So, one day some years back, a group of Latino business people, judges, lawyers, labor and community leaders started meeting regularly to discuss the proverbial political “seat at the table”.  You know, when like-minded folks get together to strategize over how Latinos could gain some political influence in the City of Detroit and State of Michigan.  It was a presidential election year and President Obama was running for a well-deserved, second term.

Under state law, the three public research universities’ (Wayne State, Michigan State and University of Michigan) governing boards must be elected in a partisan, statewide election. These positions wield power as these elected boards control all institutional policy, money, tuition rates and we also happen to be the university presidents’ bosses. Elected board members serve an eight (8) year term and must serve without pay. That’s right, eight year terms for free … a true public service job! That year, there were two open seats on the Wayne State Board of Governors. Our Latino group decided we’d put forth a Latino candidate for nomination by the Democratic party. We all left the gathering with the idea of scouting our community to select the right candidate to represent us. We agreed we’d all touch base in a few weeks.

Some time had gone by, and I received a call from one of the women in the group who proudly exclaimed she’d found a candidate for us to get behind. Thrilled, I asked who this person was, so that we could begin building a coalition behind him/her. “It’s you, Sandy!”  Every excuse for not running for office seemed to rush through my head, almost immediately… I was a mother of three young children, I owned a small business, I didn’t know enough about the higher education world, I had never run for any elected office, let alone, a statewide contest, how would I get the Party’s nomination and the list of excuses seemed endless.