuses, because we’re wrestling as a society around the role of higher education as a sort of public good versus private, good. And that impacts what you know, how people engage this conversation. And so learning about it, and seeing how it’s playing out in other places, I think can help us be more tapped into what’s going on around us locally?

Felecia Commodore
Yeah. Keith, I want to add one more thing real briefly, because I know we’re running up against the clock. But I think to that point to Demitri about, we’re wrestling with this, this is a public good, I think the question we keep coming back to, for a while now run into these cases like Michigan State. And I know you and I brought this up with the UNC situation with I can’t think of her name, Nicole. Right, in? How do we hold boards accountable? Right, we at this very moment, we have no mechanism to hold boards accountable. The closest we get right is like maybe a governor legislature dismissing board members and our or a vote of no confidence. with the power of a vote of no confidence is right now, right? We don’t even know what the value of that is or the capital that holds in some of these situations. And so I do think we have to begin to have more pointed conversations around. How do we assess boards? Because right now, they mostly assess themselves. And we can see the problems that can arise from that. And then what are the mechanisms to hold boards accountable to the people that they serve? And I think if we can start to wrestle with those questions and come up with some mechanisms, I think it’ll get us closer to reimagining governance and reimagining the way in which we do governance in higher education.

Keith Edwards
Wonderful. I mean, I love how we’ve come full circle on this from very specific detailed things to broader questions, affecting so many and a call to some transformative change that might be possible. As Felicia mentioned, we are running out of time we knew we would. The podcast is called Student Affairs NOW, we always like to end with what are you thinking, troubling or pondering now? So just real quick, whatever is top of mind, maybe our conversation or maybe unrelated to it? And also, where can folks connect with you? Feel free to direct them wherever you’d like to direct them. So Brendan, what are you troubling now?

Brendan Cantwell
I’ve been thinking for a while about something that I tentatively call the institutional trap, which is this idea of kind of a bad faith politics and a good faith organization. So how does a good faith organization like a university, which doesn’t want to wade into partisan politics operate kind of above the fray, when it’s in a socio political environment have a lot of bad faith and negative politics, and the university can ignore it and get the politics done to them? Or they can engage in it and maybe seem like they’re being partisan or political, as an institutional trap. And this is the kind of thing I like to talk about on Twitter. Maybe not after Elon Musk took over but you can find me at cant_b underscore be so apt can’t underscore being

Keith Edwards
speaking of public and then private and governance. There’s another good example right there. Demitri, what are you traveling now and where might folks be able to connect with you?

Demetri L. Morgan
Yeah, so I am troubling. The idea of like this, the study of governance is like only for some and you know, one of the things that you know, I teach at Oregon gov class, and I love to you know, get people excited about governance and to help people see themselves in governance. And so I want to trouble this idea that governance is only for trustees or governance is only for, you know, full professors or a governance is for is for everyone, and we all have a role to play. And I was I want to trouble the idea that like, if we were saying this before we started recording, but what’s happening at Michigan State could be happening at your campus, you know, tomorrow or after the election. And so and so we want to be prepared. And I think a teach in is a great response, right? But how do we get proactive? How do we get upstream from these issues? So I’m traveling that idea, like, I want us to be more well versed and more literate in our governance as a broader community. So to hopefully be more proactive in some of these situations, and where you can find me, I’m on Twitter, Dorgan, PhD. And yeah, you can email me I always love to connect with people about these topics.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. Thank you, Felecia, what do you what’s on your mind now?

Felecia Commodore
Yeah, so I kind of have two things that I think I’m traveling or at least are rolling around in my brain. Most days, I think the first is how do we, how do we push forward or reawaken or reinvigorate a spirit of shared governance and faculty advocacy? In spaces which it has been lulled to sleep? And dealing with the ramifications of being in hibernation and now wanting to come out of hibernation? What does that process actually look like? And what does it mean when the institution has various understandings of what shared governance is, and who gets to be involved in it right now? So I’m really been wrestling with them. And I think the second thing is really thinking about where are the intersections of race, power and governance in higher education? And what does it mean, to understand governance within the context of culture and race and ethnicity and understanding the relationship between organizations racial identity, as organizations and the ways in which they approach governance and decision making. And so those are kind of the two areas I’m wrestling with my you can find me also on Twitter at, at Fe LECIAE, L A, N A. So you can find me there, I may or may not be talking about higher education, but I will be there. So.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. Thank you, Kris, what are you troubling now.

Kristen Renn
part of traveling is how, as a more established scholar, I keep up with the brilliance of the colleagues around me like, Brandon, I know so much. I’m also really drilling down into Student Affairs. This is where I started my career, I think I’m a little troubled by the tendency in student affairs right now to, and this will come off in a way that’s gonna get me in trouble in the field. The the laser focus on necessary social justice work has led some of us to want to just burn it all down. without figuring out the next step. I think they’re Demitri like, we’re calling it out all over the place. What are we calling to do? How are we building the ethical, equitable, shared governance future of this organization? Because there are people outside the organization? Who would be very happy to let us just burn it down? Like there are people on the far right, who if I burned down higher ed, they’re not coming back with anything. So I feel like a tension in the field right now, in an exciting way. There’s a lot of possibility, but I keep looking for where’s the hope? Where’s the possibility? Where’s the building? And again, at the same time, saying, we don’t just accept all this the bad stuff that’s here. But gosh, how do we work on that without kind of falling into the trap of well, right, let us eat us.

Keith Edwards
A really smart person gave a whole talk about this and presidential address about being critical and generative. And so I so appreciate your comments on that. And people can find that and other places. We’ll link to it in the show notes. So yes, we have to be critical and analyze things. And what are we building? What are we generating? What else Kris?

Kristen Renn
Oh, people who want to find me at Kris Renn on Twitter is probably the place again, until until I bring that down with Elon Musk, or just email me I’m pretty easy to find on the internet.

Keith Edwards
So wonderful. Well, thank you all so much, and I appreciate those comments. As we close out, this has been terrific, very thought provoking, very challenging. Very difficult to hear some of this and also very inspiring to hear some of the possibilities ahead. So thank you all for sharing this with us. And thanks to our sponsors of today’s episode, Symplicity and Leadershape. Symplicity is the global leader in student affairs technology platforms with a state of the art technology that empowers institutions to make data driven decisions specific to their goals. A true partner to the institution Symplicity supports all aspects of student life including but not limited to Career Services and Development, Student Conduct and wellbeing, student success and accessibility services. To learn more, visit symplicity.com or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and LeaderShape. LeaderShape partners with colleges and universities to create transformational leadership experiences both virtual and in person students and professionals with a focus on creating more just caring and thriving world. They offer engaging learning experiences on courageous dialogue, integrity, equity, resilience, and community building. To find out more, visit leadershape.org or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. As always, a huge shout out to our producer Nat Ambrosey He does all the work behind the scenes to make us look and sound good. If you’re listening today and not already receiving our weekly newsletter, please visit our website studentaffairsnow.com. Scroll to the bottom of the homepage to add your email to the MailChimp list. While you’re there, check out the archives, Keith Edwards. Thanks again to the fabulous guests today. And for everyone who’s watching and listening. Make it a great week. Thank you all.

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