MSU Trustee Issues a Statement
Enough is enough. We need a just and equitable settlement where we do right by our courageous survivors. It is time that we all work together, MSU and our courageous survivors, to chart a new course forward, focused on healing rather than adversity. My statement below: pic.twitter.com/JyaZAGgIB4
— Brian Mosallam (@Bmosallam63) April 13, 2018
Enough is enough. We need a just and equitable settlement where we do right by our courageous survivors. It is time that we all work together, MSU and our courageous survivors, to chart a new course forward, focused on healing rather than adversity. My statement below: pic.twitter.com/JyaZAGgIB4
— Brian Mosallam (@Bmosallam63) April 13, 2018
My assessment: he seems to genuinely care and his public comments and actions are positive in light of the situation. That being said, I think he’s in way over his head. Sadly, he’s probably the best one of the group, by a mile.
I really want to know what Snyder is doing to remove the trustees (presumably nothing). As this tire fire continues to burn out of control, his dereliction of duty is growing faster than the list of victims.
I do see how Snyder might want to avoid the conflict he's thoroughly a UM guy, but it seems like he would only aggravate < 50% of the sparty fan base at this point, so it's somewhat low risk.
April 14th, 2018 at 11:15 PM ^
There's the additional risk for Synder that, like the appointment of an Emergency Financial Manager for a bankrupt city, once he removes leadership and replaces them he owns the situation from there on out. Not sure I'd want to own the MSU dumpster fire, but his hand may be forced eventually. Then again, "eventually" may not happen until after he's out of office and it will be his successor's problem.
To remove the board without waiting for a report from that investigation doesn't make much sense. It would be an extraordinary, probably unprecedented, move to make after a report. To have any governor, let alone a lame duck, try to make it now is hard for me to see, More likely will be a move towards changing how the boards are selected and/or can be removed in the future.
Wanting to form an 'Audit and Risk Committee" and promote compliance and risk Management will pretty much end up with simply another committee and programs in place to protect the university from fallout of compliance issues.
I know he's coming at this from his background as a financial advisor and probably a decent understanding of corporate audit/board requirements, but, a public university is an entirely different animal, and the board needs to be beholden to all aspects of the university, teachers, students, and local community.
He should consider just making an independent audit and compliance committee with an open door policy where the board and its employees are paid by the university but hired and fired by the state legislature, or at a minimum the entire board of trustees. Once the committee's function includes risk management, it starts seeing things in grey and looking at potential fallout of required disclosure as a risk, and here we are with MSU after they applied their risk management strategy for years in covering up Nassar's mess.
Mosallam says he wants to "chart a new course." It seems pretty clear this will not happen by appointing a member of “Team MSU” (a term used by President Simon in her resignation letter) like Engler to lead the effort. The "first policy action of the Committee" should be to replace Engler with an independent, unencumbered leader who is not a member of “Team MSU.”
You’re complaining about tautologies, but whatever. It's getting old.
April 14th, 2018 at 11:07 PM ^
This comment deserves more love
April 14th, 2018 at 10:11 PM ^
April 14th, 2018 at 10:12 PM ^
You criticize, but I'm out here executing on DetroitBlue's plan. Gonna be busy for a few weeks.
I believe the phrase is "retire bitch"
Reminds me of the "Leftorium" episode of the Simpsons where Homer is calling everyone to ask them to help out Flanders.
"Hey, remember when I paid you back the money I owed you? Yeah, well I now I need you to do a favor for me."
Short version: "Let's hire more people to clean up the mess we made! But, please, don't fire us. We're totally competent."
April 15th, 2018 at 12:31 AM ^
John Engler should be on the next bus out of East Lansing. He has proven beyond a shadow of any doubt, he is both tone deaf and incompetent.
April 15th, 2018 at 11:15 AM ^
That place is so incestuous they literally don't know how to look at themselves the way others do. Here was an interesting MLive article about Simon and how the culture that contributed to this crisis was built:
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/page/how_msu_culture_fostered_sexua…
"But coming up through MSU meant Simon could surround herself with loyalists and create an "entrenched, top-down" structure, said Andaluna Borcila, a professor in the university's James Madison College and one of 61 Faculty Senate members to vote 'no confidence' in the Board of Trustees.
The university provost, June Pierce Youatt, earned her degrees at MSU, as did five of MSU's 19 deans. By comparison, Wayne State University has no deans with degrees from Wayne and the University of Michigan has one of 19 deans with a U-M degree.
Fire Engler and resign. Until then, nothing is good enough.
Look up the word shitstorm and you'll see pictures of the Board of Regents and how this was all mishandled
Sidenote: my god, he is an awful writer.
at least be thinking, even if they don't have the courage to say it in public.
The best statement anyone on that Board could make right now is, well, not being on that Board right now. Whatever happens next at MSU, it seems like it should happen with none of those people still making decisions about the direction of the university.
Hollow... At least this BoT member understands the optics involved. But he still voted for Engler, and probably believes Engler is doing a good job. What he needs to know, though, is that there is no possibility of Engler doing the right job when he was hired to do the wrong job. But he doesn't seem very good at the wrong job - trying to get past all of this by settling as quickly as possible, either. So, what good is he?
The right job is to clean house and start from scratch, university reputation be damned...
Brian Mosallam could have fired Lou Anna, he could have fired Strampel, he could have voted against Engler. MSU and the state of Michigan are worse off for him being on the BoT. For his twitter post, I award him no points.
And may God have mercy on his soul.
April 14th, 2018 at 11:58 PM ^
He held on to see which way this would break. He's just a rat leaving a sinking ship at this point.