How to best hire the board of administrators at a public university like MSU?
Some say allowing the state's governor to appoint board members would infuse too many partisan politics with higher education, and that it would result in a partisan-stacked board room. The other perspective counters that voters should be responsible for electing the governance of public universities, since those institutions are a magnet of many of their tax dollars.
Put yourself back inside the voting booth on Nov. 2. Just how familiar were you with the candidates eager to govern Wayne State University, or the University of Michigan, or even MSU, for that matter. Choosing a trustee for a public university is generally earmarked by a less extensive knowledge of the candidates and their backgrounds.
In the realm of higher education, though, ignorance is never an excuse. Public universities foster investment in the state and dictate where some of your tax dollars go. Boards of governance at public universities are public servants in every sense of the word and representative government through and through. Such positions deserve to be elected, not appointed at the discretion - or whim - of a governor.
But with the prospect of election comes the influence of politics. Board candidates choose a party affiliation, yet in their campaigns roundly assert that partisan politics are restricted from the fray. On the ballot, they're lumped by party lines, but is it necessary to be political when administrating an autonomous entity such as MSU?
Ideally, board members would serve universities along nonpartisan lines. Board members aren't sending students to war or determining their right to marry, and aren't concerned with promotion within the university itself. An administrator at a public university is mainly charged with allocating funding as cost-efficient and beneficial as possible. Any other aspect is human resources.
Although not always the clearest indicator, party ideology provides at least some framework of reference to a race of otherwise unknowns. Michiganians, though, always have the right to know what they're buying into.
David Porteous, chairman of the MSU Board of Trustees, said sometimes, the most qualified candidates don't win their seat on the board because it's difficult to reach people in all of Michigan's 83 counties. But qualified, capable candidates lose in American elections all the time. Ask any John Kerry supporter about this.
Appointments of the governor's choosing, however, invite politics into the board room. What doubt would there be that staunchly partisan governors would avoid loading major public universities - the same ones that command state tax dollars - with individuals of a similar fiscal ideology?
States such as Michigan need from the MSU Board of Trustees what any state needs from its elected officials. Transparency in meetings and interactions, a good working relationship with the faculty and full and careful consideration of student concerns. Sounds to us like we're the most qualified decision-makers for that situation.
