Trustees are elected, unpaid officials responsible for three major things on MSU’s campus: choosing MSU’s president, voting on major policies and financial decisions made to MSU’s campus and setting the rate of students’ tuition.

Here are the individuals running for trustee spots.

Dianne Byrum, Democrat, Incumbent

Byrum is co-founder of public relations firm Byrum and Fisk Communications, which she does outside of being and MSU trustee. She’s an MSU alumna from the College of Agriculture, and before she became a trustee she spent 16 years in the Michigan legislature as a state representative and state senator. She has also been a commencement speaker at MSU.

“First of all, I have a real passion for education,” Byrum said. “I have always believed that we have a personal responsibility to give back what you have been privileged to receive, and I have stressed that giving back through public service.”

She said she’s most proud of her work with MSU’s Energy Transition Plan, which cleared MSU from burning coal last April.

“I’ve been very active in not only being an advocate, for not only supporting the transition plan, but for the use of renewable energy,” Byrum said.

If Byrum is re-elected, she plans on tackling the rising cost of student tuition — hopefully in some slightly unorthodox ways.

“I believe very strongly in access, in making sure that tuition is affordable, that we have diversity and inclusion across campus,” Byrum said. “The level of tuition is one piece of the puzzle. Making sure that students complete their degree in as close to four years as possible. ... The longer it takes students to complete their degree, the more debt students have.”

Diann Woodard, Democrat, Incumbent

Woodard serves as the international president of the American Federation of School Administrators and is a former member of

the board of directors of School of the 21st Century. She was president of the Organization of School Administrators and Supervisors from 2000-09. She got her bachelor’s degree from MSU. She said her key platform is college affordability.“I have consistently fought for students by voting no on tuition increases,” Woodard said via email. “I understand what it means to graduate in debt because I left MSU with debt. While MSU students will graduate with less debt than the state average, it is still a burden in a state where wages are stagnant and jobs are few.”

Woodard said if she were re-elected, she would maintain her focus on affordability while still attempting to keep MSU a competitive university.

“For the next eight years I would like to work on holding the cost of tuition down while not diminishing the university’s competitiveness in recruiting quality faculty, building state of the art classrooms and labs, as well as, offering educational programs that will be viable for the future,” Woodard said. Woodard said she enjoyed her time as an MSU trustee, and looks forward to “engaging students and faculty as together we fight for an equitable future for all.”

Dan Kelly, Republican

Kelly is a lawyer and a father of one recent MSU graduate, and has two more children currently attending the university. He currently serves on Oakland Community College’s Board of Trustees, where he has a reputation for fighting tuition hikes. He sits on the Board of Directors for a law firm, and was elected the Independence Township Planning Commissioner for an eight-year term. He said he’s running for college affordability, mostly for a decrease in expenditures.

“Quite frankly I think if I get elected to the board, we have to have a bipartisan approach to (tuition),” Kelly said. “We have to say, ‘hey, are we pricing ourselves out of Michigan residents?’ I think both Republicans and Democrats have to understand that.”

Kelly’s biggest concern is MSU becoming too expensive for Michigan students and the university placing a higher regard on out-of-state students because they pay a higher rate of tuition.

“MSU has increased the budget expenditures every year for the past 10 years, this year being the 11th,” Kelly said. “Being a college, the only discretionary income they have comes from students. So if you increase your expenditures, the only way to get that money is from tuition.”

William Deary, Republican

Deary is a co-founder of Great Lakes Caring Home Health and Hospice. He serves as the vice chairman of the executive committee on the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, and serves on the boards of the Mackinac Island Park Commission, the Jackson Anchor Initiative, St. John Parish Scholarship Program and is a member of St. John the Evangelist Church. He, like Kelly, is running on a platform of college affordability.

“I think one of the things that’s different about my approach to Michigan State is that I also see Michigan State as a business — and this is a big business, a $1.6 billion company,” Deary said. “And Michigan State has a Board of Trustees, and I view the Board of Trustees the same as I would view a Board of Directors of a big company.”

Deary, a businessman, attended MSU during a time when he said summer jobs were different. He got his bachelor’s degree in two years from MSU, and then his master’s, still graduating ahead of a few of his friends.

“I had an ability to pay for my education, the summer job that I had doesn’t exist anymore,” Deary said. “My student loans weren’t very expensive. What I realized is that if I, today, tried to go to Michigan State with the financial position that I was in, I probably couldn’t afford it.”

Deary, like Kelly, said he plans to keep tuition low by freezing tuition rates for in-state students and capping the amount of out-of-state students accepted into the university.

Will Tyler White, Green Party

An entrepreneur and owner of White Bros. Music, White said he believes colleges across the nation have become far too expensive.

“The cost of attending university is going up higher and faster than inflation, and it’s making college unaffordable for a lot of people,” White said. “Some degrees are more valuable than others, and I think the university does a poor job of quantifying that.”

White has a long resume of community accomplishments, most notably for business, workforce and economic development. He said voting third party is the only way to fight the rigged political system in America, whether that be in local or national elections.

“The Green Party is not a Republican or a Democrat,” White said. “The two-party system is dysfunctional, and only serves the elite one percent of corporate America. ... The only way to break that two-party stranglehold is to vote for third parties.”

Gregory Scott Stempfle, Libertarian

Stempfle is a recent alumnus of Wayne State University with his master’s degree. He said this makes him the candidate closest to the realities of dealing with the ever-rising costs of student debt.