Opinion | An open letter to University of Michigan regents

To the Regents of the University of Michigan:

Your most important job is to select the university’s president. As you prepare to do so for the third time in 11 years, I'm submitting a plea that many Michigan alumni would echo. 

First, let's recall recent history.

Three of you were on the eight-member board that chose Mark Schlissel as president in 2014. The board fired him eight years later amid allegations that he conducted an inappropriately close relationship with an employee, thus breaking a policy he himself had championed.

Seven of you were on the board that replaced Schlissel with Santa Ono, who quit last month in hopes of becoming president of the University of Florida. By all appearances, Ono did away with Michigan’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs to enhance his appeal to Florida’s right-wing governor and the board that oversees its university system. (As things turned out, those Floridians, whatever their politics, knew a hypocrite when they saw one.)

The shabby results of the selection process in 2014 and 2022 suggest the need to do things differently this time.

Here's my plea: Put the old-fashioned word “character” at the top of your criteria. The regents have neglected that trait twice in a row.

Talk to enough people who know the candidates well and you’ll be ready for a good gut-check.

I wonder how much gut-check research you did on Santa Ono. It didn't take long for the Ann Arbor grapevine to report that he was skipping meetings, dodging obligations and running from conflicts large and small. And he is widely said to have spent many days and nights at his house in West Bloomfield, though his contract requires him to live in U-M's President’s House — a sensible rule, if only to symbolize the president's allegiance to the institution. 

Then there is Ono's jaw-dropping display of sucking up to Florida. 

Whatever one thinks of DEI policies at U-M — and I share common misgivings about their form if not their intent — all can agree that Michigan’s president should set policy to serve Michigan, not some other state.

I don’t know Ono’s mind. But his behavior reeks not only of a conflict of interest but of deep-seated selfishness.

Was there no hint of that when you were choosing him?

Of course, it’s hard to judge the character of people you meet in the hothouse atmosphere of job interviews.

That may be the reason past regents have often selected in-house candidates they knew well.

Of the 12 U-M presidents selected since the turn of the 20^th century, five had long experience in Ann Arbor. Seven came from other schools. 

And of those seven outsiders, three served terms that ended badly — Clarence Cook Little (who was roundly detested at the end of just four years in the 1920s), Schlissel and Ono. 

All five known quantities made the university stronger, often through times of crisis — Harry Burns Hutchins, Alexander Ruthven, Harold Shapiro, James Duderstadt, and Lee Bollinger.

The other outsiders weren't bad choices — quite the contrary. Marion Burton (recruited from Minnesota), Harlan Hatcher (from Ohio State), Robben Fleming (from Wisconsin) and Mary Sue Coleman (from Iowa) served with distinction. But note that each of those U-M outsiders was a Big Ten insider. They knew what schools like Michigan are like. And, unlike Ono, they oversaw big-time athletic programs without becoming fawning superfans

Still, in these dangerous times, you’d be wise to include highly qualified known quantities among your finalists. Get past Michigan's longstanding inferiority complex about private schools on the coasts. Search inside.

Great universities are under attack from an anti-intellectual, anti-science administration in Washington. A single statewide election could put a similar regime in power in Lansing.

Twice in a row, regents' selections have embarrassed Michigan. Now, maybe more than ever before, it needs a wise, steady, courageous leader who cares deeply about the heritage that makes it dear to hundreds of thousands of alumni, and who will protect it from malevolent actors.

The commentator David Brooks has urged Americans to embrace the “eulogy virtues” of honesty, compassion and courage over the “resumé virtues” of the marketplace.

This time, please hold out for someone worthy of a great eulogy. Find a leader of character for the precious institution in your temporary care.