Schlissel losing confidence of Board of Regents
Has to deal with the Martin Philbert sexual misconduct case (haven't heard of that one before), as well as his abandonment of the U-M Detroit Center of Innovation project. Sorry if my link is faulty as I'm posting from my phone right now
September 17th, 2021 at 2:44 PM ^
Yeah, this reads mostly like the Freep heard some gossip from various aggrieved members of the administration and board and ran with them as blind items. The Board absolutely would talk about the President negatively if they wanted to.
I don't think being a college president is easy and I think it's always easy to cast stones at their decisions. I have no real interest in Schlissel being president or not going forward but a lot of this reads like the usual complaints people have about someone in a place of authority. I do think the pushback on his handling of COVID-19 reopening is deserved and some of the other decisions he made weren't great, but nothing in this article strikes me as particularly egregious arguments.
September 17th, 2021 at 2:19 PM ^
I wish they could bring back Mary Sue. She was the best president the University has ever had.
September 17th, 2021 at 2:49 PM ^
She was the ?
September 17th, 2021 at 3:01 PM ^
She's lucky the University was a lot more lenient with her public drunkenness than it was with Moeller's...
September 17th, 2021 at 3:41 PM ^
That was awesome. I remember being at the game and thinking, "Wow, good thing she's on her way out." and then she becomes the President of the very prestigious American Association of Universities for the next 4 years.
One thing I will say for Mary Sue is that she wanted Kirk Ferentz which would have kept UM from falling off a football cliff for the next 3 years. Not saying Kirk is great, but he would have been an enormously better fit than Rich Rod.
September 17th, 2021 at 4:00 PM ^
Yeah, shoulda brought in the racist.
September 17th, 2021 at 5:37 PM ^
Kirk Ferentz will sit on your face.
September 17th, 2021 at 9:16 PM ^
One thing I will say for Mary Sue is that she wanted Kirk Ferentz
No - it was just the opposite. Lloyd Carr wanted Ferentz and Mary Sue vetoed him.
September 17th, 2021 at 3:55 PM ^
This was the greatest! Second best were the ridiculous explanations offered blaming the sound system! She joined millions of people over the last 90 years who were drunk at Michigan Stadium and had to try to explain away their behavior.
September 17th, 2021 at 2:27 PM ^
Good bye.
Good riddance.
And good luck.
September 17th, 2021 at 3:48 PM ^
Honestly still pissed at him for that sham of a 2017 graduation ceremony...instead of a commencement speaker, we got a powerpoint presentation of the 200-year history of the university. It was beyond lame. And then the band forgot to play Hail to the Victors at the very end. Realizing they messed up they scurried to play it, but only after about 50% of the stadium had cleared out. A real dud to an otherwise awesome four years.
September 17th, 2021 at 7:25 PM ^
Welcome to the club. We had this with Duderstadt in 1989. It's tradition that the incoming President speaks. And I'm still pissed 32 years later. Seriously.
They say no one remembers their graduation speaker. I do, because he was so bad.
September 18th, 2021 at 10:23 AM ^
My graduation speaker was John McCain. Rather than acknowledge that he was at a university commencement he instead gave a stump speech about the Iraq war and then began pandering votes. Up to that point I was mostly a fan of McCain but that was such a useless graduation. He eventually got heckled doing the same thing at other universities and quit doing commencements altogether.
The year after me got Julia Louis-Dreyfus and she was amazing.
September 17th, 2021 at 3:50 PM ^
There is no one who could do this job without pissing off substantial numbers of Regents, students, employees, alumni, professors, etc. The University is too big and has too many groups and individuals who are highly polarized themselves. So, literally, the job that can't be done without alienating at least 2/3 of your constituency.
September 17th, 2021 at 4:17 PM ^
He is literally one of the top university presidents in the country, per his peers. His job is one that all but about 5 or so university administrators in this country would leave their posts to take if it became available, and yet he recently received a contract extension.
Has he ever made a decision that might have impacted you personally in a negative way? Perhaps, such is the nature of being in charge of things. As CEO of this organization (which is exactly what a university president is), has he hit/exceeded virtually every success metric - academic, financial, prestige? Absolutely.
September 17th, 2021 at 7:30 PM ^
As a matter of fact, yes, he did. The school is so expensive for us Out of Staters, that my daughter didn't go. While it's great to lower tuition for those making under $65K, the rest of us who make more than that can't afford to send our kids to our alma mater by paying almost $300K for four years.
And before you point to other OOS schools, there are a number that are $15-$25K less per year.
It's his (and the Regents) that make the decision to raise tuition nearly every year (except this one because of COVID) which personally affected me and my family.
The first President that comes along and makes the University somewhat affordable for an upper middle income family will have my vote of confidence. But that ship has sailed for my daughter (and she's happy where she is so I guess it all worked out).
September 17th, 2021 at 8:18 PM ^
Fwiw, I guarantee the problem, whatever it is, between he and the regents is not that he is keeping tuition too high.
September 18th, 2021 at 11:33 AM ^
He is literally one of the top university presidents in the country, per his peers. His job is one that all but about 5 or so university administrators in this country would leave their posts to take if it became available, and yet he recently received a contract extension.
Spare me. He's a sleazy carpetbagging bureaucrat hack paid a million bucks a year.
September 18th, 2021 at 9:11 PM ^
I wish I could upvote this x1000.
September 17th, 2021 at 4:31 PM ^
As someone on the inside (faculty) this isn't surprising, and he also received a vote of no-confidence from the faculty last year, I believe the first ever for a UM President. Many things have not gone well, including the very-late-in-the-game mask/vaccination mandate that took considerable faculty pressure to enact. Also LEO and GEO strikes and a general air of condescension.
Also, IMHO, much of the difficulty with recruiting and NIL etc. comes from the top down. I think that the coaches and even AD's hands are pretty well tied from above. He's not sports-oriented and I think views it largely as a curiosity and distraction
September 17th, 2021 at 4:37 PM ^
Freep article, will not click. I will never go to that site ever. Why any Michigan fan would is beyond comprehension.
Perhaps they really are a Michigan State fan if they do click.
September 17th, 2021 at 7:38 PM ^
I lost all respect for Schlissel when he failed to act on complaints he received regarding sexual harassment claims made against provost Philbert. He is a horrible human being. Why he still has a job is beyond me.
September 18th, 2021 at 11:31 AM ^
Yep, he's also paid something like one million bucks a year, plus the most lavish fringe package you can imagine.