Two regents step down after 8 years on Eastern Michigan University's governing board

Board chair Roy Wilbanks, who has also served as an administrator of the Ypsilanti university, and Tom Sidlik both end their eight-year terms on the governing body this month.

Francine Parker, a current regent and health executive, will replace Wilbanks as chair. Meanwhile, Gov. Rick Snyder has appointed Mary Treder Lang, a businesswoman from Grosse Pointe Farms, and James "Jim" Webb, a risk manager from Farmington, to replace Wilbanks and Sidlik, who were appointed by former governor Jennifer Granholm.

Among Wilbanks' former roles are stints as an assistant to the president for government and community relations, vice president for university relations and chief executive officer of the EMU Foundation. Though he is leaving the board, Wilbanks, an Ypsilanti native, was just appointed to a two-year term on the Eagle Administrative Services board, which oversees the Eagle Crest golf club, convention center and course.

Both Wilbanks and Sidlik have served as regents since 2004 and, during their terms on the board, have seen EMU's campus grow in academic breadth, physical size and enrollment. They've also seen the university undergo a year-long tuition freeze, several leadership changes, the mishandling of a murder case on campus in 2006 and, most recently, endure national spotlight when a letter authored by the board of regents executive committee chatising EMU President Susan Martin was made public.

Lang and Webb begin as regents in January 2013.