Days away from the election, most of the major party candidates vying for two seats on the MSU Board of Trustees have yet to prove they deserve our votes.
The two Democrats and two Republicans are running on the same core ideas: student safety, affordable tuition and uniting the fractured governing body.
That seems to be where their ambitions end.
Most candidates don’t seem to understand the community they hope to govern, either ignorant to the nuances of the issues facing the current board or void of a plan to make their agendas tangible.
One of the most contentious issues facing new trustees is the referral of trustees Rema Vassar and Dennis Denno to the governor for removal from the board. An outside investigation conducted last year found the trustees had interfered in university business and encouraged students to attack their opponents, among other things.
Julie Maday, the Republican mother of an MSU alum and former Novi city council member, said she did not think their punishment should have gotten to the point of considering removal.
“Unless,” she said, “they did something egregious” that she might have missed when reviewing the cases for their removal.
Democratic candidate Thomas Stallworth, longtime Detroit-based Democrat politician, admitted to not reading the full report. But, based on media coverage of the situation, he said he hasn’t seen any "egregious" behavior warranting removal.
Trustees will also be forced to confront divestment, whose proponents have spent the last year demanding MSU take the step to divest from Israel.
In her interview, Maday said she did not know enough about the divestment argument to give an opinion.
In a more explicit admission of ignorance, Stallworth, who has centered safety in his campaign, said MSU should conduct a review on the February 2023 campus shooting and MSU’s safety infrastructure.
"I don't know if an audit has been done or a review has been done," he said. "If one hasn't been done, there probably should be one."
But that already happened; the review was released a year ago and MSU has since implemented some of its recommendations. When our reporter told him this, Stallworth said he would continue to ensure the review's recommendations are being followed.
Candidates’ ignorance to paramount campus issues demonstrates a lack of care to meet even the bare minimum. And if their proposed policies do not extend past the scope of what has already occurred, then those policies are, to put it plainly, pointless.
Candidates are also campaigning on simple issues instead of complex solutions.
Democrat Rebecca Bahar-Cook, a career Democratic political fundraiser, hopes to bring collaboration back to the board. Her website lists priorities such as maintaining MSU’s research excellence and to “ensure MSU remains accessible to working-class families while preparing students to contribute to society.”
It’s not clear how she intends to do that.
To his credit, Republican candidate Mike Balow, a parent of MSU alum and advocate for the former swim and dive team, has shown up to every board meeting for the last several years. He does call for an independent investigation into the Nassar documents, reinstatement of swim and dive and more frequent board meetings.
But even a candidate with a long history of engagement with the MSU community follows a platform of phrases meant to appease those angry about board unrest instead of fixing it, like “ensuring there is transparency and fairness in decision making” and “no more boardroom secrets at MSU.”
It ultimately doesn’t make a difference, because the major candidates don’t actually have to articulate detailed goals — or even know what changes happened on campus after the life-altering shooting we experienced a few semesters ago.
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Instead, what candidates hope will get them elected is the “Democrat” or “Republican” label next to their name.
Bahar-Cook admitted as such when she said, “My race will be won by the party who wins Michigan.”
This partisan crutch gets the candidates into positions of power, but it gets us nowhere.
During public comment at last week’s board meeting, student leader Missy Chola echoed a sentiment we hear constantly: “Time after time, students have come forward, expressing their fears and concerns and showing up to these meetings only to receive vague, incomplete responses and a lack of meaningful action.”
The frustration of the student body is palpable, and empty platitudes in campaigns dependent on “who wins Michigan” are useless in ending that frustration.
On Nov. 5, people across the state will vote in this election. Some may overlook the university board section altogether, while others may do a straight-party ticket.
Some of us have already voted — many for the first time. But we did not feel confident in doing so. We reluctantly filled in two circles next to trustee candidates’ names, some of us with a glimmer of hope that our university will improve and others with worry that it won’t.
But above all, we felt like we were simply going through the motions of a futile race. We felt nothing.
The State News Editorial Board is made up of editor-in-chief Liz Nass, managing editor Dipika Rao, campus editor Amalia Medina, life editor Kendra Gilchrist, sports editor Thomas Cobb, copy chief Claire Donohoe, multimedia editor Brendan Mullin, staff representative Jack Williams and DEI manager Jada Vasser.
