A Boston Globe article looking at higher education funding and the potential advantages for local and regional public institutions featured insight from Graves Garrett Greim partner Todd Graves, who also currently serves as Chair of the University of Missouri System’s Board of Curators. The current presidential administration continues to make decisions that some leaders see as more broadly distributing wealth and talent with less concentration on coastal and historically elite institutions.

“A lot of higher education is in a political food fight because they don’t like the flavor of the current leadership,” Graves said in the article, which can be found here. Please note a subscription may be required to read the full version. “We [at the University of Missouri] keep our head down, we educate the students, we conduct the research, and we don’t try to tell people how to live their lives. We try to make people’s lives better.”

The University of Missouri Board of Curators elected Graves to serve as vice chair for a one-year term in 2024, and this past fall, he earned election to chair for a year, effective on January 1, 2025. He is in the middle of a six-year term as the sixth congressional representative on the nine-member board serving as the governing body of the University of Missouri System, which includes the University of Missouri-Columbia, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Missouri University of Science and Technology, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Graves earned his bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics, summa cum laude, from the University of Missouri in 1988. Four generations of his family, including his great-grandfather, father, and three of his four children, in addition to his wife, have graduated from the University of Missouri. Two of his children are currently attending classes there, including one pursuing a postgraduate degree.

At Graves Garrett Greim, Graves represents clients nationwide before federal and state courts and administrative agencies. His areas of experience include white-collar criminal defense, political speech and election law, internal investigations, regulatory compliance, and complex commercial litigation.