The MSU Board of Trustees retreat to Holland, Mich., cost thousands less than last year, but still set the university back almost $9,000.
The retreat took place early last week. The trustees, along with officials from the administration, discussed MSU’s future and toured the MSU Bioeconomy Institute, given to MSU by Pfizer in 2007.
This year’s retreat cost $8,453.52 — about $3,000 less than last year’s retreat to Mackinac Island, according to information from MSU.
MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon said the retreat was an important forum for the trustees and officials from the administration to get on the same page.
“I think it’s important to have a concentrated period of time to put away cell phones and the retreat is the format to do that,” Simon said. “We tried to make it as cost effective as possible.”
The eight members of the Board of Trustees went on the retreat, along with Simon, Secretary to the Board of Trustees Bill Beekman, Provost Kim Wilcox, Vice President for Finance and Operations Fred Poston and Vice President for Legal Affairs and General Counsel Bob Noto.
Last year, 21 people went on the retreat at Mackinac Island’s Grand Hotel. This year, there were about 14, with three presenters who didn’t stay in Holland, according to information from Beekman’s office.
Last year, MSU spent about $6,000 on lodging. This year, lodging at the CityFlats Hotel in Holland cost about $3,500.
Beekman said one of the advantages of holding the retreat relatively close to MSU was people were able to commute.
“We can have folks that can come present and then drive home,” Beekman said.
Wilcox and Poston left Monday night, as they already had toured the institute that the trustees toured Tuesday morning, Beekman said.
Beekman said the retreat is an opportunity to show trustees MSU’s involvement across the state.
“We have tried to provide opportunities for board members to see what we’re doing around the state,” he said. “In this case, we went to the new bioeconomy facility — it provides exposure and at the same time we have to be conscientious about cost and part of that is trying to find locations as we did in Holland.”
Trustee Melanie Foster said getting out of East Lansing for the retreat allowed for more focused discussion.
“I think there’s always value in getting away in an informal setting where we aren’t distracted by our regular daily routine, so we can concentrate on big issues in the university,” Foster said.
She also said it helps the group to remember the scope of MSU’s reach.
“Sure, we did go out of town and spent some money, but you can’t lose sight of the big picture — it doesn’t revolve around East Lansing,” she said. “We have to have a global perspective — everything doesn’t occur in East Lansing. … We look toward the future vision of the university, it’s what we do on retreat. (The trustees were) exposed to a cutting-edge lab space that’s part of MSU’s global campus.”
Although Foster reiterated the importance of the retreat, prenursing sophomore Missy Shaner said if MSU has the money to go on retreat, then it should try to decrease tuition.
“If they have the money to do that, they should lower tuition,” Shaner said. “They should stand on our side of the pond and make tuition cheaper.”
Trustee Colleen McNamara said retreats are a common occurrence in the business world.
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“I think people do retreats for a very important reason … getting away from home, away from campus — you can’t get people away from cell phones unfortunately, (but) if you could you should,” she said. “It’s a very important way to focus.”
