For more than a year, concerned faculty, staff, students, and community members have increasingly made their frustrations known about the lack of transparency and poor governance from five members of the Mott Community College Board of Trustees. Andy Everman, Jeffrey Swanson, Wendy Wolcott, John Daly III, and Janet Couch have set about enacting a confusing vision for the college (this website is and will continue to be filled with links to examples of their poor leadership). The five trustees rarely explain their actions in public meetings, rarely agree to interviews with local media (I can’t find any examples of Swanson, Daly, or Couch doing a single interview, and I can only find one recent example of Wolcott even providing a statement to press in her capacity as a trustee; I can barely find an example of Couch even talking in a meeting, to be honest), and have not laid out any sort of cohesive vision that they have for the College’s future, even as their actions suggest they believe dramatic changes are needed at Mott despite the college performing well by all objective measures.

Over the past nearly two years, here are a few examples of that poor governance: they fired the board attorney under mysterious circumstances and then hired the personal attorney of Board Chair Everman despite the attorney having no higher education experience (this will be a theme); they were accused of violating the Open Meetings Act; they tried to enact a Christian prayer before their board meetings, even though Mott is a public college that has students, faculty, and staff of many faiths (they relented after people rightly voiced concerns but now apparently the new interim president has plowed ahead with that Christian prayer anyway); the board chair called a college staff member a “pussy” on a hot mic during a public meeting; they publicly bullied a popular and successful College President, Beverley Walker-Griffea, until she resigned (Everman’s treatment of Walker-Griffea in meetings was particularly vile; and incidentally after leaving, she was immediately appointed to a statewide position by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer); against typical higher education protocol, they decided to hire an interim president from outside the organization instead of appointing someone from within, meaning they will now have to waste resources on two external searches when the permanent position gets posted; they changed the job description after it was posted to remove a requirement for a PhD (again, since this is … you know … a college, it’s common that college presidents have PhDs — an American Council on Education Study noted in 2017 that about 92 percent of community college presidents had them); they then hired the only finalist of their four who had no PhD and also had no higher education experience (and they’re also discussing giving that interim president hiring and firing power without board approval, which would also be pretty unprecedented for an interim president); they go out of their way to hide from public disapproval, including voting to move public comment on their July 15 agenda until AFTER they’d already approved the contract people were objecting too, because they knew exactly the roasting they were about to receive (I also snapped a particularly weasely picture of Everman forcing the same staff member he’d insulted in a previous meeting to remove news articles about the Board’s antics that someone had printed out from a table outside the meeting room on July 15). There’s honestly plenty more, including board members weighing in on things waaaaaay outside of their expertise and the board’s purview, like academic programs to offer and how to utilize campus spaces.

Summarized together like this, it gives the impression that there’s no real plan or ideology at work here. But the opposite is true. This is a group of people trying to orchestrate an ultra right wing agenda at a college that represents a truly diverse population of learners, ranging from pre-K to adults, urban to rural, poor to affluent.

Richardson-Snell’s Background

Aside from her lack of higher education experience, there’s very little that can be found about her biography. She said in an interview with East Village Magazine that she’s from the area and has a brother who attended Mott. Her corporate experience was the only attribute pointed out by the board in the interview process. But there aren’t corporate bios, interviews, or other materials out there that give a feel for who she is as a leader or why she’s even interested all of a sudden in working in higher education.

But here’s a thing about her that possibly serves as an explainer for the Board’s actions: thousands of dollars in political contributions to Donald Trump, among others of similar ideologies.

Political contributions aren’t disqualifying, of course. I live in Flint now, which is a Democratic stronghold. I also grew up in rural Lapeer. As a journalist, I’ve covered and had good relationships with elected officials of all backgrounds. But here’s why Trump, in particular, is a red flag in higher education: he has an ideology that seems intent on dismantling it. J.D. Vance, his running mate, once said “college professors are the enemy.” So it’s understandable that a new college president who has supported that ideology through her donations may cause some angst among the dedicated professors who now find themselves working for her.

But that’s not the only red flag. Richardson-Snell used her own personal P.R. person for the press release announcing her hiring by Mott. Mark Gilman, who sent out her release, also writes for the Epoch Times. For those unfamiliar, the Epoch Times is a mysteriously funded, Qanon and other conspiracies-adjacent misinformation factory. It should go without saying, but the president of a college, which is full of faculty who try to teach students how to decipher good sources of information from bad ones, working with someone who writes for perhaps the most notorious producer of misinformation is … problematic.

While we’re on the topic of optics, this isn’t necessarily a political point, but according to information shared by Mott Trustee Michael Freeman, Richardson-Snell used Artificial Intelligence to write her introductory letter to campus. Again, there’s nothing that is necessarily disqualifying about that, but 1., it seems a little lazy to farm out your first impression to the campus you are now leading; and 2., in a higher education environment where faculty are increasingly fighting the many ways AI has increased cheating and corner-cutting in classes, it certainly sends a questionable message when the interim president herself uses it to write a simple letter.

Board Actions

Walker-Griffea is an accomplished and successful higher education leader. She is also a Black woman. Jason Wilson, the candidate favored by faculty and staff to serve as interim president while a permanent replacement is found, is a Black man. When the interim position was originally posted, and the board lowered the education requirements seemingly helping their preferred candidate, it may have been purely coincidental that lowering that requirement benefitted a white candidate over Wilson.

But when that knowledge is combined with this board’s previous hostility toward diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts on campus implemented by Walker-Griffea and her team, it certainly becomes worthy of questioning their intention. The board itself has no Black members, leading a college located in a city that is 56 percent Black.

Much like Richardson-Snell’s choice of PR person, the attorney chose by Wolcott, Couch, and Daly during a hearing on recall language I submitted on the three of them in July also gives clues to their extreme political views. Dianne Cotter represented them at the hearing, and has herself advocated for positions that are not in line with Mott’s values. In response to the Michigan Supreme Court adopting language that respected the gender identity of attorneys and parties in front of courts, Cotter had the following public comment:

Speaking of “confounding the English language,” Ms. Cotter’s double spaces between sentences and aggressive use of hyphens is certainly assaulting on the English language. Cotter, who used to be an attorney for disgraced former Michigan GOP chair Kristina Karamo (recently seen being kicked out of her own party’s convention when it was held in Flint last month), has now been hired into a staff role as Wolcott’s secretary.

Out-of-touch (I can use hyphens too) people like Cotter and the board members she represents are not equipped to make decisions that impact current and future students at Mott. I’ve taught transgender students at Mott. I’ve taught nonbinary students. I’ve taught students of many different ages, religions, races, income levels, and sexualities. Their experiences are valid, they enrich classroom environments, and they should ALL be protected on campus. The currently elected board, and the interim president they selected, have repeatedly shown themselves to be ill-equipped for and openly hostile toward this important work.

Wolcott is also deceitful in other political pursuits. Currently, she’s a candidate for the Genesee County Commission in Davison, as a Democrat. Despite there being no evidence she’s ever been a Democrat. The Genesee County GOP donated $1,000 to her campaign for Mott’s board in 2022. Her son, Matthew Smith, is the tie-WEARING former chair of the Genesee County Republican Party. He received probation in 2022 “after pleading guilty to malicious use of a telephone for making a harassing phone call during which his victim says he threatened to kill her dogs,” according to MLive. He’s also personally railed against “critical race theory” in Davison, Michigan, a college-level concept that has never formally been a part of curriculum in … DAVISON! (Sidenote, just to prove the point of this blog post isn’t to be overtly partisan, EVERYONE in Davison should vote for Republican Brian Flewelling over Wolcott for County Commission, because at least Flewelling seems transparent).

The larger point here, other than itemizing who these people are, is that this chaos is actually strategic. This is a group of people with grievances who are attempting to ruin Mott Community College from within. And it isn’t even particularly tied to a political party. This can’t even be called fiscal conservatism or “running the college like a business” as Swanson once put it. This board has wasted incredible amounts of money with its poor leadership, overreach, and overall inability to govern.

They avoid transparency because they know their ideas are unpopular. They continuously exhibit an arrogant belief that those ideas can and will be pushed through and implemented because not enough people are paying attention to the Board’s actions. People, particularly students, are inclusive. My colleagues and I see it and have seen it for years. A rogue board that has been hijacked is jeopardizing the education of current and future students. These elected officials are specifically trying to further their own power, influence, and unpopular ideologies. It might — and has, to be honest — work temporarily. But one thing I know about Flint, is that people here care. And they fight. People love Mott Community College too much to let this ugly vision for the college continue.