Who are these people running for education posts?

Voters will once again elect two members of the state Board of Education and the governing boards of the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University.

The often unheralded and uncompensated education board posts are often selected based on how voters feel about the top of the ticket. However, for those who like to vote buffet style, here’s the skinny on the major-party nominees.

The Libertarians, Working Class Party, Green Party, U.S. Taxpayers Party and the Natural Law Party all have at least one candidate in each race.

Michigan State University Board of Trustees

• Rema Vassar, Democrat, is a former K-12 public school teacher, counselor, administrator and parent organizer who has a daughter at Michigan State University. The husband of the expert in education policy is a two-time alum. Vassar has a doctorate degree and is essentially the alternative candidate to Trustee Joel Ferguson, who was pushed out of seeking another term.

• Brian Mosallam, Democrat, is a first-term incumbent who runs a financial management firm. A group of Dr. Larry Nassar survivor parents is backing Mosallam, who can be a bit of a lone wolf on the eight-member board at times, particularly when it comes to addressing post-Nassar issues. He’s a former Spartan football player who earned Academic All-Big Ten honors three times.

• Pat O’Keefe, Republican, is a strategic adviser, financial consultant and turnaround adviser for under-performing companies. The self-described conservative has also been a forensic accountant responsible for investigating several large Ponzi schemes in Michigan. On the board, the MSU alum said he wants to protect free speech and make college affordable to students and families.

• Tonya Schuitmaker, Republican, is a former state senator and House member who was among those calling for reform at Michigan State University during the Nassar scandal. A former attorney general candidate, Schuitmaker is a practicing attorney by trade, who chaired the Higher Education Appropriations committee during her time in the Legislature.

University of Michigan Board of Regents

• Mark Bernstein, Democrat, is a southeast Michigan personal injury attorney who has become the public face, president and manager partner of the law firm his father, Sam Bernstein, founded. The first-term incumbent is a former Michigan Civil Rights commissioner who strongly considered running for governor in the past.

• Shauna Ryder Diggs, Democrat, is a Detroit-area cosmetic dermatologist and first-term member of the Board of Regents. She earned all of her higher education degrees at U-M, spending a combined 11 years in Ann Arbor before graduating in 1994. After working with another physician for about nine years, she opened up her own practice in Grosse Pointe Farms in 2004.

• Sarah Hubbard, Republican, the owner of Lansing-based lobbying firm Acuitas LLC, is also known around town as the former vice president of the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce. Prior to that, she worked as a staffer for then-state Sen. Nick Smith and then-Rep. Bill Bullard. She received her bachelor’s and master of business administration from the University of Michigan.

• Carl Meyers, Republican, has been the treasurer of the Michigan Republican Party and has run several times before for the U-M board. Professionally, he’s the senior vice president of investments at Raymond James in Dearborn with a specialty in wealth management. He earned his undergraduate from the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Wayne State University

• Eva Garza Dewaelsche, Democrat, is the president and CEO of SER Metro-Detroit for Progress and a former Detroit police commissioner. The WSU graduate served 12 years on its alumni board among numerous other WSU and community boards. Including her time earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, she’s been involved with the University in some capacity since 1969.

• Shirley Stancato, Democrat, is the former president and chief executive officer of New Detroit, Inc., a coalition focused on racial understanding and racial equity in Metro Detroit. The governor appointed Stancato to the board last December to fill the vacancy created when Kim Trent resigned. Republicans nearly got Stancato kicked off the ballot last month by claiming she signed an affidavit that all her campaign finance filings were up to date, when they were not.

• Don Gates, Republican, is an IT security, management and business development professional and retired colonel with the U.S. Army after 38 years of service. He received his master’s in business administration from WSU in 1997. The former Republican precinct delegate sits on the Wayne County Republican Committee.

• Terri Lynn Land, Republican, is the former secretary of state and Kent County clerk who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 2014. She was a late addition to the ballot after the Bureau of Elections kicked off the ballot the Republicans’ original nominee, Diane Dunaskiss, for signing an affidavit that all her campaign finance matters were up to date when she had unpaid fines from her 2018 run.

State Board of Education

• Ellen Cogen Lipton, Democrat, is a former state representative and 2018 congressional candidate from Huntington Woods. She is a long-time patent attorney with a chemistry degree from Williams College and a juris doctor from Harvard. While in the state House, she was highly critical of then-Gov. Snyder’s Education Achievement Authority alternative for Detroit school children.

• Jason Strayhorn, Democrat, is in real estate development and management in Southeast Michigan, but is best known as the radio color commentator for Michigan State University football games. The former captain of the MSU football team’s passion for public education comes from his three school-aged children and his volunteer reading initiatives designed to help poorer, urban children.

• Tami Carlone, Republican, is a second-time candidate to the state board, having finished third in her 2018 run. The self-described education activist is passionate about pushing back on what she sees is “biased teachings” in the public education system. She’s involved in a national network called “Truth in American Education” that works against liberal indoctrination in the K-12 system. She’s also opposed to Common Core.

• Michelle Frederick, Republican, is on the Special Education Advisory Committee and “Michigan Parents Involved in Education.” She is running in opposition to standardized testing and the adoption of Common Core standards. Frederick also see liberal ideology creeping into social studies instruction, which she sees as progressive activism with little historical context.

(For information on the candidates for the board of Lansing Community College, please see pages 20-21.)