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.

I had 48 hours after that conversation to decide. That two days moved in what seemed like slow motion. I began to realize that if the candidate hadn’t been me, that I would be asking someone else to take on this task on behalf of the “community”. How could I ask something of others, that I wasn’t willing to do myself (the Catholic guilt was setting in).  I accepted and within a week, got myself ready for an early nominating convention, had my sister act as my “advance person” while we worked numerous caucuses and set up my campaign literature, fliers, yard signs and t-shirts.

The following nine months was like preparing for the birth of a baby. I had no idea what to expect, so I did what all good lawyers do in such situations, I researched everything. I quickly got brushed up on university history, state appropriation funding (or in our case, lack thereof) and a myriad of other issues involving public higher education. I entered my campaign in every city or county parade I could find and tossed over four hundred pounds of candy.

On election night, November, 2012, my family accompanied me to watch the results come in. By the next morning, I had received over 2.1 million votes throughout the State of Michigan, I had won and it was a great feeling.  The day I was sworn in was among the proudest days of my life.

I am currently in the 4^th year of my 8 year term and we’ve made significant strides, among our best (in my humble opinion) is the passage of “tuition equity”, allowing DREAMERS to attend without having to pay out-of-state tuition costs and changing our antiquated admissions standards at the medical school to a holistic admissions process which will put the university back on the road to being the 1^st in graduating black and brown physicians.

Seems like forever ago we were talking about our “seat at the table.” Well, guess who came to dinner? I’ve got four years to go, so, pass me a biscuit (or a tortilla)!