Congratulations to the MSU Board of Trustees for attempting to be more communicative.
The board will have two discussion items on the agenda during its committee meetings this morning, which is before the regularly scheduled meeting. Usually, the board will has only action items that it votes on and sends on to the general meeting.
Board members are finally recognizing the importance of discussion at their meetings. The public can come to the meeting and hear board members talk about the budget and the redevelopment of University Village.
People should really take trustees up on this. Who knows if it will happen again.
Both issues are significant, and people deserve to hear what board members have to say. It would be a nice change of pace, instead of just hearing trustees agreeing on issues almost all the time.
But the normal way the board conducts meetings still concerns us.
We have been critical of the board for holding closed committee meetings the day before the full meeting. Once board members get to their meetings, they, on average, only talk about an issue for a couple of minutes before voting unanimously on almost everything.
This leaves people of the MSU community in the dark on why the board makes some of its decisions.
Maybe having items for discussion was a result of The State News' hounding. Or maybe the board is caught up in the spirit of Founder's Day.
As long as they are allowing discussion, we really don't care why. But today's discussion can't be a one-time deal. The board needs to have discussions about every issue it is voting on to keep the process transparent.
Having discussion items, which board members and the public can talk and think about before voting, needs to appear more frequently on meeting agendas.
The board should not revert back to secrecy and a public guessing game of what's happening and why.
However, the board is going to need some encouragement.
Everyone, at some point, is affected by what the board does. If it's not tailgating, it could be tuition rates, alcohol and other policies.
Students should take the opportunity today to pay the board a visit and voice their concerns.
If the trustees see that students care, they just might be compelled to make public discussion of issues a regular part of their meetings.
