Retreat for Board of Trustees costs MSU about $9,000
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The MSU Board of Trustees retreat to Holland, Mich., cost thousands less than last year, but still set the university back almost $9,000.
The retreat took place early last week. The trustees, along with officials from the administration, discussed MSU’s future and toured the MSU Bioeconomy Institute, given to MSU by Pfizer in 2007.
This year’s retreat cost $8,453.52 — about $3,000 less than last year’s retreat to Mackinac Island, according to information from MSU.
MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon said the retreat was an important forum for the trustees and officials from the administration to get on the same page.
“I think it’s important to have a concentrated period of time to put away cell phones and the retreat is the format to do that,” Simon said. “We tried to make it as cost effective as possible.”
The eight members of the Board of Trustees went on the retreat, along with Simon, Secretary to the Board of Trustees Bill Beekman, Provost Kim Wilcox, Vice President for Finance and Operations Fred Poston and Vice President for Legal Affairs and General Counsel Bob Noto.
Last year, 21 people went on the retreat at Mackinac Island’s Grand Hotel. This year, there were about 14, with three presenters who didn’t stay in Holland, according to information from Beekman’s office.
Last year, MSU spent about $6,000 on lodging. This year, lodging at the CityFlats Hotel in Holland cost about $3,500.
Beekman said one of the advantages of holding the retreat relatively close to MSU was people were able to commute.
“We can have folks that can come present and then drive home,” Beekman said.
Wilcox and Poston left Monday night, as they already had toured the institute that the trustees toured Tuesday morning, Beekman said.
Beekman said the retreat is an opportunity to show trustees MSU’s involvement across the state.
“We have tried to provide opportunities for board members to see what we’re doing around the state,” he said. “In this case, we went to the new bioeconomy facility — it provides exposure and at the same time we have to be conscientious about cost and part of that is trying to find locations as we did in Holland.”
Trustee Melanie Foster said getting out of East Lansing for the retreat allowed for more focused discussion.
“I think there’s always value in getting away in an informal setting where we aren’t distracted by our regular daily routine, so we can concentrate on big issues in the university,” Foster said.
She also said it helps the group to remember the scope of MSU’s reach.
“Sure, we did go out of town and spent some money, but you can’t lose sight of the big picture — it doesn’t revolve around East Lansing,” she said. “We have to have a global perspective — everything doesn’t occur in East Lansing. … We look toward the future vision of the university, it’s what we do on retreat. (The trustees were) exposed to a cutting-edge lab space that’s part of MSU’s global campus.”
Although Foster reiterated the importance of the retreat, prenursing sophomore Missy Shaner said if MSU has the money to go on retreat, then it should try to decrease tuition.
“If they have the money to do that, they should lower tuition,” Shaner said. “They should stand on our side of the pond and make tuition cheaper.”
Trustee Colleen McNamara said retreats are a common occurrence in the business world.
“I think people do retreats for a very important reason … getting away from home, away from campus — you can’t get people away from cell phones unfortunately, (but) if you could you should,” she said. “It’s a very important way to focus.”
Commentary
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student
(08/03/09 10:00pm)Report
I consider myself very supportive of the MSU administration because they have good planning and vision, but in this case I have to disagree.
The Board of Trustees expects students, faculty, and scholars at MSU to concentrate and develop research and study for their degrees in the MSU campus, so why couldn’t they do the same thing. There is nothing that they did there that couldn’t be done in the Library, in one of the beautiful gardens, or in any other academic/administrative building.
After all, many discoveries and inventions have occurred in the MSU campus…
Should I go to the Board and ask for $6000 the next time I need to study for an exam, write a paper or finish my research?
Waste of money…
Patrick
(08/03/09 11:37pm)Report
$9000 is hardly worth mentioning. The per hour employment costs for the 25 people that are probably needed to staff a trustee meeting must be between $3000 to $5000 hour. If giving them 3 meals and room and board for a few days allows for several more hours of meeting time, the price is more than worth it. This is why silicon valley employers provide “free” dinners and workout facilities to their employees to get a few more hours of work out of salaried personnel.
Nick K
(08/04/09 7:16am)Report
I’m sure these guys blow $9,000 a week just by staying at the admin building.
I applaud them for finding a retreat for 25 people that was so inexpensive. Congratulations to them!
Broke
(08/04/09 10:52am)Report
Wake up people and read yesterday’s headline story in the SN…….another substantial tuition increase. True….$9K isn’t going to have that significant an impact, but come on people…hold your “summit” at the posh “House of Simon”! Same story….the “little man” gets it in the shorts again!
don't see the problem. . .
(08/04/09 5:29pm)Report
Looks like they could have refunded each student around 19 cents for what they paid for the retreat—which may have generated millions of dollars in new ideas, policy initiatives and curricular tweaks. Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish folks—it was a reasonable expense for an important strategic activity. The trustees work hard for the university and this is just the cost of doing business.
Benjamin Campbell
(08/04/09 5:53pm)Report
re:
Thats such complete crap. They could come up with the ideas on campus. If they cant focus on there jobs then they need to be relived. Its not reasonable, or intelligent, two thing that should be hand in hand when its comes to higher ed, to WASTE money and then cut other funding at the same time. People who think like you do, *Mr don’t see the problem* are the reason why we are in this economic disaster. They are supposedly smart people, they need to act like it.don’t see the problem. . .
Zeke
(08/04/09 10:27pm)Report
“I think it’s important to have a concentrated period of time to put away cell phones and the retreat is the format to do that,” Simon said. “We tried to make it as cost effective as possible.”
Bullshit, complete and simple. How is this more cost effective than holding it at a local hotel’s conference room and trucking in some KFC? $9000 may not be much, but to raise tuition, claim to be looking for ways to shore up the budget, and then spend $9000 on something that could have been done with $900 is a nice fat slap in the face of everyone struggling to pay tuition.
I’m sure that if GM and Chrysler execs had flown to Miami to discuss how to fix their Michigan infrastructure, people would be furious. This is no different.
universities are not businesses
(08/04/09 11:37pm)Report
“Trustee Colleen McNamara said retreats are a common occurrence in the business world.”
This is the whole problem with the MSU president and trustees — thinking of MSU as a business and not as a scholarly institution of higher learning.
bus
(08/05/09 9:55am)Report
every university has to be think of as a business, if not it will fail. it only comes a time when a university is financially secure through the endowment that it can forget about the business dimension and focus entirely on the academic mission.
DJ
(08/05/09 10:48am)Report
Simon has admitted that the Trustees can’t focus well in East Lansing. Let’s lighten their burden, I propose a recall petition for all eight of them, but most especially Joel Ferguson for squeezing the State of Michigan by threatening to kick State Police out of their headquarters in East Lansing.
Let’s have this to a vote:
If you want MSU’s vision and scope to be primarily with that of the State of Michigan, say AYE.
If you rather MSU focus on globalization and ignoring the desires of the tax-paying supporters in the State of Michigan, say NAY.
My vote: AYE.
Meetings are good for all
(08/05/09 11:01am)Report
Once again the value of meeting is being challenged. I applaud MSU for understanding that some things just need to happen and cannot always happen with in the walls or grounds of the day to day business. By taking this meeting to Holland they also supported the hospitality industry in Michigan, an area that is taking a big hit nationally. I don’t hear any of you complaining about the 150 million dollar party that Obama held in January. Meetings have value whether you see it or not. Even Obama is having a retreat away from the White House and guess who is paying for it? You, if you pay taxes. But it needs to happen.
http://meetingsreview.com/americas/news/2009/07/31/Roger_Dow:_Obama_administration_sets_positive_meetings_example