Jordan Acker is entering his fourth year as the chair of the Board of Regents at the University of Michigan.

Acker, who's still yet to turn 40, was determined to give Michigan's Regents an injection of youth when he ran for office and assumed his position in 2018.

After graduating from U-M in 2006, he worked as an associate for the White House Office of Presidential Personnel before being appointed by former President Barack Obama in March 2011 to be an attorney-advisor to Secretary Janet Napolitano at the Department of Homeland Security. Ultimately, he decided to return home and work for his family company, Goodman Acker, P.C., in 2013.

In the summer of 2016, Acker dealt with extreme discomfort from back spasms. A doctor prescribed what he described as a simple medication. Shortly after beginning the drug, it would complicate his liver and put him in and out of the hospital. He credits the doctors at the University of Michigan Hospital for saving his life and inevitably inspiring him to run for office to show his gratitude for the institution that kept his heart beating.

Acker didn't plan to run for office deliberately. He and a group of friends were planning a trip to Iowa City to watch Michigan play the Hawkeyes when Acker found himself in a rabbit hole on the University's website. He accidentally came across the Board of Regents page by clicking the wrong button. Acker went through the page and asked himself who this group was and what happened next would change the course of his life and the University's future.

"I'm looking at this page, like, 'Who are these people? What do they do?' And I noticed a lot of these people are pretty old. And my buddy said to me, 'great! You're running for office now,'" and I told him that's ridiculous," Acker said on Sunday afternoon. "But there was nobody who was a millennial on the board, and nobody who attended or graduated college in the 21st century on the board. It felt like a great place for me to give back to a place that has given me so much."

"In the past, it's been decided by backroom deals and was a who's who, and I realized that, as a 34-year-old, if I tried to beg the right people, I'd never win."

Fast forward to 2018, and Acker, who totaled over 30,000 miles on his car going to every Democratic club in the state to get elected, won the race by defying the odds of his age through boots on the ground, face-to-face campaigning.

Acker was now the chair with an eight-year term of an eight-person Board of Regents.

Fast forward to the present day, and things have changed at the University.

In a three-part series, Acker sat down with Maize & Blue Review to discuss NIL, the misconceptions of Michigan admissions, the next president, and much more.

Here's how the series will go:

Part I: The reality of NIL at Michigan

Part II: Addressing Michigan admissions

Part III: A new presidential era

For a Michigan fan, when it comes to pointing fingers, the topic of admissions is often on the other side of the arrow.

Do you want to know what happens when you search "admissions" on The Den?

This:

Michigan fans are obsessed with admissions conspiracy theories about recruits who would've gone here for X, Y, & Z reasons if admissions didn't hold up the process.

Folks, admissions are not my expertise, so I called in the guy at the forefront: Jordan Acker.

The admissions dialogue is most populated on message boards, but it doesn't stay there. Acker reads tweets and gets messages about admissions.

It's no secret to the Regents that people question U-M's process of admitting prospective student-athletes.

"The biggest misconception is that Michigan makes it absurdly difficult for students, I should say more difficult than other schools of similar academic standard, to get in," Acker said, "that is the one that is usually not true -- to say the least. That's the one I’m always kind of blown away about."

Emphatically, Archer told me how the bread is made in the admissions kitchen.

"Michigan has done a really good job at making sure student-athletes get in. More importantly, and this is one that fans don’t focus on, one thing our academic counselors and athletic department really think about is, will this student-athlete be successful at Michigan? Will they graduate from Michigan?" He asked. "It’s not whether they’ll be eligible in their first season. It’s whether they’re going to be at the Big House in four years at graduation."

But I know, in reading that, some fans are still looking like that Arthur meme, clenched fist, wanting more answers and clarification, still skeptical about the truth of U-M's academic limitations in recruiting.

The truth is that Michigan's reputation is its core identity. To the University, the brand is as important as anything. Withholding itself to the standards it was built on is integral to the future stability of the school.

So to the outsider, you would think U-M's perceived strictness with its academics is overwhelming. But to the institution's administration, there's one metric to keep in mind when deciding on a student-athlete application.

"Does Michigan have these admission standards just for the sake of having standards? No, the most important thing is that our graduation rate stays really high," he said.

It's not as if the admissions staff, or the Regents themselves, are in the office every day picking and choosing who the football staff can and can't recruit. It has no fingerprints on that process.

That means it's up to the football staff, and every other staff, to evaluate and recruit high school prospects who will qualify at Michigan.

That's nothing new to Jim Harbaugh, who followed far stricter guidelines in his four seasons at Stanford, and is the ideal leader the Regents trust to run a smooth show for the University's flagship athletic program.

"I think one thing that people really gloss over with Coach Harbaugh is that he’s done it at really difficult academic environments before. He understands what the rules are and what he has to do," Acker said. "He also knows there are special types of student-athletes, who want the academic and athletic challenge, and know when they’re through it that they’re better off having a Big Ten Championship ring AND a Michigan degree."

Now that we have that all cleared up, what are the Regents working to advance with admissions?

Acker knows there are always ways to improve Michigan.

Despite his strong stance on the misconceptions about Michigan's academic impact on athletics, the Chair of the Board strongly believes there needs to be reform in a re-launched summer start program. His father, a U-M grad, was a part of the original program, where students and student-athletes who marginally didn't qualify for acceptance but would still be successful at the University with the proper academic assistance enrolled early with a drawn-out plan for success.

While the University has a variation of a program similar to this, it's not to the extent it should be, Acker believes.

"One thing I would say Michigan has not done a great job of and could do better on is providing a runway program for students who are going to be successful, who might need a little more seasoning, or a little more attention. It’s something Michigan did a lot better job at 30 years ago," Acker said. "It’s not just an athlete thing, it’s more of an academic, university-wide issue. Some students might not get in, who might do well, but they need to have a summer start program."

Without hesitation, Acker refuted the conspiracies of admissions having a chokehold on Michigan's recruiting efforts in its athletic programs. However, he realizes this isn't a complete project, but there's a foundation to build on. Adding a program similar to the summer start opens up a variety of avenues for the football & basketball programs to recruit and every program in Ann Arbor.

Plus, it's only creating more opportunities for more people, and who could oppose that?

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