Mott College trustees to meet about complaint that president is ‘proselytizing’

Mott Community College president reportedly is proselytizing about her Christian faith
A complaint lead to Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which sent letters to the president and board
Mott’s Board of Trustees to hold a special meeting to respond

The Board of Trustees at Mott Community College in Flint has called a special meeting Wednesday to discuss complaints that its president, Shaunda Richardson-Snell, engaged in “religious proselytizing” while serving in an official capacity.

The meeting comes after Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a national nonprofit, sent a letter to Snell and members of the board in December. The group said it received a complaint that Snell had made “proselytizing religious comments” on several occasions and asked a guest at a college event if they had accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior. According to the group, such behavior would violate the First Amendment’s establishment of religion clause.

“Mott Community College is a public, governmental institution and exists to serve all of its students and community regardless of faith or belief,” Ian Smith, staff attorney for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, wrote in the letter obtained by Bridge Michigan. “Allowing any College employee-but especially an employee as high profile as the President-to use their positions to religiously proselytize students, employees, or visitors conveys disrespect for the beliefs of the community and sends the message that those who do not practice the officially favored faith are unwelcome outsiders who do not belong.”

A special board meeting is scheduled at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday to develop a response to the organization and community, said Trustee John Daly, who called the meeting and told Bridge he plans to call for an independent investigation.

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Shaunda Richardson-Snell has been president of Mott Community College in Flint since 2024, following the departure of Beverly Walker-Griffea in July 2024. (Courtesy photo)

“She is entitled to have her views but not allowed to pursue those in her role as president of the college,” said Daly, a longtime public official who is currently a consultant for local governments on infrastructure asset management. “This is a multicultural community, and there is a high percentage of students that have different forms of worship than the Christian view.”

“This is a public institution … We should provide an environment for everybody and anybody to get an education”

Jeff Swanson, chair of the Mott Community College board of trustees, declined comment until after the meeting. Neither Richardson-Snell, the college’s lawyer nor the five other five board members responded to requests for comment.

Among the people to whom Richardson-Snell reportedly spoke about her faith in her official capacity is Wayne Wilson, a member of the Navajo Nation (Diné) in Arizona, who planted Mott Community College’s Peace and Dignity Tree on campus in 1992 to honor the global movement uniting indigenous communities.

He has since traveled back to the campus for the annual Peace and Dignity Ceremony, held annually on Indigenous Peoples Day in October to promote cultural unity through indigenous traditions.

Wilson told Bridge Michigan that during the 33rd celebration last October, Richardson-Snell approached him.

“She asked me if I had accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal savior,” said Wilson, who spoke during the ceremony and mentioned living in a federal Indian boarding school run by Christians. “I couldn’t believe it. I thought: Has she not read the history of boarding schools?”

With an enrollment of 6,718 students in 2024, Mott is among the largest of Michigan’s 28 community colleges.

She began serving in 2024 as interim president, following the departure of Beverly Walker-Griffea. In July 2024, Walker-Griffea became the first director of the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential (MiLEAP).

The board appointed Richardson-Snell as the permanent president in 2025 without a national search, Daly said, a move to which some board members objected. Her contract awarded her a $300,000 annual salary, Daly said.

She is “an enterprise leader and entrepreneur with more than 25 years of global, multi-industry leadership and financial management experience in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors,” and has worked for General Motors, TI Fluid Systems, Trinity Health and Delphi Corporation, according to Mott Community College’s website.

During the October Mott College board meeting, retired Mott professor Celia Perez Booth spoke directly to the comments that Richardson-Snell reportedly made to Wilson.

Perez Booth said Richardson-Snell’s question about Wilson’s beliefs showed a “lack of sensitivity and civility” and she called the question “contemptuous,” despicable,” “repugnant” and “disgraceful.”

“It is disgusting to us, as a people of First Nation, that more than 500 years later, we as American Indians have to endure a Christian’s continued intrusion on our spiritual rights and I suspect attempts of conversion,” Perez Booth said. “Your behavior, Shaunda, brings back a lot of ugly, painful memories of abuse by this government and at the hands of Christians, especially in the boarding schools. And as a people, we are still healing from that historical trauma.”

“How can we trust you or have respect for you when you use your position to disrespect us with questions that are reprehensible to us?”

Later in the October board meeting, Trustee Art Reyes said if the incident occurred as reported, an apology should come. He also said he got a call from a student who said he went to one of the president’s coffee times and asked a question to her about artificial intelligence.

“The president asked him if he was aware of the one truth and that there was only one truth and then started espousing her beliefs … then further went on that there’s a struggle for the world and the devil was involved,” Reyes said.

A few days after the meeting, Daly said that Richardson-Snell called him and told him that the question she asked Wilson was not in her official role as president. It was a private conversation, Daly said she told him.

Daly said, “This was an event hosted by Mott Community College? She said yes. You were there as the president of Mott Community? In that environment, I don’t see how you have any private conversations.’”

Richardson Snell did not respond, Daly said.

The situation is concerning because it’s a disregard of the nation’s founding fathers to avoid religious civil wars by keeping church and state separate, said Paul Jordan, a retired social worker who taught at Mott Community College for more than a decade and attended the October board meeting.

On Dec. 12, Americans United for Separation of Church and State sent two letters to the college and board members. Daly said it was mailed to him anonymously on Dec. 27 and other board members said they had not seen it until then either. The letters showed up at the college in mid-January, Daly said college officials told him.

That’s why Wednesday’s special meeting will be the first time that the board will discuss the letter from Americans United.

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