Last week, the Genesee County Election Commission approved recall language aimed at removing three Mott Community College Trustees for their roles in hiring an interim president that lacked specific higher education experience that would normally be required of an institutional lead. In June, five trustees voted to hire Shaunda Richardson-Snell over the strong objections of faculty members.
According to them, Richardson-Snell’s lack of appropriate academic leadership credentials could place the school’s accreditation in jeopardy. Additionally, the board voted to halt work on the school’s strategic plan until it can locate a permanent president. The current strategic plan expires at the end of 2024 and is a required component of the school’s accreditation.
At the time of Richardson-Snell’s hire, the faculty indicated that it would file a complaint with the Higher Learning Commission, the school’s accrediting body. A citizen filed recall language against three of the five trustees who voted to hire Richardson-Snell. The remaining two trustees are running for re-election in November and are protected by state law from recall.
The Genesee County Election Commission found that the proposed petition language met the state’s requirements for clarity and factuality. The affected trustees have 10 days to appeal the Commission’s approval, but none of the recall targets are expected to do so. Once the appeal period has passed, petition organizers will have 180 days to collect about 45,000 valid signatures from registered voters in the district. If the organizers collect enough valid signatures, the Genesee County Clerk could place the recall language on the ballot for the next regularly scheduled election. Voters would then be required to choose between retaining the current trustees or replacing them with other qualified candidates.
Trustees are expected to uphold transparency standards
The November election will be a good litmus test for the recall organizers. Voters don’t typically know much about community college trustee candidates, so it will be important to educate them about the precarious position the school may now be in.
It should also serve as a referendum for voters regarding the wisdom (or lack thereof) of attempting to run a community college like a business, and to elevate the importance of the college’s financial operations over those of its academic operations.
Community colleges often serve the most vulnerable members of a community. They are often the only viable pathway to a higher standard of living, so they are extraordinarily important in struggling communities.
In the most generous light, hiring a leader with no qualifying academic experience is a profound misunderstanding of the requirements of the position. Taken in the context of the Board’s May decision to lower the requirements of the position to a bachelor’s degree, the irregularities noted in the candidate interview process, the consistency of the 5-2 voting bloc, and the determination of the Trustees to change the stated agenda in order to vote on Richardson-Snell’s hire before considering the public opposition to the move, it seems increasingly unlikely that five trustees would independently determine during the meeting that a candidate with no academic experience would somehow better serve the college than any of the three other candidates who possess the academic qualifications for the job.
Trustees of public institutions are – with few exceptions – expected to conduct the institution’s business in public. Flint voters will need to determine the level of accountability they are willing to apply to elected officials who do not appear to rigorously uphold this standard.
Photo Credit: Duncan Cumming, via Flickr
