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==Campus==
==Campus==
[[image:umichnorthcampus.jpg|thumb|right|220px|The Bell Tower reflects the architectural style of North Campus.]]
[[image:AngellHall.jpg|thumb|right|220px|Angell Hall, in central campus, houses the school of Literature, Science, and the Arts.]]
The three thousand plus acres of the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan are divided into three main areas: North Campus, Central Campus, and South Campus. The physical plant is comprised of more than 300 major buildings with a combined area of more than 29 million square feet (3 km²).
The three thousand plus acres of the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan are divided into three main areas: North Campus, Central Campus, and South Campus. The physical plant is comprised of more than 300 major buildings with a combined area of more than 29 million square feet (3 km²).


North Campus houses the College of Engineering, the Schools of Music and Art and Design, and the Taubman College of [[Architecture]] and [[Urban Planning]]. The College of Literature, Science and the Arts and most of the graduate and professional schools occupy Central Campus, with the Medical Center between North and Central Campuses. South Campus houses the athletic programs, the Buhr library storage facility, Institute for Continuing Legal Education, and the Student Theatre Arts Complex, which provides shop and rehearsal space for student theatre groups. Central and North Campuses differ notably in architecture; while the buildings in the former appear rather classical or gothic, the latter has a much more [[Modern Architecture|modern architectural]] look. North and Central Campuses each have unique bell towers which reflect the predominant architectural style of their surroundings.
[[image:umichnorthcampus.jpg|thumb|right|220px|The Bell Tower reflects the architectural style of North Campus.]] North Campus houses the College of Engineering, the Schools of Music and Art and Design, and the Taubman College of [[Architecture]] and [[Urban Planning]]. The College of Literature, Science and the Arts and most of the graduate and professional schools occupy Central Campus, with the Medical Center between North and Central Campuses. South Campus houses the athletic programs, the Buhr library storage facility, Institute for Continuing Legal Education, and the Student Theatre Arts Complex, which provides shop and rehearsal space for student theatre groups. Central and North Campuses differ notably in architecture; while the buildings in the former appear rather classical or gothic, the latter has a much more [[Modern Architecture|modern architectural]] look. North and Central Campuses each have unique bell towers which reflect the predominant architectural style of their surroundings.


Ten of the buildings on Central Campus were designed by [[Detroit]]-based architect [[Albert Kahn]] between [[1904]] and [[1936]], while [[Birmingham, Michigan]]-based [[Eero Saarinen]] created one of the early master plans for North Campus and designed several of its buildings in the [[1950s]] [http://www.tcaup.umich.edu/publications/dimensions/dimfourteen.html]. The most notable of the Kahn-designed buildings are the prominent Burton Memorial Tower and nearby Hill Auditorium; Saarinen designed the [http://www.music.umich.edu/resources/facilities/moore.html Earl V Moore School of Music Building].
Ten of the buildings on Central Campus were designed by [[Detroit]]-based architect [[Albert Kahn]] between [[1904]] and [[1936]], while [[Birmingham, Michigan]]-based [[Eero Saarinen]] created one of the early master plans for North Campus and designed several of its buildings in the [[1950s]] [http://www.tcaup.umich.edu/publications/dimensions/dimfourteen.html]. The most notable of the Kahn-designed buildings are the prominent Burton Memorial Tower and nearby Hill Auditorium; Saarinen designed the [http://www.music.umich.edu/resources/facilities/moore.html Earl V Moore School of Music Building].

Revision as of 02:48, 22 July 2005

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

University of Michigan Seal

MottoArtes, Scientia, Veritas
(Latin, "Arts, science, truth")
Established 1817
School type Public University
President Mary Sue Coleman
Location Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Enrollment 25,000 undergraduate,
14,000 graduate
Faculty 4,196
Endowment US$4.2 billion
Campus Ann Arbor, 3,177 acres (13 km²); (12.86 km²)

Total, 20,965 acres (84.84 km²) (inclusive of arboretums)

Sports teams Teams are called the Wolverines. 12 men's varsity teams, 14 women's; 2 each men's and women's club varsity teams. UM Athletics
Website www.umich.edu

The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is a public coeducational university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The oldest and primary campus of the University of Michigan, U of M Ann Arbor, is one of the world's leading research institutions, and is consistently ranked as one of the top public academic institutions worldwide.

The University's professional graduate schools (law school, medical school, business school, school of engineering, and school of education) are perennially ranked by US News & World Report as some of the best in the country. Considered to be a Public Ivy, it is also highly respected for its departments of philosophy, economics, political science, history, and mathematics.

History

Main article: History of the University of Michigan

The University of Michigan was established in 1817 by the Michigan Territorial legislature as one of the United States' first public universities on 1,920 acres (8 km²) of land ceded by the Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi people. The school moved from Detroit to Ann Arbor in 1837. Hoping to be tapped as the site for the new state capitol, Ann Arbor had set aside 40 acres of land, which was subsequently offered to the University. The ceded acreage in Detroit was sold and the proceeds remain in the University's permanent endowment.

The first classes were held in 1841; six freshmen and a sophomore were taught by two professors. Eleven men graduated in the first commencement ceremony, in 1845. By 1865-66, the university's enrollment increased to 1,205 students, with many of the new enrollees veterans of the Civil War.

The first two decades of the twentieth century saw a construction boom on campus that included facilities to house the dental and pharmacy programs, a chemistry building, a building for the study of natural sciences, two residence halls, Hill Auditorium, and large hospital and library complexes. The school's position as a prominent research university 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, the university grew into a true research powerhouse, undertaking major initiatives on behalf of the U.S. Navy and contributing to weapons development with breakthroughs including the V.T. Fuse, depth bombs, the PT boat, and radar jammers. By 1950, university enrollment had reached 21,000, of whom 7,700 were veterans supported by the G.I. Bill.

File:Jfkatmichiganunion.jpg
John F. Kennedy outlines his vision for the Peace Corps on the steps of the Michigan Union.

As the Cold War and the Space Race took shape, Michigan became a principal recipient of government research grants, and its researchers were on the vanguard of exploring peacetime uses for atomic power. In a 1966 report by the American Council on Education, the university was rated first or second in the nation in graduate teaching of all twenty-eight disciplines surveyed.

On March 24, 1964, a group of faculty held the nation's first "teach-in" to protest American policy in Southeast Asia. 2,500 students attended the event. A series of 1966 sit-ins by Voice, the campus political party of Students for a Democratic Society, prompted the administration to ban sit-ins, a move that, in turn, led 1,500 students to conduct a one-hour sit-in in the administration building.

During the 1970s, severe budget constraints hindered to some extent the university's physical development and academic standing but eventually saw a surge in funds devoted to research in the social and physical sciences, although campus controversy arose over involvement in the anti-missile Strategic Defense Initiative and investments in South Africa. During the 1980s and 1990s, the university devoted substantial resources to renovating its massive hospital complex and improving the academic facilities on the school's North Campus. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the university emphasized uses for computer and information technology throughout the campus.

In 2003, two lawsuits involving the school'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, though the eventual ruling was mixed. 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.

Academics

The university has over 24,800 undergraduate students and over 14,900 graduate students with over 600 academic programs. Students come from all 50 states and over 100 countries, though the university admits less than 50% of applicants. 98% of applicants had a graduation high school GPA over 3.0. Each class year at Michigan numbers over 6,250 students. The upper quartile of each Michigan class is thus 2 to 3 times the size of the inter-quartile class of the Ivy League schools, yet with a minimum board score hovering around 1400, that quartile is academically competitive with the Ivy League average of 1420. As a result, Michigan numbers within its enrollment somewhat weaker students as well as a cohort competitive with, and as large as, the Ivy League schools. Diversity is valued at the university, as 15% newly enrolled undergraduates are minorities.

About 65% of undergraduate students are enrolled in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LS&A). The university has a top ranking engineering school which enrolls approximately 25% of undergraduate students. Less than 3% of undergraduate students are enrolled in the highly selective Ross School of Business which students apply to after being enrolled at the university for two years. The rest of the undergraduate students are scattered throughout the smaller colleges on campus including the School of Music, the School of Nursing, and the School of Art and Design.

Most graduate students are enrolled in LS&A, the College of Engineering, the Law School, and the Medical School. The Medical School is partnered with one of the largest health care complexes in the world, the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS).

The University routinely leads the nation in the number of Fulbright Scholars and has several Rhodes Scholars. The university's combination of academics and athletics places it high in college ratings. In one recent rankings summary, more than 70% of Michigan's more than 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 [1].

Libraries and Museums

The University Library system is the sixth largest library system in the country. It is comprised of 19 individual libraries with 24 separate collections, roughly 7.96 million volumes, 67,554 current serials, 343,915 maps, 39,604 linear feet of mansucripts and archives, and over 85,000 film, video, and audio materials. The collection grows at the rate of 150,000 volumes, or roughly 2.5 miles (4 km), per year. The University was the original home of the JSTOR database with about 750,000 pages digitized from the entire pre-1990 backfile of ten journals of history and economics. The University recently entered into a path-breaking book digitization program with Google.

Two prominent libraries, the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library and the Shapiro Undergraduate Library, are located on Central Campus and connected by a skywalk. The Duderstadt Center on North Campus contains books for art, architecture, and engineering. The Duderstadt Center also contains multiple computer labs, video editing studios, and a 3D virtual reality room.

The University of Michigan is also home to a number of museums which cover topics such as archeology, anthropology, paleontology, zoology, dentistry, and art. The natural history public collections can be found 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 as the official state fossil, the mastodon. The Museum of Zoology collection includes over 15 million specimens representing all orders of birds, amphibians and reptiles, mites, and insects, and over 80% of orders of fish and mollusks. One of the more famous museums is the University of Michigan Museum of Art which has approximately 14,000 art pieces, including European, American, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African, as well as changing exhibits.

Research

The University has the largest yearly research expenditure of any public university in the United States, totaling roughly $750 million in 2004.

The University was at the center of the development of one of the first university networks and has made major contributions to the mathematics of information theory, notably through Claude Shannon. Other major contributions include the construction of the precursor to the National Science Foundation (NSF) computer networking backbone, the virtual memory model, and computer databases. The National Election Studies and one of the nation's most watched economic index, the University of Michigan's Consumer Confidence Index, are based at the University.

The University is also a major contributor to the medical field, with the EKG, gastroscope, Jonas Salk's polio vaccine, and the ECMO (extracorporal membrane oxygenation) system being invented at the University. Currently, the University is breaking new ground in femtosecond keratectomy using chirped-pulse lasers. Huge support was recently given to the life sciences with the establishment of the Life Sciences Institute (LSI) 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. These programs received a #1 national ranking [2].

Campus

Angell Hall, in central campus, houses the school of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

The three thousand plus acres of the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan are divided into three main areas: North Campus, Central Campus, and South Campus. The physical plant is comprised of more than 300 major buildings with a combined area of more than 29 million square feet (3 km²).

File:Umichnorthcampus.jpg
The Bell Tower reflects the architectural style of North Campus.

North Campus houses the College of Engineering, the Schools of Music and Art and Design, and the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. The College of Literature, Science and the Arts and most of the graduate and professional schools occupy Central Campus, with the Medical Center between North and Central Campuses. South Campus houses the athletic programs, the Buhr library storage facility, Institute for Continuing Legal Education, and the Student Theatre Arts Complex, which provides shop and rehearsal space for student theatre groups. Central and North Campuses differ notably in architecture; while the buildings in the former appear rather classical or gothic, the latter has a much more modern architectural look. North and Central Campuses each have unique bell towers which reflect the predominant architectural style of their surroundings.

Ten of the buildings on Central Campus were designed by Detroit-based architect Albert Kahn between 1904 and 1936, while Birmingham, Michigan-based Eero Saarinen created one of the early master plans for North Campus and designed several of its buildings in the 1950s [3]. The most notable of the Kahn-designed buildings are the prominent Burton Memorial Tower and nearby Hill Auditorium; Saarinen designed the Earl V Moore School of Music Building.

Athletics

Main article: Athletics at the University of Michigan

University of Michigan "Block M"
University of Michigan "Block M"

Michigan's sports teams are called the Wolverines, after the state's nickname. They participate in the NCAA's Division I-A and in the Big Ten Conference in all sports except hockey, which competes in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.

File:Michiganstadiumgame.jpg
Football Saturday at Michigan's "The Big House".

The Michigan football team won the first Rose Bowl game in 1902, and has won an NCAA-record 842 games through the 2004 season. The football team is the NCAA's all-time winningest program - in both total wins and winning percentage. The program is a model of consistency as it is one of only two teams to have been ranked in the final Top 25 poll every year since 1989 [4]. Since that time, the Wolverines have won outright or shared seven Big Ten titles and won a national championship. Michigan has won nine national championships overall. The years for those titles are 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1918, 1932, 1933, 1948, and 1997 [5].

Michigan has produced three Heisman trophy winners for college football's outstanding player of the year. Those players are Tom Harmon (1940), Desmond Howard (1991), and Charles Woodson (1997) [6].

The team is popular throughout the country. A survey conducted by ESPN showed the Michigan football uniform to be the most popular uniform amongst fans in all of sports [7].

Michigan's famous football coaches include Fielding Yost, Fritz Crisler and Bo Schembechler. Michigan Stadium is the largest football-only stadium in the world, with an official capacity of 107,501 and with attendance commonly exceeding 110,000. NCAA record-breaking attendance has become commonplace at Michigan Stadium, especially since the arrival of Schembechler in 1969. The University of Michigan has fierce rivalries with many teams, including Michigan State and Notre Dame; however their football rivalry with The Ohio State University is widely considered to be the greatest in all of college athletics, and was called the greatest sports rivalry of all time by ESPN [8].

The Michigan men's basketball team, which plays at Crisler Arena, and the ice hockey team, which plays at Yost Ice Arena, are also highly-popular teams on campus.

Michigan's women's softball team won the 2005 Division 1 NCAA Softball Championship, defeating two-time defending champion and perennial softball power UCLA. Michigan is the first school east of the Mississippi River to win this title.

In seven of the past 10 years, Michigan has finished in the top five of the NACDA Director's Cup, a list compiled by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics that charts institutions' overall success in college sports.

Michigan "fight song"

The school "fight song" is The Victors, written by student Louis Elbel in 1898 following a last-minute 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." Largely believed to be an original creation, the melody of the fight song is actually the same as the breakup strain from George Rosey's The Spirit of Liberty March, copyrighted earlier in 1898. The alma mater song is The Yellow and Blue. A common rally cry at Michigan football games is "Let's Go Blue!"

See also

Student life

Student government

Housed within the Michigan Union, the Michigan Student Assembly (MSA) is the central student government of the University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus. With representatives from each of the University's colleges and schools, the MSA represents the voice of students, and manages student funds on the campus. The Michigan Student Assembly is a member of the state-wide Association of Michigan Universities.

Within each college and school, there are also student governance bodies. These bodies represent the needs of their respective college or 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 (UMEC) manages student government affairs for the College of Engineering.

Famous alumni and faculty

Main article: List of University of Michigan people

There are over 425,000 living alumni and 4,196 faculty of the University of Michigan. The number is often quoted as the largest number of living alumni of any American university. Campus tour guides and orientation meeting also commonly report the university as being the only one with an alumni association on the moon, due to the University's flag being one of only two on the moon, next to the U.S. flag.

Famous alumni include the first American to perform a space walk, a US President, the "father" of the iPod, founders of Sun Microsystems and Google, Arthur Miller, the writer of the play Death of a Salesman, the father of information theory, and the voice of Darth Vader.

See also

References

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  • Ulaby, Fawwaz T. Annual Report on Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity at the University of Michigan FY2004. (February 17, 2005). UM Research.

External links

University media

Libraries

Employee organizations


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