…It involved the transfer of university assets to a private investor; the taxpayers should have expected their elected representatives on the Board to safeguard their interests and keep them informed as the process unfolded.”

By Nolan Finley, DETROIT NEWS, reprinted here from Bluewater Healthy Living: “But at no point did the board thwart the president on any request he brought before them. Guskiewicz could always count on at least five votes from the board. That included the questionable scheme he cooked up with J Batt, the athletic director he brought to MSU, that privatized part of the athletic department to fund player recruitment. It was a complex deal that merited intense scrutiny from the board. And since it involved the transfer of university assets to a private investor, the taxpayers should have expected their elected representatives on the MSU board to safeguard their interests and keep them informed as the process unfolded. Instead, except for the three dissenters, the trustees acquiesced to the gag rules Guskiewicz demanded, binding themselves to secrecy at the risk of steep fines. It was an extraordinary expression of trust in the president. Just days before Guskiewicz announced he was leaving, a majority of the board voted to nearly double his pay to more than $2 million a year, placing him among the top-paid university presidents in the country. They did so in a shady Sunday night meeting, hastily called because trustees got word that Guskiewicz’s eye was wandering. A few days before he resigned, Mike Balow, one of the three board members who objected to some of Guskiewicz’s demands, spoke privately with the president to offer his broader support. What more could a president have asked for from a board?” Read more here.

Cover photo courtesy MICHIGAN ADVANCE