Dennis Denno is on Michigan State Arabic program advisory board and hopes to help middle and lower-class families with tuition costs if elected as a trustee on November 2. Photo Courtesy of Denno Campaign

While statewide races in Michigan for posts like Governor and Secretary of State have garnered a huge amount of attention, others such as the college races for Board of Trustees positions have mostly stayed off the radar screen.

But the races remain important as higher education costs continue to rise and obtaining a college degree becomes perhaps more crucial than ever in Michigan.

Dennis Denno, the only Arab American on the ballot among races that are voted on statewide, is running for Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing’s Board of Trustees with the main goal of helping to keep costs reasonable for families if elected.

“Tuition is becoming more and more expensive and becoming out-of-reach for middle class, working families at Michigan,” Denno said.

“I’m concerned with the spending by the university and I want to get on the board to make a difference and give back to the community.”

The 40-year-old Denno, an Iraqi American who grew up in Farmington Hills and a is a Democrat, is currently the chief of staff for Michigan Senate Democratic Floor Leader Buzz Thomas of Detroit,

He is especially concerned with MSU’s declining state funding.

He said that MSU hires two lobbying firms in Lansing and has four arms lobbying the Michigan legislature yet every year the school continues to receive less-than-adequate funding in his eyes, a number that has been less than the University of Michigan and in some cases even less than Wayne State University.

“At MSU we used to get $350 million a year from the legislature,” said Denno, who graduated from the school as an undergrad with a degree in Political Science while later completing grad school at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor in Middle Eastern Studies.

“Now it’s $280 million a year and it’s probably going to get smaller as the state deals with a budget deficit, so they’ve dramatically raised the cost of tuition.

“The middle class and working families have no tools to help them pay for higher education at MSU,” Denno said.

He also questions recent expenditures such as a $1.5 million project to upgrade offices on the top floor of the administration building on campus.

Denno also has a strong history of working within the Arab American community as well. He has been an active participant in the Michigan Democratic Party’s Arab-American Caucus, was a former board member of the Michigan chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), and is a member of the Arab American Institute’s Leadership Council.

When Michigan State was in danger of losing its Arabic language program in 1990, Denno said he helped rally fellow students to apply pressure on the administration to keep it.

Now, Denno is on the advisory board for the program and believes it could be a boon for MSU considering the growing demand for the language.

“So far, it’s proven to be a success, now, let’s see if we can grow the program,” he said.

“More and more universities are realizing the importance of teaching Arabic and what MSU is doing is going above and beyond which is exciting.”

Denno, who has been working with Democratic legislators for 20 years, also has a strong interest in politics. He cites a trip organized by the Arab American Chamber of Commerce that sent a delegation of elected officials to Lebanon as an example of what needs to be done in order to help American officials understand the current situations of importance in the world, saying he’d like to eventually help expand on the practice.

 Denno also served as the president of the Greater Lansing Arab American Social Services organization, helping to provide Arab American immigrants with housing and English as a second language class, and would like to see MSU reach out to the Arab American community in Dearborn and across the state to tell more students about the benefits the school has to offer.

“A lot of students go to Wayne State or Michigan and that’s fine but it’s amazing how many people think East Lansing is really far away and it’s not much farther away than Ann Arbor,” he said.

“I think MSU has a lot of amenities that potential Arab American students would really like and I think that MSU should do more outreach because it would be beneficial to both the community and the university,” he said.

While Denno, who is a partner in the Denno-Noor polling firm for elections, doesn’t quite know how the always-unpredictable race for Board of Trustees will turn out, he is leaving nothing to chance in his quest to get elected, having visited cities across the state spanning to the Upper Peninsula and back down to metro Detroit. He also has a Facebook page titled “Dennis Denno for MSU Trustee.”

He hopes that voters in the Arab American community and across Michigan will remember his name when they fill out their ballots on November 2 and he’s enjoyed the chance to tour the state during the campaign season despite not having the same budget other statewide candidates for office have.

“Look at how many millions candidates for governor spend on their campaigns; there’s no way a candidate running for education is going to ever come close to raising or spending that kind of money nor should they,” he said.

“But campaigning has been a blast, I’ve met some great people but there’s no question that running statewide is a challenge,” Denno said.

Denno was recently endorsed by the Arab American Political Action Committee as well and will be included on the organization’s voting slate to be distributed at polls in local areas with a high number of Arab American voters.