“As a healthcare provider, I strongly oppose this one-size-fits-all university vaccine mandate for our students,” Menge said. “I believe that if students want to get vaccinated, I think that’s their choice ... That young healthy population we know is at the lowest risk for any serious illness or even death related to COVID and I think we are actually doing more harm than good.”

If elected, he hopes to use his experience in healthcare to improve the quality of students’ education in relation to the cost.

“As a physician, my entire career I’ve spent looking at how can I provide patients with the best value in their healthcare,” Menge said. “Simply what that means is not only looking at how do we give them the most affordable cost in their care but how do we give them the highest quality?”

He received his undergraduate degree from MSU and studied at Lyman Briggs. After going to medical school in Colorado, and bouncing between different training institutions around the country, he ended up back in Michigan. 

“I felt like, with my background in healthcare as well as my passion for education, I really wanted to bring both of those to Michigan State and put myself up for a candidate for the MSU board,” Menge said.

Menge wants to bring a more conservative perspective to the board, which is now made up of five Democratic positions and three Republican positions. 

“It’d be important to bring more strong conservative values to the board to help better represent the conservative point of view and the conservative values on campus,” Menge said.

One of his values also includes opposition to critical race theory, which he refers to as “indoctrination of our students in the classroom.”

“We want to prepare our students and teach our students to be able to think critically and to make informed decisions and avoid indoctrination in the classroom, whatever that bias or viewpoint may be,” Menge said.

Editor's note: The story was updated at 4:52 p.m. to provide more context on Menge's opinion of the university vaccine mandate.