As the Michigan State University’s Board of Trustees walked into the Minskoff Pavilion Thursday morning to meet with campus stakeholders, Bob Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue” drifted across the concourse — although they wouldn’t hear the music much longer.  

Once the trustees and around 70 attendees took their seats, the doors abruptly shut. 

At the meeting, also known as the stakeholder engagement forum, MSU administrators heard from about 50 students, faculty and experts on three predetermined topics: artificial intelligence, work culture and the student experience. Each discussion lasted nearly an hour. 

With about 12 tables in the room, trustees filtered to each open seat to speak with the stakeholders, taking detailed notes, one student attendee told The State News. Each table had between one and three students, seated around university faculty and leaders. 

The State News spoke to multiple of the around 70 participants outside the near four-hour meeting, as media was barred from the private gathering.

A source in university leadership shared the directory of attendees with The State News, which included mainly MSU deans and vice presidents, experts in the conversation topics as well as one outlier: State Rep. Joe Tate, D-Detroit. 

Attendees told The State News that the forum did not include any discussion of the university’s tumultuous summer, which saw successive leadership departures amid growing trustee scrutiny. However, President Kevin Guskiewicz backing out of his decision to leave MSU for Clemson University remained the elephant in the room. 

Outside closed doors

At 8:15 a.m., when attendees started filing down the stairs to the meeting room, minimal students filled the concourse. But, when the meeting wrapped up at 12:15 p.m., the foyer was packed. 

Not everyone understood what was happening. One student pointed out the corner of the pavilion to a friend, where cops and security guards stood at a check-in table near the meeting entrance.