University Administration

These important decisions include: the approval of the university’s mission statement; its annual budget, including tuition rates; collective bargaining agreements; construction projects costing in excess of $250,000; the creation or elimination of colleges or degree programs; the awarding of tenure and promotions; real estate transactions; charter school contracts; and the appointment and evaluation and … removal of the university president.3

During the university’s first 50 years, the Board of Control, with extremely rare exceptions, operated harmoniously among members and between itself and the university president. This is in very great part because of “Policy 101,” which past board member and chair William Groening initiated in SVSU’s early years.

The president has had broad latitude — and serious responsibility — to communicate with the board. The Gilbertson administration made it a priority to keep members of the board well informed to ensure transparency and awareness of all governance-related activities and decisions. Additionally, the board was disinclined to use its formal meetings to deliberate on strategies for the operation of the institution. It expected not to engage in desultory planning sessions but to let the president lead. He brought to the board agendas for their approval and stipulated his rationale for why they should do that. The president, Gilbertson has said, does his job if he has done his homework and maintained a confident posture before the board — this way, he enjoys the board’s confidence in him and his recommendations for the good of the university.4

Exceptions occurred, as happened in a policy discussion about prayer at commencement. The board chair, encouraged by a certain amount of popular sentiment, argued for inclusion of prayer in the commencement ceremony. The president, in a carefully argued statement, opposed such a move. He lost in a split vote, and prayer was in. In practice, prayer was a non-sectarian observance of silence following a brief invocation by an SVSU faculty member, active or retired.

SVSU’s Board of Control tends to remain non-partisan, even as political affiliations of members vary according to that of the sitting governor. The notable exception occurred during the early 1990s deliberations over the university’s relationship with the Center for International Earth Science Information Network5 (see Chapter 4). (See Appendix A for a list of Board of Control terms of appointment and Appendix B for brief biographical sketches of board members who served from 1989 to 2013.)

University Administration

Typical of administrative structure for any complex service or corporate organization, SVSU achieves coherence of its long-range planning and day-to-day operation though a hierarchy of offices and officers, culminating in the university’s president, who serves at the board’s pleasure.

Gilbertson became president of SVSU in August 1989, and during his tenure enrollment grew by more than 80 percent; endowments more than quintupled; the campus tripled in size with $295 million in construction; the university received some $40 million in grants; and nine different academic or professional agencies accredited college units.