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Welcome to The 1909, the podcast that takes an in-depth look at The State News’ biggest stories of the week, while bringing in new perspectives from the reporters who wrote them.
It's Wednesday, April 16, and this is the nineteen o nine, the state news weekly podcast featuring our reporters talking about the news. I'm your host, Alex Walters. This week, students losing visas, new fishing rules, governance fights, faculty protests, and a controversial expensive new stadium district, all it's all on the show. Busy MSU board meeting. Made a lot of news.
Alex:We have two reporters here today to talk about it. Owen, Emilio, our great administration team. You guys were at a very long, very eventful MSU board meeting on Friday, and you're gonna tell us all about it. Yes, we are. Let's start with kind of the newsiest portion, I guess.
Alex:Mhmm. We've heard on this show before, and you've read a lot in the pages of the state news and other media and whatnot, probably, about students, international students losing visas amid the Trump administration sort of like reshaping of who gets to come here and study in this country. The methodology for these visa losses is not clear, but we learned early last week that MSU was effective, affected, that students were losing visas. You guys learned first, tell me about how many students are losing their visas and you know, who are they, do we know anything? And then what did MSU's leaders say at this meeting about what they're doing about that?
Emilio:Yeah, I mean, now we know that 12 students in total, international students at MSU, have had their visas canceled in the past couple of weeks.
Owen:That MSU knows of.
Emilio:That MSU knows of. Right?
Alex:Is that a distinction? Does MSU not know the total number?
Emilio:So what we've heard from MSU is that when the Department of State cancels someone's visa, the Department of State is reaching out to the affected international student directly and then it's up to that student if they want to tell MSU about what's happened. So ultimately, MSU doesn't get news from the federal government when a student's visa has been canceled.
Alex:So MSU only knows at least 12 students have told the university they're losing visas. The total number is is sort of a mystery still.
Owen:Exactly.
Alex:I see. Well, tell me more, did they say anything about who these students are?
Emilio:So MSU told us that they're not going to share much information about, you know, what they're studying or what their visas were canceled for, mostly out of a concern for their privacy. You know, other schools, you've noticed that, you know, the Trump administration has targeted students who, you know, write op eds or participate in pro Palestinian protests. Other times, they have been for, you know, visas have been canceled for fairly minor, know, a traffic violation or something like that. But MSU wasn't able to share, you know, sort of a common thread or a through line as for why these students may have had their visas revoked.
Owen:But Board Chair Kelly Tebay did sort of point out, I think, some of what you're describing there of these widely varying reasons for why people have had their visas revoked and said, you know, to her mind there wasn't a lot of uniformity there. But yeah, we did ask, you know, what are the specific reasons and they said they didn't know. And
Alex:so what about, you know, for these 12 or presumably more students who have lost their visas? You know, what happens if they try and stay in the country, stay at MSU? Did anybody clarify, like, what would let's say a student just resists.
Emilio:It's a little unclear right now as to what actually happens to a student, you know, ostensibly their legal right to be in the country is sort of revoked. MSU right now, Kevin Guskowitz, the last board meeting, said that MSU has no responsibility to assist federal immigration enforcement in sort of picking up a student who's on campus and has had their visa revoked. He said that MSU police would only get involved if it's a sort of criminal offense that has a warrant that then kind of requires their assistance.
Owen:Because at that point, MSU police are required by law. If federal agents show up and say, We're executing a criminal arrest warrant right now, at that point, MSU police would have to maybe divulge information like where on campus that student is living or, I don't know, when their class schedule is or something like that. They would be required to cooperate by law. But with something like this, if it were immigration agents, MSU said, No, that's a federal issue. Not related to our police department's campus safety responsibility, so they wouldn't be required to assist.
Alex:What about academically? If a student gets a letter in the mail and it says, This is from the government. Your visa is being revoked. And they just throw it away and continue to carry out their life as they would before and go to class and whatnot. Would MSU support them in, you know, continuing to finish their degree to go to classes or is there some sort of enforcement mechanism, like administratively with their education?
Owen:Yeah. So President Guskowitz said that that's the kind of thing that they're looking at it on a case by case basis as we speak. He did point outso they are looking at potential mechanisms and avenues to accomplish that. But he also said that it's going to vary depending on, for one, what this person's academic program is and also what country they're going back to. There could be different kind of education laws in different places.
Owen:But the idea is, you know, he cited as an example, if someone is in their second, third year of clinicals as a medical student, that's the kind of thing where it would be difficult to finish that if you're in another continent, for example, because the idea is you need to have sort of like hands on in the room together, work with that sort of thing. So yeah, you said they're looking at it and they're trying to make those things available, but they're just looking at it on a case by case basis at the moment.
Alex:I see. And then tell me about, at parts of this meeting, there were, you know, there were these faculty representatives that sit at the front of the room, and you could look and they would be turned with their backs completely to the board members. You guys wrote a story about what was going on with thisseemingly like a protest amongst the faculty. Why were they turning their backs on the board?
Owen:Yeah. So was actuallythis was one board member who, sort of at the end of the meeting, in the agenda there's a line there that says trustee's remarks or trustee's comments and this is when it can really be anything. They sort of have free range, whatever trustees want to say. They have some time to say it.
Alex:And they all talk, right? They go down the Exactly.
Owen:It got to trustee Dennis Denno who's been in the news a lot lately, sort of embattled. It gets to him and these three faculty senators who sit at a table right across from the board, because they are designated as sort of liaisons between the faculty and the board, yeah, they swiveled around and faced away sort of blankly as he was giving his remarks. It wasn't really having to do with the nature of his remarks. His remarks were quick. He said he thanked President Guskowitz for his leadership.
Owen:I think he said something about, you know, at times we've disagreed on things, but we have a healthy, robust discussion about it and that's what a university needs and I appreciate you. He also gave a thanks to law enforcement, which he does every single meeting, at least that I've covered. But these trustees were turned away. I asked them about this afterward and they say the reason we protested him and turned away from him is because he's turned his back on us by not showing up to these meetings that the faculty liaisons have with the board every Thursday before the board meetings. So what happens is, you know, these board members live in all types of different places, right?
Owen:It's not like they're all here in East Lansing, they don't work here on a day to day basis. But on the day before board meetings, they show up and they engage with a bunch of different constituent groups. Importantly, one of these is the faculty liaisons. And these faculty senators alleged that ever, that for months, Dennis Denno has not been showing up to these meetings. And they're upset with that.
Owen:They think that represents gross neglect of duty.
Alex:Is he showing up at the other meetings on Thursdays?
Owen:That's what they say. Yeah. He says he's at all the other ones.
Alex:Wait. Wait. He just, like, goes in the hallway or whatever?
Owen:They didn't give details about like whether he's just like glaring in from the outside of the room, but they said, yeah, he's at all the other meetings and that he's he's not at this one.
Alex:They're saying he's purposefully leaving the factory Yes.
Owen:Exactly. And
Alex:did he say that's the case too?
Owen:I reached out to him several times and didn't hear from him on it. I will say another trustee, trustee Mike Balow, I talked to about this and he corroborated that Deno has not been at these meetings, at least since Balo got on the board, which was starting at the very start of 2025. So there's been two meetings since then.
Alex:Did anybody say why he'syou know, like a theory as to why Deno is skipping out on these meetings? Is it like ais that a protest, too?
Owen:Yeah, exactly. Yes, that is what the faculty senators posit. They say that this all started last spring after the board voted to censure Deno and Rema Vassar and Breonna Scott, censure him and refer him to Governor Whitmer for potential removal because an outside law firm, and we've covered this at length and it's kind of hard to go back, but basically an outside law firm had been commissioned by MSU to investigate the board after Trustee Brianna Scott released this explosive letter detailing a bunch of widespread misconduct by the board chair at the time. After this comes out and concerns are being raised across campus, MSU hires this outside firm to look into all of it and they end up corroborating a lot of the things that were in that letter, including that Dennis Denno and Reema Vassar had accepted gifts from donors, interfered in university lawsuits, sort of overstepped their bounds there, and that they had also sort of been using students to kind of orchestrate these attacks against their adversaries in various parts of the university, including, importantly, Jack Lipton, who is a faculty senator and who is involved who was involved in this protest the other day.
Alex:Well, and there's that sort of infamous text, right, where Denno is texting with a student saying, You need to talk to reporters about how much you hate Jack Lipton.
Owen:Yes.
Alex:And the student says, Well, what do I say when I talk to these reporters? And Deno writes, Lipton equal sign racist. Yes. That obviously is a there's a lot of tension between those two. So they think that Deno is skipping the faculty meetings because he got in trouble for, you know, his conduct with against these faculty leaders a year ago?
Owen:Yeah, exactly. And even before the board took that vote, faculty had been kind of raising the alarm about the board and had been kind of very on it. I mean it was
Alex:a very contentious relationship last year between like these faculty governance types and the Yeah.
Owen:They were even mad at him over a sort of separate thing where he was the chair of the presidential search committee that ultimately selected President Guskiewicz, who we have now. And he, in an interview with you, in fact, with the state news, of said that the board ultimately might choose someone that didn't come from the presidential search committee's recommendations, because technically they would have the authority to do so, and that they also might consider someone who didn't come from an academic background. Faculty senators passed a resolution basically condemning that, said that wasn't right. And so for a while, there's been, yeah, I think a pretty apparent tension between faculty. I think some people would parse that and say, No, just individual faculty representatives.
Owen:But in any case, people who are faculty and Dennis Denno. And so this was sort of another this at the board meeting the other day was another sort of chapter in that saga.
Alex:So this turning of the backs, this like physical, very dramatic protest is kind of like you feel like a climax to I mean, has been going on for a long time.
Owen:Yeah. And it should be said that these faculty senators also back at the February, which they've now shared with us, they sent a letter to Governor Whitmer saying, as she weighs this separate request for removal based on these allegations about interfering in lawsuits and these other things, they also, just in February, sent her a letter sort of adding to that by saying, Also, he's not been showing up to our meetings that all the other board members are at. And they've said that that in itself warrants removal from office. That was another element of this. Of course, Rema Vassar was included in that.
Owen:They said at the time that Rema Vassar had also been protesting these meetings. But they didn't protest her during this most recent meeting. And I think that's because they said at this most recent Thursday meeting she was there and she was completely engaged and even asked a good question. And when I reached out to her on this, she sort of disputed that she ever was disengaged in the meetings or wasn't showing up.
Alex:So the letter from February says Vassar and Jenner are both
Owen:doing
Alex:this.
Owen:Yes.
Alex:But now they're saying we've patched things up with Vassar, she's showing up to the meetings and being nice. Yes. Dana, meanwhile, they're still upset over Yes. Yep. That's interesting.
Alex:Yeah. And then tell me about more disagreement and whatnot. This big new stadium district, hotels and restaurants, and they're calling it an Olympic style stadium, I guess, for sports other than basketball and football. They finally voted on this giant, very expensive multimillion dollar project. And this is something the university kind of touted ahead of the meeting, was talking about how exciting this was.
Alex:But it turns into sort of a disagreement and a dispute over should we be doing this at all. Both, I guess, from like public commenters at the meeting who had questions about it, at least one, and actual board members voted were sort of disagreeing with each other about it. Tell me about why is this new stadium so controversial.
Emilio:Yeah. So interesting enough, you know, it's not just a stadium. It's this whole, you know, they're calling it a Spartan Gateway District. It's this, you know, idea for a new development on, you know, again, the Southwestern corner of campus. Think more or less south of where they're building the newest I'm facility, the newest gym.
Alex:So like those fields out there past South neighborhood under this new rec center.
Emilio:Right. And so, you know, seemingly from these agenda items, they have a fairly ambitious plan for this sort of stretch of land. You know, they want to construct, as you're alluding to, this 6,000 seat sports arena that would, you know, be host to women's volleyball, men's gymnastics, and men's wrestling. So several sports that have been kind of looking for home facilities in recent years. And they're also looking to construct, yeah, like a hotel, space for retail, office spaces, as well as kind of housing that, to my understanding, wouldn't be like student housing, but actual market rate housing that people would live in and pay rent And so this whole plan, as you mentioned in the meeting, sort of runs into some protests from some board members.
Emilio:The first sign of protest kind of comes from Mike Bala. And his main concern is that, you know, some of this project funding is going to come from the university general fund. And that general fund in general is facing some what he calls significant stressors. And another part of the project funding is going to be athletic revenues and ticket sales from this future stadium. But his main concern is, is that stadium ever going to actually pay back its cost?
Emilio:You know, I think it's estimated the stadium alone will cost an estimated $150,000,000. And Rima Vassar also pointed out that, you know, while this project would seemingly benefit campus in a variety of ways, bring people to this area, that the university just needs to be aware of how it's spending its dollars. Ultimately, it's a finite resource. And, again, as you point out, you know, it's not trustees that kind of raise alarm about this protest. There's a during public comment, there's one public speaker from the embattled, the now defunct swim and dive team, who kind of points out, you know, how is MSU, you know, saying that it can't.
Emilio:And he frames it around the swim and dive team, saying, how can MSU initiate this incredibly costly plan? And it says it also can't bring back the swim and dive team at the same time. And again, alluding to the fact that, you know, maybe the university shouldn't just be throwing all this money out right now. There's also some more impromptu protests of this plan. At one point in the meeting, someone steps up and admits the fact that they're speaking out of order, they're asked to sit down, but sort of raises alarm about the fact that this project, there hasn't been much consideration of the potential ecological effects of building this incredibly large planet.
Emilio:And he seems more opposed to the university just consistently think he mentioned that, you know, over the past couple of years, the university has constantly expanded. It has built more buildings. And so his main concern was, you know, at what point will MSU's administration say this is enough?
Owen:And this person used to work in sustainability at MSU, correct?
Emilio:Yeah, this was the very first director of MSU's sort of Office of Sustainability back in, I think, 02/2001. Interesting. But, you know, ultimately these protests are heard, you know, these trustees make their comments, and the vote ultimately passes. Mike Baylor votes against it. And Sandy Pierce abstains from it, ultimately resulting in a six to one vote in favor of the proposal.
Alex:I see. And then tell me about, these are kind of the big issues they're fighting about. You guys did a little roundup of some smaller things at the board meeting. There's a fishing rule?
Emilio:Yeah. New expanded fishing opportunities on campus. So kind of the basic rundown is MSU has had a sort of wildlife ordinance that essentially says where students can or can't, you know, fish on the Red Cedar. Interestingly enough, if you're in a kayak or you're in a canoe, that's actually under state, and the state oversees that since it's a navigable body of water. And so you've always been able to fish a kayak or a canoe.
Emilio:Really? But if you've been a sort of student who just wants to cast a line out from somewhere on campus, there have been some restrictions on where you
Alex:can and cannot fish. But now you can fish wherever?
Emilio:Now you can seemingly fish wherever.
Alex:Wow. Are there fish in the Red Cedar?
Emilio:There are. There's apparently thirty thirty more than 30 species of fish in the Red Cedar. Wow. And interestingly enough, MSU is kind of aware of this fact that, you know, the Red Cedar tends to have a negative stereotype about it. You know, even in this agenda item, it says, you know, we're hoping that by expanding fishing opportunities, by getting people more involved with the river, we'll kind of remove this stereotype of it being kind of dead, dingy, full of spin scooters.
Alex:Yeah. I wouldn't think you could catch anything good. Spin scooters?
Emilio:They do not mention the
Owen:spin scooters. There's been a lot of them in there.
Alex:That's a
Owen:sensitive People should not I
Alex:don't wanna bring that up.
Owen:I don't know if we can People should not throw spin scooters in the river. It's a silly thing to do. They do though. They do. Yeah.
Owen:We've
Alex:But I mean, no, There's different rules now and stuff where like where you can and can't happen. Supposedly that's cracking down on it. Also at the board meeting, a star of MSC's basketball team. Tell me about Carson Cooper made an appearance?
Owen:Carson Cooper was there. Carson Cooper was there. He was there to he was also with an administrator like in athletics and he was he just gave a brief thing in support of a scholarship that exists to support student athletes like himself. Then during some comments by President Guskowitz at the end and also Vice Chair Brianna Scott, there was just some Go Spartans talk, rah rah, good basketball showing this year. And there was also, in sort of thanking him for being there, and there was also a question of, Hey, you know, are you gonna stay or what?
Owen:Because we've been hurt before. Portal. Portal talk. You know what I mean?
Alex:What did he say?
Owen:He sort of stood up and the room is on the edge of their seats.
Alex:Tall guy. Everybody can see him.
Owen:Very tall guy. Yep. And he says, I'm staying. He raises his hands hand a little bit and he goes, I'm staying. And he had a little smirk and he sits back down and everyone cheers.
Owen:So so there you go. Carson Cooper is staying.
Alex:Weird kind of sweet spectacle for the meeting. Yeah. Alright. Well, that's all for now. We'll be back next week with fresh reporting from the great minds here at State News.
Alex:Until then, all the stories from the boarding we discussed and more, there's actually more, we couldn't fit them all in, are available at statenews.com. Thanks to Emilio and Owen for once again coming on the show. Our podcast coordinator, Taylor. And most of all, thank you for listening. For the nineteen o nine, I'm Alex Walters.