University of Michigan
It was also the location chosen by
President John F. Kennedy to propose the concept of what became the
Peace Corps, and the site of
Lyndon B. Johnson's speech outlining his
Great Society program. More recently, the university successfully affirmed before the
U.S. Supreme Court that consideration of
race as a factor in admissions to universities was
constitutional.
The University of Michigan was established in 1817 by the
Michigan Territory legislature on 1,920
acres (776
ha) in Detroit, land ceded through the
Treaty of Fort Meigs by the
Chippewa,
Ottawa, and
Potawatomi peoples. Ann Arbor had set aside 40 acres (16 ha) that it hoped would become the site for a new state capital, but it subsequently offered this land to the university when
Lansing was chosen as the state capital. The university land in Detroit was sold, and the university moved to Ann Arbor in 1837. The original 40 acres in Ann Arbor became part of the current Central Campus.
The first classes in Ann Arbor were held in 1841, with six freshmen and a sophomore, taught by two professors. Eleven students graduated in the first commencement in 1845. By 1865 to 1866, the enrollment had increased to 1205 students, many of whom were
Civil War veterans. Women were first admitted in 1870, making the University of Michigan the third school to do so (after
Oberlin College in 1833 and
Lawrence University in 1847), some 100 years before most
Ivy League schools.
James B. Angell, who served as the university's president from 1871 to 1909, aggressively expanded UM's curriculum to include professional studies in
dentistry,
architecture,
engineering,
government, and
medicine.
 |
The Central Campus Diag |
From 1900 to 1920 many new facilities were constructed on campus, including facilities for the dental and pharmacy programs, a chemistry building, a building for the natural sciences,
Hill Auditorium, large hospital and library complexes, and two residential halls. The university's reputation for research gained momentum in 1920 with a formal reorganization of the College of Engineering and the formation of an advisory committee of 100 industrialists to guide academic research initiatives. During
World War II, UM's research output grew significantly, and included major initiatives on behalf of the
U.S. Navy, including advances in the development of
proximity fuzes,
PT boats, and
radar jamming. By 1950, enrollment had reached 21,000, of whom 7,700 were veterans supported by the
G.I. Bill. As the
Cold War and the
Space Race took hold, UM became a major recipient of government grants for strategic research and helped to develop peacetime uses for
nuclear energy.
On
March 24,
1964, a group of UM faculty members and 2,500 students held the nation's first ever faculty-led "teach-in" to protest against American policy in Southeast Asia. In response to a series of
sit-ins in 1966 by
Voice–the campus political party of Students for a Democratic Society–the U-M's administration banned sit-ins. This stimulated 1,500 students to conduct a further one-hour sit-in in the administration building.
During the 1970s, severe budget constraints hindered the university's physical development and academic standing. The 1980s saw a surge in funds devoted to research in the social and physical sciences. Meanwhile, the university's involvement in the anti-missile
Strategic Defense Initiative and investments in
South Africa caused controversy on campus. During the 1980s and 1990s, the university devoted substantial resources to renovating its massive hospital complex and improving the academic facilities on the North Campus. The university also emphasized the development of computer and information technology throughout the campus.
In 2003, two lawsuits involving UM's
affirmative action admissions policy reached the
U.S. Supreme Court (
Grutter v. Bollinger and
Gratz v. Bollinger). President
George W. Bush took the unusual step of publicly opposing the policy before the court issued a ruling. The eventual ruling was mixed but the University of Michigan won the most important ruling at issue in those historical cases; that race may be considered as a factor in university admissions in all public universities and by private universities that accept federal dollars for such things as research or financial aid. In the first case, the court upheld the
Law School admissions policy, while in the second it ruled against the university's undergraduate admissions policy. In the early 2000s, UM also faced declining state funding due to state budget shortfalls. At the same time, the university attempted to maintain its high academic standing while keeping
tuition costs affordable. There were also disputes between UM's administration and labor unions, notably with the Lecturers' Employees Organization (LEO) and the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO), the union representing graduate student employees. These conflicts led to a series of one-day walkouts by the unions and their supporters.
 |
Central Campus: Angell Hall, one of the major buildings of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. |
The university has about 24,800
undergraduate and 14,900
graduate students in 600 academic programs, and each year about 5,400 new students are enrolled. Students come from all 50
U.S. states and more than 100 countries. 28% of the university's incoming class of 2006 earned a high school GPA of 4.0,while 52% earned a GPA of 3.9 or higher.
[ Admissions-Related Policies and Statistics: Freshman Class Profile (2006). University of Michigan Office of Budget & Planning. Accessed January 11, 2006.] [ University of Michigan - Common Data Set 2006, p. 11. University of Michigan Office of Budget & Planning. Accessed April 01, 2006.] The middle 50% of applicants report an
SAT score of about 1900-2160, and an
ACT score of 27-31.
AP credit was granted to over 3000 freshmen.
[Kuh, George D., et. al. (10-31-2003). Final Report - University of Michigan. NSSE Institute for Effective Educational Practice. p. 7. Found at www.lsa.umich.edu/UofM/Content/lsa/document/DEEP-Final-Report-UM.pdf.] About 22% of newly-enrolled undergraduates and 25% of all undergraduates are members of ethnic
minority groups.
[University of Michigan Common Data Set - 2004-2005 (August 16, 2005). University of Michigan Office of Budget & Planning. Accessed January 15, 2006.]About 65% of undergraduate students are enrolled in the
College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LS&A), while the
College of Engineering has about 20%. Fewer than 3% of undergraduate students are enrolled in the
Ross School of Business. The rest of the undergraduate students are enrolled in the smaller schools, including the
School of Nursing and the
School of Art and Design.
[Enrollment by Degree Type and School/College (2004). UM News Service. Accessed October 2, 2005.] Most graduate students are enrolled in the
Rackham Graduate School, the College of Engineering, the Law School, the Ross School of Business, and the
Medical School. The Medical School is partnered with the
University of Michigan Health System. Other academic units include the
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy,
Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and the Schools of
Dentistry,
Education,
Information,
Music, Theater & Dance,
Public Health, and
Social Work.
There are just over 5,000 faculty members, 73 of whom are members of the
National Academy.
[The Top American Research Universities (December 2004). TheCenter. Accessed October 2, 2005.] The university consistently leads the nation in the number of
Fulbright Scholars and has several
Rhodes Scholars. In one recent rankings summary, more than 70% of UM's 200 major programs, departments, and schools were ranked in the top 10 nationally, and more than 90% of programs and departments were ranked in the top 20 nationally.
[University of Michigan Rankings (7-13-2005). www.umich.edu.] UM was rated among the top 10 colleges in the U.S. in the annual rankings by the
Washington Monthlyin 2005 and 18th in 2006.
[The Washington Monthly College Guide (September 2005). The Washington Monthly.] and ranked 25th overall by
U.S. News & World Report. The School of Social Work has been ranked first by the
U.S. News and World Report every year since 1994.
[America's Best Graduate Schools 2006 - Health: Social Work (Master's). US News and World Report.] The university is also one of sixty elected members of the
Association of American Universities. UM's academic reputation has led to its inclusion on Richard Moll's list of
Public Ivies.
One concern about academics at the UM is that some courses, including a several upper-level courses, are taught by Graduate Student Instructors, or teaching assistants. Another concern is the high level of educational expenses for a public institution, especially for out-of-state undergraduate students, who pay about
$30,000 annually for tuition alone. Currently, out-of-state tuition at UM is the most expensive in the U.S. On the other hand, in-state undergraduate students receive a relative bargain by paying about $10,000.
[Academic Year Tuition and Fees for Full-Time Students (8-18-2005). University of Michigan Office of Budget & Planning. Accessed October 7, 2005.] |
University of Michigan Hospital |
The university has one of the largest annual research expenditures of any university in the United States, totaling about $775 million from 2004 to 2005.
[Ulaby, Fawwaz T. Annual Report on Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity at the University of Michigan FY2004. (February 17, 2005). UM Research.] The Medical School spent the most, nearly $300 million, while the College of Engineering, at more than $135 million, was second.
[University of Michigan - Research (3-21-2005). U of M Office of Budget and Planning - Electronic Fact Pages. Accessed September 15, 2005.] UM also has a
technology transfer office, which is the university conduit between laboratory research and corporate commercialization interests.
UM helped develop one of the first university computer networks and has made major contributions to the mathematics of
information theory. Other major contributions included the precursor to the
National Science Foundation computer networking backbone, the virtual memory model, and computer
databases. The university is also a major contributor to the medical field with the
EKG,
gastroscope, the announcement of
Jonas Salk's polio vaccine, and the extracorporal membrane oxygenation system. The university's 13,000-
acre (5,300
hectares)
biological station in the
Northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan is one of only 47
Biosphere Reserves in the United States.
UM is home to the
National Election Studies and the
University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. Political scientists and policy analysts use UM's
Correlates of War project as a gauge of nations' relative
global power and a barometer for the outbreak of war. The university is also home to major research centers in
optics, reconfigurable manufacturing systems,
wireless integrated microsystems, and social sciences. The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute is located at the university, and support was recently given to the
life sciences with the establishment of the Life Sciences Institute and the construction of associated facilities. Undergraduate students are able to participate in various research projects through the
Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) as well as the UROP/Creative-Programs.
[UROP is First (2005). LSAMagazine.]UM's
financial endowment (the "University Endowment Fund") was valued at $4.9 billion in 2005.
[University of Michigan Endowment (2005). University of Michigan News Service. Accessed December 30, 2005.] It is the
tenth-largest such endowment in the U.S. and the fourth-largest among U.S. public universities.
[Yale Posts Highest Endowment Returns, Topping Stanford, Harvard (November 22, 2005). Bloomberg.com.] The endowment is primarily used according to the donors' wishes, which include the support of teaching and research. In the mid-2000s, UM embarked on a massive fundraising campaign called "The Michigan Difference," which aims to raise $2.5 billion, with $800 million dollars designated for the permanent endowment.
[Campaign Goals - The Michigan Difference (2005). The University of Michigan Office of Development. Accessed December 30, 2005.] |
Main hall of the law school library: York and Sawyer, architects of the Law Quadrangle |
The UM
library system comprises 19 individual libraries with 24 separate collections—roughly 7.96 million volumes, growing at the rate of 150,000 volumes a year.
[University of Michigan Libraries (1-11-2005). U of M News Service. Accessed September 19, 2005.] UM was the original home of the
JSTOR database, which contains about 750,000 digitized pages from the entire pre-1990 backfile of ten journals of
history and
economics. The University recently initiated an innovative book digitization program in collaboration with
Google.
Two prominent libraries, the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library and the Shapiro Undergraduate Library (also called the UGLi, which is officially an acronym but was used by students as a reference to the building's uninspired appearance prior to its recent renovation), are on Central Campus and are connected by a
skywalk. The Duderstadt Center on North Campus houses books on
art,
architecture, and
engineering. The Duderstadt Center also contains multiple
computer labs,
video editing studios, and a
3D virtual reality room. The
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library is located on North Campus.
 |
The UM Museum of Art on Central Campus. |
The University of Michigan is home to a number of museums, whose focuses include
archeology,
anthropology,
paleontology,
zoology,
dentistry, and art. The natural history public collections are housed at the University of Michigan Exhibit Museum of Natural History, which displays items from the collections of the paleontology, zoology, and anthropology museums. The Exhibit Museum also holds the largest display of dinosaur specimens in Michigan, as well a specimen of the
state fossil, the
mastodon (the only such display in the world containing adult male and female specimens: the Buesching and Owosso mastodons). One of the better-known museums is the University of Michigan Museum of Art, with a permanent collection of European, American, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African items, and temporary exhibits on a wide variety of subjects.
|
Locations of the U-M three main campuses in Ann Arbor |
The Ann Arbor campus is divided into three main areas: the North, Central and South Campuses. The physical infrastructure includes more than 300 major buildings, with a combined area of more than 29 million square feet (3 km²). The campus also consists of buildings scattered throughout the city, many occupied by organizations affiliated with the University of Michigan Health System. The university also has an office building called Wolverine Tower in southern Ann Arbor near Briarwood Mall. Another major facility is the
Matthaei Botanical Gardens, which is located on the eastern outskirts of Ann Arbor.
All three campus areas are connected by free
bus services, the majority of which connect the North and Central Campuses. There is a shuttle service connecting the University Hospital, which lies between North and Central Campuses, with other medical facilities throughout northeastern Ann Arbor. The Central and South Campus areas are contiguous, while the North Campus area is separated from them, primarily by the
Huron River.
Central Campus
|
Hill Auditorium, Burton Tower, and the Rackham Building |
Central Campus was the original location of UM when it moved to Ann Arbor in 1841. It originally had a school and dormitory building (where Mason Hall now stands) and several houses for professors on land bounded by North University Avenue, South University Avenue, East University Avenue, and State Street. Because Ann Arbor and Central Campus developed simultaneously, there is no distinct boundary between them, and some areas contain a mixture of private and university buildings. Central Campus is the location of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts and the medical campus. Most of the graduate and professional schools, including the Ross School of Business and the Law School, are on Central Campus. Ten of the buildings on Central Campus were designed by Detroit-based architect
Albert Kahn between 1904 and 1936. The most notable of the Kahn-designed buildings are the
Burton Memorial Tower and nearby
Hill Auditorium.
North Campus
 |
Much of North Campus has a modern architectural style. |
North Campus is the most contiguous campus, built independently from the city on a large plot of land the university bought in 1952. It is newer than Central Campus, and thus has more
modern architecture, whereas most Central Campus buildings are classical or gothic in style. The architect
Eero Saarinen, based in
Birmingham, Michigan, created one of the early master plans for North Campus and designed several of its buildings in the 1950s, including the Earl V. Moore School of Music Building.
[Carter, Brian (2000). Eero Saarinen-Operational Thoroughness A Way of Working. Dimensions Volume Fourteen.] North and Central Campuses each have unique bell towers that reflect the predominant architectural styles of their surroundings. North Campus houses the
College of Engineering, the Schools of Music, Theater & Dance, and Art and Design, the
Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and an annex of the School of Information.
South Campus
South Campus is the site for the athletic programs, including major sports facilities, such as
Michigan Stadium,
Crisler Arena, and
Yost Ice Arena. South Campus is also the site of the Buhr library storage facility (the collections of which are undergoing digitization by Google), the Institute for Continuing Legal Education, and the Student Theatre Arts Complex, which provides shop and rehearsal space for student theatre groups. The university's departments of public safety and transportation services offices are located on South Campus.
UM's golf course is located south of Michigan Stadium and Crisler Arena. It was designed in the late 1920s by
Alister MacKenzie, the designer of the
St. Andrews golf course in Scotland (home of the
British Open) and the
Augusta National Golf Club in
Augusta, Georgia (home of
The Masters Tournament).
[UM Golf Course (2006). MGoBlue.com.]The University of Michigan Golf Course was included in a listing of top holes designed by what Sports Illustrated (SI) calls "golf's greatest course architect." The U-M Golf Course's signature No. 6 hole�"a 310-yard par 4 which plays from an elevated tee to a two-tiered, kidney-shaped green protected by four bunkers�"is the second hole on the Alister MacKenzie Dream 18 as selected by a five-person panel that includes three-time Masters champion Nick Faldo and golf course architect Tom Doak. The listing of "the best holes ever designed by Augusta National architect Alister MacKenzie" is featured in SI's Golf Plus special edition previewing the Masters (April 4, 2006). The course was designed in the late 1920s by the legendary Alister MacKenzie, M.D., and opened to the public in the spring of 1931.
The University of Michigan's sports teams are called the
Wolverines. They participate in the
NCAA's
Division I-A and in the
Big Ten Conference in all sports except
ice hockey, which competes in the
Central Collegiate Hockey Association. In seven of the past ten years, UM has finished in the top five of the
NACDA Director's Cup, a ranking compiled by the
National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics to tabulate the success of universities in competitive sports. UM has finished in the top eleven of the Directors' Cup standings in each of the award's twelve seasons and has placed in the top six in each of the last eight seasons.
[Sports Academy Directors' Cup (2005). National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.] The University of Michigan remains the only school in NCAA history to win at least one national championship in all four of these sports:
football,
basketball,
ice hockey, and
baseball. UM athletics has also won national championships in tennis, field hockey, swimming and diving, and women's softball.
 |
A football game at Michigan Stadium |
The UM
football team won the first
Rose Bowl game in
1902, and through the 2005 season surpasses all other NCAA teams in both total wins (849) and winning percentage (.7442). The program is the only team to have been ranked in the final Top 20 (1985-88) or Top 25 (1989-2004) poll every year from 1985 to 2004.
[Top 10 Most Power Programs. SI.com (8-18-2003).] The last year in which UM did not receive a
bowl game invitation was 1974, which was also the last season in which Big 10 teams other than the champion were not eligible for bowls; UM's last losing season was in 1967. Since 1989, the Wolverines have won outright or shared seven Big Ten titles and won a
national championship. UM football has won eleven national championships overall, the most recent in
1997,
[University of Michigan Football - National Championships. University of Michigan Athletics History (2002).] and has produced three
Heisman Trophy winners including
Tom Harmon,
Desmond Howard and
Charles Woodson.
[Michigan in the Heisman Trophy Voting. MGoBlue.com (2005).] Michigan Stadium ("The Big House") is the largest college football-only stadium in the world, with an official capacity of more than 107,501 though attendance—frequently over 111,000 spectators—often exceeds the official capacity.
[Once Again the Biggest House, 1998. The Michigan Stadium Story found at the Bentley Historical Library at www.umich.edu/~bhl/.] The NCAA's record-breaking attendance has become commonplace at Michigan Stadium, especially since the arrival of head coach
Bo Schembechler (1969-1989). UM has fierce rivalries with many teams, including
Michigan State and
Notre Dame; however, its football
rivalry with
Ohio State is widely considered to be the fiercest in all of college athletics and has been referred to by
ESPN as the greatest rivalry in American sports.
[The 10 greatest rivalries (1-3-2005). ESPN.com] Moreover, UM has an all time winning record in football against Notre Dame (18-14-1), Ohio State (57-39-6), and Michigan State (32-19-2).
The men's
ice hockey team, which plays at
Yost Ice Arena, has won an NCAA record nine
national championships. The
men's basketball team, which plays at
Crisler Arena, won the
national championship in 1989. However, the men's basketball program became involved in a scandal involving payments from a booster during the 1990s. This led to the program's being placed on probation for a four-year period, with a ban on postseason play from 2002 to 2003. The program also voluntarily vacated victories from past seasons.
The men's baseball team won national championships in 1953 and 1962 and has sent 70 players to the major leagues.
[[1]]Through the
2004 Summer Olympic Games, 178 UM students and coaches had participated in the Olympics, winning medals in every
Summer Olympics except 1896, and winning gold medals in all but four Olympiads. UM students have won a total of 116 Olympic medals including 54 gold, 27 silver, and 35 bronze.
Residential life
|
Mosher-Jordan Residence Hall |
The University of Michigan has the sixth-largest campus housing system in the U.S. and the third-largest family housing operation, accommodating up to 12,562 people.
[Housing Fact Sheet. UM Housing (2005).] The dormitories, or residence halls, are organized into three distinct groups: Central Campus, Hill Area (between Central Campus and the University of Michigan Medical Center) and North Campus. Family housing is located on North Campus and mainly serves graduate students. The largest dormitory has a capacity of 1,277 students, while the smallest accommodates 31 residents. A majority of upper-class and graduate students live in off-campus apartments, houses, and
cooperatives, with the largest concentrations in the Central and South Campus areas. The higher cost of living in Ann Arbor has prompted some students to live in nearby communities such as
Ypsilanti or
Plymouth.
The residential system has a number of "living-learning communities" where academic activities and residential life are combined. These communities focus on areas such as research through the Michigan Research Community, medical sciences,
community service and the
German language. The Michigan Research Community, usually housed in Mosher-Jordan Hall, is currently relocating to the East Quadrangle (East Quad) due to renovations in former building. The Residential College (RC), a living-learning community that is a division of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, has its principal instructional space in East Quad of the residence hall system on Central Campus.
Groups and activities
There are more than 900 student clubs and organizations at the university.
[University of Michigan System Profile. July 2001.] With a history of student activism, some of the most visible groups include those dedicated to causes such as
civil rights and
labor rights. One of the most visible and controversial of these groups is BAMN, a "coalition to defend
affirmative action By Any Means Necessary." Though the student body generally leans toward
left-wing politics, there are also sizeable conservative and religious groups.
Fraternities and sororities, many of which are located east of Central Campus, play a major role in the university's social life.
Intramural sports are popular, and there are recreation facilities for each of the three campuses. There are also several engineering projects teams, including the
University of Michigan Solar Car Team, which placed first in the
American Solar Challenge four times and third in the
World Solar Challenge three times. The university also showcases a number of community service organizations and charitable projects, including
K-Grams,
Circle-K,
Alternative Medicine Club and
Ann Arbor Reaching Out.
|
Michigan Union on Central Campus |
The
Michigan Union and Michigan League are student activity centers located on Central Campus; Pierpont Commons is on North Campus. The Michigan Union houses a majority of student groups, including the student government. The William Monroe Trotter House, located east of Central Campus, is a multicultural student center operated by the university's Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs.
The
Michigan Marching Band is the university's
marching band. It is composed of over 350 students from almost all of the university's schools. They perform at every home game and travel to at least one away game a year. Being over 100 years old, the band is featured in almost every university recruitment pamphlet.
The Michigan Daily is the student-run daily newspaper. Other student publications include the conservative
The Michigan Review, the progressive
Michigan Independent,
The Michigan Israel Observer, and the humorous publications
The Michigan Every Three Weekly and the
Gargoyle.
WCBN (88.3 FM) is a freeform radio station;
WOLV-TV is a student-run television station that is primarily shown on the university's cable television system.
Student government
Housed in the Michigan Union, the
Michigan Student Assembly (MSA) is the central student government of the University. With representatives from each of the University's colleges and schools, the MSA represents students and manages student funds on the campus. The Michigan Student Assembly is a member of the statewide
Association of Michigan Universities. In recent years MSA has organized airBus, a transportation service between campus and the
Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, and has brought musical acts such as
Guster and
Ludacris to campus.
There are student governance bodies in each college and school. The two largest colleges at the University of Michigan are the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LS&A) and the College of Engineering. Students in the LS&A are represented by the LS&A Student Government. The University of Michigan Engineering Council manages student government affairs for the College of Engineering.
A longstanding goal of student government is to get a seat on the Board of Regents, the university's governing body. The effort is meant to achieve parity with other Big Ten schools that have student regents. In 2000, students Nick Waun and Scott Trudeau ran for the board on the state-wide ballot as third-party nominees. Waun ran for a second time in 2002, along with Matt Petering and Susan Fawcett. Although none of these campaigns has so far been successful, a recent poll shows that most students consider student activity fees to be taxation without representation on the board. Another poll conducted by the State of Michigan in 1998 concluded that a majority of Michigan voters would approve of such a position if the measure were put before them. A change to the board's makeup would require amending the
Michigan Constitution.
Fight song
The University of Michigan's
fight song is
The Victors, and it was written by student
Louis Elbel in 1898 following the last-minute football victory over the
University of Chicago that clinched a league championship. The song was declared by
John Philip Sousa as "the greatest college fight song ever written."
The song refers to the university as being the "Champions of the West". At the time, UM was part of the "Western Conference", which would later become the
Big Ten Conference.
The university's
alma mater song is
The Yellow and Blue. A common rally cry is "Let's Go Blue!", written by former student Joseph Carl, a tuba player and
drum major. Although mainly used at sporting events, the fight song can be heard at other competitive events that UM wins. The fight song is also sung during graduation commencement ceremonies.
There are more than 425,000 living UM
alumni, among the largest number of living alumni of any American university. Several astronauts are UM alumni, including the all-UM crews of both
Gemini 4 and
Apollo 15. UM's contribution to aeronautics also include aircraft designer
Clarence "Kelly" Johnson of
Skunk Works fame. In addition to former
U.S. president Gerald Ford, the university has produced twenty-five
Rhodes scholars and 116
Olympic medalists, as well as seven
Nobel Prize winners and a
Fields medal winner
Stephen Smale. UM alumni founded or co-founded such companies as
Sun Microsystems,
Borders Books,
Walgreen's,
H&R Block,
Domino's Pizza,Merrill Lynch,Avis Rent a Car, and
Google. A UM alumnus co-founded the
Mayo Clinic medical center. Notable writers who attended UM include playwright
Arthur Miller, screenwriter
Judith Guest, and authors
Charles Major and
Sandra Steingraber, as well as composer/author/puppeteer
Forman Brown. In
Hollywood, famous alumni include actor
James Earl Jones, actresses
Lucy Liu,
Selma Blair, and
Ruth Hussey, and filmmaker
Lawrence Kasdan. Other UM graduates include TV journalist
Mike Wallace,
Dana Jacobson of
ESPN,
Rich Eisen of the
NFL Network, former House Minority Leader
Dick Gephardt, "Unabomber"
Theodore Kaczynski, Super Bowl MVPs
Tom Brady and
Desmond Howard,
1997 Heisman Trophy winner
Charles Woodson, conservative pundit
Ann Coulter, Pulitzer Prize winning poet
Theodore Roethke, assisted suicide advocate
Jack Kevorkian,
Weather Underground radical activist
Bill Ayers,
[Bill Ayers, Fugitive Days: A Memoir, (New York: Penguin Books, 2003)] activist
Tom Hayden, architect
Charles Moore,
Mannheim Steamroller founder
Chip Davis, the Swedish Holocaust hero
Raoul Wallenberg, and the Civil War general who captured Jefferson Davis -
Benjamin D. Pritchard.
[James J. Green, The Life and Times of General B. D. Pritchard (Allegan: Allegan County Historical Society, 1979), p. 2.] The pop singer
Madonna and rock legend
Iggy Pop attended but did not graduate.
Captain Doughlas A. Block who commanded combat War ship
USS Simpson (FFG-56) the second
frigate ship in
US Navy history to sink an enemy ship. Block was part of the teaching of
NROTC.
The university claims the only alumni association with a chapter on the
moon, established in 1971 when the all-UM crew of Apollo 15 placed a charter plaque for a new UM Alumni Association on the lunar surface.
[About the Association - Famous U-M Alumni (2005). UMAlumni.com.] According to the Apollo 15 astronauts, several small UM flags were brought on the mission. However, no flag made it to the surface, much less was left there. The presence of a UM flag on the moon is a long-held campus myth.
[Debunking the Moon Myth (2006). Michigandaily.com]
*
Facts & Figures (2005).
University of Michigan Office of Budget & Planning at sitemaker.umich.edu/obpinfo/facts___figures.
*
University of Michigan - Official website
*
Español (Spanish) University of Michigan portal*
University of Michigan Board of Regents*
University of Michigan President*
Official athletics website*
Maps of campuses*
Various images of the campus*
UM Information Technology Central Services*
UM Marketing Communications - central marketing & graphic/web design services
