The MSU Board of Trustees makes some of the most important decisions for this university.

It decides how much students pay for tuition, where fans can tailgate and whether they can drink on campus.

At their public monthly meetings, trustees spend only a few minutes discussing crucial issues affecting thousands of students before voting unanimously on almost all of them.

How eerily efficient.

But the public meeting isn't where the real discussions are taking place.

Issues on the agenda are debated the night before the public meeting, when the board members have dinner with MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon. They admit they discuss the issues on the agenda at these closed meetings but claim no concrete decisions are made.

Right.

It's up to the board if media and the public are allowed to participate at these "informal" dinners, according to a ruling handed down by the Michigan Supreme Court in 1999. The university's board is not always subject to the Open Meetings Act, which means these closed-door meetings are legal.

OK, board members claim they don't make their decisions the night before. But how can they vote so quickly and unanimously at the public meetings that aren't affected by lengthy discussions the night before?

Does dinner with Simon really take two hours?

Or do members talk about how they are going to vote and why they are voting that way?

Do they ever disagree or argue? Do they ever express doubt about a plan or program?

We might never know.

Before the Thursday dinner, Trustee Colleen McNamara said if a reporter was present at the gathering, the board members wouldn't be able to be creative and say what they want.

How baffling. The board should always be speaking freely. If it can't speak freely when it's being recorded, does that mean it only rehashes pre-written public relations statements at its public meeting?

When it is talking about some of the biggest issues this university is facing, it shouldn't be five minutes of talk followed by an immediate vote.

Members need to have those same conversations at the public meeting and show people why they made those decisions.

Just because the board is protected by the law doesn't mean its a good practice to have.

Transparency means the public knows what went into a board decision and if any doubts, fears or concerns were ever expressed.

Students need to demand that the MSU Board of Trustees makes its operations as open as possible.

That means that its Thursday meeting needs to be open to the media or it shouldn't discuss the agenda at the meeting at all.

The trustees must open these meetings up or bring their private conversations into the public light. Quick, unanimous voting does not benefit this school and students shouldn't allow it.

Open them up. What do they have to hide?