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The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (U of M, U-M, UM, UMich, or simply Michigan) is a public research university located in the state of Michigan. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan, which also includes two regional campuses in Flint and Dearborn.
The university was founded in 1817 in Detroit as the Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania, about 20 years before the Michigan Territory officially became a state.
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Encyclopedia
The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (U of M, U-M, UM, UMich, or simply Michigan) is a public research university located in the state of Michigan. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan, which also includes two regional campuses in Flint and Dearborn.
The university was founded in 1817 in Detroit as the Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania, about 20 years before the Michigan Territory officially became a state. The university moved to Ann Arbor in 1837 onto 40 acres (16 ha) of what is now known as Central Campus. Since its establishment in Ann Arbor, the university has physically expanded to include more than 500 major buildings with a combined area of more than 29 million square feet (664 acres or 2.69 km²), and transformed its academic program from a strictly classical curriculum to one that includes science and research. During the 20th century and early 2000s, UM was the site of much student activism and was a focal point in the controversy over affirmative action within higher education admissions.
Today, the university is a major research institution and is considered one of the original eight Public Ivies. In the most recent edition of World University Rankings, the university was ranked the 18th best university worldwide. Having graduated the largest number of living alumni at 460,000, the university covers four main geographical areas within Ann Arbor (Central, North, South, and Medical). UM owns the renowned University of Michigan Health System and has one of the largest research expenditures of any American university. Its athletic teams, called the Wolverines, are members of the Big Ten Conference and the Central Collegiate Hockey Association. The athletic program is known for its success in ice hockey and football, the latter of which plays in Michigan Stadium, the largest college football-only stadium in the world.
History
The University of Michigan was established in Detroit in 1817 as the Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania, by the governor and judges of Michigan Territory. The Rev. John Monteith was one of the university's founders and its first President. Ann Arbor had set aside 40 acres (16 ha) that it hoped would become the site for a new state capitol, but it offered this land to the university when Lansing was chosen as the state capital. The university moved to Ann Arbor in 1837. The original 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 1866 enrollment increased to 1,205 students, many of whom were Civil War veterans, and women were first admitted in 1870. 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. UM also became the first American university to use the seminar method of study.
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 residence halls. The university fortified its reputation for research in 1920 by reorganizing the College of Engineering and forming a potent advisory committee of 100 industrialists to guide academic research initiatives. The university became a favorite alternative choice for Jewish students from New York in the 1920s and 1930s when the Ivy League schools were applying a quota to the number of Jews to be admitted. As a result, UM gained the nickname "Harvard of the West," which became commonly parodied in reverse after John F. Kennedy referred to himself as "a graduate of the Michigan of the East, Harvard University" in his speech proposing the formation of the Peace Corps while on the front steps of the Michigan Union.
During World War II, UM's research grew to include U.S. Navy projects such as 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. At present, much of that work, as well as research into alternative energy sources, is pursued via the Memorial Phoenix Project.
On October 14, 1960, Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy proposed the concept of what became the Peace Corps on the steps of Michigan Union. Lyndon B. Johnson's speech outlining his Great Society program also occurred at UM. Also during the 1960s, UM saw many protests by student groups. On March 24, 1965, a group of UM faculty members and 3,000 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–UM's administration banned sit-ins. This stimulated 1,500 students to conduct a further one-hour sit-in the LSA Building, which then housed administrative offices. Former UM student and noted architect Alden B. Dow designed the current Fleming Administration Building, which was completed in 1968. The building's plans were drawn in the early 1960s, before student activism prompted a concern for safety. Nevertheless, the Fleming Building's narrow windows, all located above the first floor, and fortress-like exterior led to a campus rumor that it was designed to be riot-proof. Dow denied those rumors, claiming the small windows were designed to be energy efficient.
During the 1970s, severe budget constraints challenged the university's physical development; however, 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 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. The university is currently engaged in a $2.5 billion construction campaign. In 2009, the university consummated a deal to purchase a facility formerly owned by Pfizer. The acquisition includes over of property, and 30 major buildings comprising roughly of wet laboratory space, and of administrative space. As of the purchase date, the university's intentions for the space were not announced, but the expectation is that the new space will allow the university to ramp up its research and ultimately employ in excess of 2,000 people.
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 court found that race may be considered as a factor in university admissions in all public universities and private universities that accept federal funding. However, a point system was ruled as being unconstitutional. 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. The debate still continues, however, because in November 2006 Michigan voters passed Proposal 2, banning most affirmative action in university admissions. Under that law race, gender, and national origin can no longer be considered in admissions. UM and other organizations were granted a stay from implementation of the passed proposal soon after that election, and this has allowed time for proponents of affirmative action to decide legal and constitutional options in response to the election results. The university has stated it plans to continue to challenge the ruling; in the meantime, the admissions office states that it will attempt to achieve a diverse student body by looking at other factors such as whether the student attended a disadvantaged school, and the level of education of the student's parents.
Campus
The Ann Arbor campus is divided into four main areas: the North, Central, Medical, and South Campuses. The physical infrastructure includes more than 500 major buildings, with a combined area of more than 29 million square feet (664 acres or 2.69 km²). The Central and South Campus areas are contiguous, while the North Campus area is separated from them, primarily by the Huron River. There are also leased space in buildings scattered throughout the city, many occupied by organizations affiliated with the University of Michigan Health System. An East Medical Campus has recently been developed on Plymouth Road, with several university-owned buildings for outpatient care, diagnostics, and outpatient surgery.
In addition to the UM Golf Course on South Campus, the university operates a second golf course called "Radrick Farms Golf Course" on Geddes Road. The golf course is only open to faculty, staff, and alumni. Another off-campus facility is the Inglis House, which the university has owned since the 1950s. The Inglis House is a 10,000 square foot (930 m²) mansion used to hold various social events, including meetings of the board of regents, and to host visiting dignitaries. The university also operates a large 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 four campus areas are connected by 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.
Central Campus
Central Campus was the original location of UM when it moved to Ann Arbor in 1837. 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 the city and university, 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 is immediately adjacent to the medical campus. Most of the graduate and professional schools, including the Ross School of Business and the Law School, are on Central Campus. Two prominent libraries, the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library and the Shapiro Undergraduate Library which are connected by a skywalk, are also on Central Campus, as well as museums housing collections in archeology, anthropology, paleontology, zoology, dentistry, and art. 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
North Campus is the most contiguous campus, built independently from the city on a large plot of farm land—approximately 800 acres (3.25 km²)—that 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. North and Central Campuses each have unique bell towers that reflect the predominant architectural styles of their surroundings. Each of the bell towers houses a grand carillon. The North Campus tower is called Lurie Tower. The University of Michigan's largest residence hall, Bursley Hall, is located on North Campus.
North Campus houses the College of Engineering, the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, and Art and Design, the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and an annex of the School of Information. The campus is served by the Duderstadt Center, which houses books on art, architecture, and engineering. The Duderstadt Center also contains multiple computer labs, video editing studios, and a 3D virtual reality room. Other libraries located on North Campus include the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and the Bentley Historical Library.
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 Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia (home of The Masters Tournament). The course opened to the public in the spring of 1931. The University of Michigan Golf Course was included in a listing of top holes designed by what Sports Illustrated calls “golf’s greatest course architect.” The UM Golf Course’s signature No. 6 hole—a 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 in April 4, 2006.
Organization and administration
The University of Michigan comprises a flagship campus in Ann Arbor, with two regional campuses in Dearborn and Flint. The Board of Regents, which governs the university and was established by the Organic Act of March 18, 1837, consists of eight members elected at large in biennial state elections for overlapping eight year terms. Between the establishment of the University of Michigan in 1837 and 1850, the Board of Regents ran the university directly; although they were, by law, supposed to appoint a Chancellor to administer the university, they never did. Instead a rotating roster of professors carried out the day-to-day administration duties.
The President of the University of Michigan is the principal executive officer of the university. The office was created by the Michigan Constitution of 1850, which also specified that the president was to be appointed by the Regents of the University of Michigan and preside at their meetings, but without a vote. Today, the president's office is at the Ann Arbor campus, and the president has the privilege of living in the President's House, one of the university's oldest buildings located on Central Campus in Ann Arbor.
There are thirteen undergraduate schools and colleges. By enrollment, the three largest undergraduate units are the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, the College of Engineering, and the Ross School of Business. At the graduate level, the Rackham Graduate School serves as the central administrative unit of graduate education at the university. There are eighteen graduate schools and colleges, the largest of which are the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and College of Engineering, the Law School, and the Ross School of Business. Professional degrees are conferred by the Schools of Dentistry, Law, Medicine, and Pharmacy. The Medical School is partnered with the University of Michigan Health System, which comprises the university's three hospitals, dozens of outpatient clinics, and many centers for medical care, research, and education.
Endowment
UM's financial endowment (the "University Endowment Fund") was valued at $7.57 billion in NACUBO's 2008 ranking. It was the seventh largest endowment in the U.S. and the third-largest among U.S public universities at that time, as well as the fastest growing endowment in the nation over the last 21 years. The endowment is primarily used according to the donors' wishes, which include the support of teaching and research. In mid-2000, UM embarked on a massive fund-raising campaign called "The Michigan Difference," which aimed to raise $2.5 billion, with $800 million designated for the permanent endowment. Slated to run through December 2008, the university announced that the campaign had reached its target 19 months early in May 2007. Like nearly all colleges and universities, Michigan lost significant amounts of money from their endowment during the second half of 2008. In February 2009, a university spokesperson estimated losses of between 20 and 30 percent.
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 led the university's efforts to register its student population to vote, with its Voice Your Vote Commission (VYV) registering 109,000 students in 2004. VYV also works to improve access to non-partisan voting-related information and increase student voter turnout. MSA has also been successful at reviving Homecoming activities, including a carnival and parade, for students after a roughly eleven-year absence in October 2007.
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 (LSA SG). The University of Michigan Engineering Council (UMEC) manages student government affairs for the College of Engineering. In addition, the students that live in the residence halls are represented by the University of Michigan Residence Halls Association.
A longstanding goal of the student government is to create a student-designated seat on the Board of Regents, the university's governing body. Such a designation would 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 been successful, a 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.
Academics
Accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, the University of Michigan is a large public, primarily residential research university with a majority of enrollments coming from undergraduate students. The full-time four year undergraduate program is classified as "more selective" with a lower transfer-in rate. The undergraduate instructional program has an arts and sciences plus professions focus with high graduate student coexistence, while the graduate instructional program is classified as comprehensive doctoral which includes medical/veterinary sciences.
With more than 70% of UM's 200 major programs, departments, and schools ranked in the top 10 in the United States, UM's academic reputation has led to its inclusion on Richard Moll's list of Public Ivies. The university routinely has led in the number of Fulbright Scholars in the late 1990s and 2000s, and has also matriculated 26 Rhodes Scholars.
A concern about academics at UM is the high level of educational expenses for a public institution, especially for out-of-state undergraduate students, who pay between US $31,301 and $36,352 annually for tuition alone. In 2005, out-of-state tuition at UM was the most expensive in the United States for a public college or university. Conversely, in-state undergraduate students paid between US $10,447 and $14,442 annually. Notwithstanding the quoted tuition levels, the university is attempting to increase financial aid availability to students. To that end, the university has built, as part of its larger university campaign, a greater than $1.4 billion endowment in order to support aid to students.
Student body profile
The university has 26,083 undergraduate and 14,959 graduate students in 600 academic programs, and each year about 5,400 new students are enrolled out of almost 30,000 applicants, of which almost 42% are admitted. Students come from all 50 U.S. states and more than 100 countries. 98% of the university's incoming class of 2006 earned a high school GPA of 3.0 and higher, while the middle 50% of the incoming class earned a high school GPA of 3.60 to 3.90. The middle 50% of applicants reported an SAT score of about 1920–2180 and an ACT score of 28-32, with AP credit granted to over 3000 freshmen students. Among full-time students, who make up about 96% of the student body, the university has a first-time student retention rate of 96%.
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 Kinesiology, School of Nursing, the School of Natural Resources and Environment, and the School of Art and Design. Among undergraduates, 70% graduate with a bachelor's degree within four years, with 86% graduating within five years and 88% graduating within six years. Out of the eighteen graduate schools and colleges, most Master's level students are enrolled in the College of Engineering and the Ross School of Business, while most doctorate students attend the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, College of Engineering, and the Law School. Students pursuing professional degrees attend the Schools of Dentistry, Law, Medicine (which has the highest enrollment among the schools granting professional degrees), and Pharmacy.
Research
The university is one of the founding members (1900) of the Association of American Universities. With over 6,200 faculty members, 73 of whom are members of the National Academy and 451 of whom hold an endowed chair in their discipline, the university manages one of the largest annual collegiate research budgets of any university in the United States, totaling about $775 million per annum from 2004 to 2005, and $797 million in 2006, $823 million as of year end 2007, and $876 million as of the academic year 2007/8. The Medical School spent the most at over US $333 million, while the College of Engineering was second at more than $131 million. 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 (the Merit Network) and through UM-alumni Claude Shannon has made major contributions to the mathematics of information theory. Other major contributions included the precursor to the National Science Foundation computer networking backbone and the virtual memory model. The university is also a major contributor to the medical field with the EKG, gastroscope, and the announcement of Jonas Salk's polio vaccine. The university's 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. The Correlates of War project, also located at UM, is an accumulation of scientific knowledge about 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 and the Life Sciences Institute are located at the university. The Institute for Social Research (ISR), the nation's longest-standing laboratory for interdisciplinary research in the social sciences, is home to the Survey Research Center, Research Center for Group Dynamics, Center for Political Studies, Population Studies Center, and Inter-Consortium for Political and Social Research. Undergraduate students are able to participate in various research projects through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) as well as the UROP/Creative-Programs.
The UM library system comprises 19 individual libraries with 24 separate collections—roughly 8.27 million volumes, growing at the rate of 177,000 volumes a year. 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 a book digitization program in collaboration with Google. As of August 31, 2006, UM has rolled out the first phase of the Google archive retrieval.
UM recently joined the Michigan State University and Wayne State University to create the University Research Corridor. This effort was undertaken to highlight the capabilities of the state's three leading research institutions and drive the transformation of Michigan's economy.
Student life
Residential life
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. The 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 residence hall has a capacity of 1,277 students, while the smallest accommodates 31 residents. A majority of upper-division and graduate students live in off-campus apartments, houses, and cooperatives, with the largest concentrations in the Central and South Campus areas.
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 is housed in Mosher-Jordan Hall. The Residential College (RC), a living-learning community that is a division of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, also has its principal instructional space in East Quad. In 2006, the university approved plans for a new residence complex for 550 students on the northern corner of Central Campus. When completed, this residence complex will comprise a second living-learning community.
Groups and activities
There are more than 1150 student clubs and organizations at the university. With a history of student activism, some of the most visible groups include those dedicated to causes such as civil rights and labor rights. The most notable of these groups were Students for a Democratic Society, which recently reformed with a new chapter on campus as of February 2007, the Weather Underground, and Students for a Safer Ann Arbor. Though the student body generally leans toward left-wing politics, there are also conservative groups, such as YAF, non-partisan groups such as the Roosevelt Institution. There are also several engineering projects teams, including the University of Michigan Solar Car Team, which placed first in the North American Solar Challenge five times and third in the World Solar Challenge three times. Michigan Interactive Investments and the Michigan Economics Society are also affiliated with the university. The university also showcases many community service organizations and charitable projects, including the University of Michigan Dance Marathon, Relay For Life, UM Stars for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, SERVE, Letters to Success, The Alliance for World AIDS Relief and Education (AWARE), PROVIDES, Circle K, The Detroit Project, Habitat for Humanity, and Ann Arbor Reaching Out. Intramural sports are popular, and there are recreation facilities for each of the three campuses.
Fraternities and sororities, many of which are located east of Central Campus, play a role in the university's social life. UM is home to four different councils making up the majority of fraternities and sororites on campus. These are: the Interfraterniy Council, Multicultural Greek Council, National Pan-Hellenic Council, and Panhellenic Association.
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 University Activities Center (UAC) is a student-run programming organization and is composed of 15 committees. Each group involves students in the planning and execution of a variety of events both on and off campus.
The Michigan Marching Band, composed of over 350 students from almost all of UM's schools, is the university's marching band. Over 100 years old, the band performs at every home game and travels to at least one away game a year. The student-run and led University of Michigan Pops Orchestra is another musical ensemble that attracts students from all academic backgrounds. It performs regularly in the Michigan Theater. The University of Michigan Men's Glee Club, founded in 1859, is a men's chorus with over 100 members. Its eight member subset a cappella group, the University of Michigan Friars, which was founded in 1955, is the oldest currently running a cappella group on campus.
The Michigan Daily is the student-run daily newspaper. Founded in 1890, The Daily is published five days a week during the normal academic year, and weekly during the spring and summer terms. Other student publications at the university include the conservative The Michigan Review, the progressive Michigan Independent, the Michigan Journal of Political Science, The Michigan Journal of Business, the University of Michigan Undergraduate Research Forum (UMURF), and the humor 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.
Athletics
The University of Michigan's sports teams are called the Wolverines. They participate in the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision (formally Division I-A) and in the Big Ten Conference in all sports except men's ice hockey, which is a member of 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.
The UM football program ranks first in NCAA history in both total wins (872) and winning percentage (.740). The team won the first Rose Bowl game in 1902. UM had 40 consecutive winning seasons from 1968 to 2007, including consecutive bowl game appearances from 1975 to 2007. The Wolverines have won a record 42 Big Ten championships, including five in the past decade. The program has eleven national championships, most recently in 1997, and has produced three Heisman Trophy winners: Tom Harmon, Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson.
Michigan Stadium is the largest college football-only stadium in the world, with an official capacity of more than 107,501 (the extra seat is said to be "reserved" for Fielding H. Yost) though attendance—frequently over 111,000 spectators—regularly exceeds the official capacity. The NCAA's record-breaking attendance has become commonplace at Michigan Stadium, especially since the arrival of head coach Bo Schembechler. UM has fierce rivalries with many teams, including Michigan State, Notre Dame, and Ohio State, the latter of which has been referred to by ESPN as the greatest rivalry in American sports, along with the Notre Dame-USC and Army-Navy rivalries. UM has all-time winning records against Michigan State University, University of Notre Dame, and Ohio State University.
The men's ice hockey team, which plays at Yost Ice Arena, has won nine national championships, while the men's basketball team, which plays at Crisler Arena, has appeared in four Final Fours and won a national championship in 1989. However, the program became involved in a scandal involving payments from a booster during the 1990s. This led to the program being placed on probation for a four-year period. The program also voluntarily vacated victories from its 1992–1993 and 1995–1999 seasons in which the payments took place, as well as its 1992 and 1993 Final Four appearances.
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: 54 gold, 27 silver, and 35 bronze.
Fight song
The University of Michigan's fight song, The Victors, 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. Michigan was considered to be on the Western Frontier when it was founded in the old Northwest Territory. Although mainly used at sporting events, the fight song can be heard at other events. President Gerald Ford had it played as his entrance anthem in preference over the more traditional Hail to the Chief during his term from 1974 to 1977. The fight song is also sung during graduation commencement ceremonies. The university's alma mater song is The Yellow and Blue. A common rally cry is "Let's Go Blue!", written by former students Joseph Carl, a sousaphonist, and Albert Ahronheim, a drum major.
Notable people and alumni
UM has more than 445,000 living graduates, reportedly one of the largest alumni bodies on earth. In addition to the late U.S. president Gerald Ford, the university has produced twenty-six Rhodes scholars and 116 Olympic medalists, seven Nobel Prize winners, and Fields Medal winner Stephen Smale. UM's contribution to aeronautics also include aircraft designer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson of Lockheed Skunk Works fame, Lockheed president Willis Hawkins, as well as several astronauts, including the all-UM crew of Gemini 4. UM counts among its matriculants sixteen billionaires, as well as a number of alumni who have founded or co-founded many companies and organizations, including Dr. J. Robert Beyster who founded Science Applications International Corporation in 1969 and Google co-founder Larry Page (see also: List of Entities Founded by University of Michigan alumni).
Notable writers who attended UM include playwright Arthur Miller, novelists Brad Meltzer and Betty Smith, screenwriter Judith Guest, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Theodore Roethke, authors Charles Major and Sandra Steingraber, and composer/author/puppeteer Forman Brown. In Hollywood, famous alumni include actor James Earl Jones, actresses Lucy Liu and Selma Blair, and filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan. Musicians who graduated from the university include singer Joe Dassin, operatic soprano Jessye Norman, jazz guitarist Randy Napoleon, and Mannheim Steamroller founder Chip Davis. Reality television stars include Adam Mesh who appeared on Average Joe, Joshua Schwadron who won Fear Factor and Judd Winick and Lindsay Brien who were both on MTV's Real World.
Other UM graduates include TV journalist Mike Wallace, former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, conservative pundit Ann Coulter, assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, Weather Underground radical activist Bill Ayers, activist Tom Hayden, architect Charles Moore, the Swedish Holocaust hero Raoul Wallenberg, and Benjamin D. Pritchard, the Civil War general who captured Jefferson Davis. Clarence Darrow attended the Law School at a time when many lawyers did not receive any formal education. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon and CNN medical correspondent, attended the UM School of Medicine. Ryan Drummond later went on to voice Sonic the Hedgehog (character) in the series of video games from 1999-2004. Pop singer Madonna, professional baseball player Derek Jeter, and rock legend Iggy Pop attended but did not graduate.
UM athletes have starred in the National Football League and National Basketball Association as well as other professional sports. Notable among recent players is Tom Brady of the New England Patriots. Three players have won college football's Heisman Trophy, awarded to the player considered the best in the nation: Tom Harmon (1940), Desmond Howard (1991) and Charles Woodson (1997). Professional golfer John Schroeder and Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps also attended the University of Michigan, with the latter studying Sports Marketing and Management. Phelps also swam competitively for Club Wolverine, a swimming club associated with the university.
The university claims the only alumni association with a chapter on the moon, established in 1971 when the crew of Apollo 15 placed a charter plaque for a new UM Alumni Association on the lunar surface. According to the Apollo 15 astronauts, several small UM flags were brought on the mission. However, no flag made it to the surface or was left there. The presence of a UM flag on the moon is a long-held campus myth.
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