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University of Michigan

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

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 "...for a college at Detroit." The school moved from Detroit to Ann Arbor in 1837, only 13 years after the latter city had been founded. It has provided a diverse student population with a diverse set of educational opportunities, including academic and professional programs, intramural and NCAA sports programs, and more cultural activities than most residents of Ann Arbor can exploit.

The University of Michigan is sometimes called "The Harvard of the Midwest," a title also claimed by the University of Chicago. In response to the comparison, Harvard is often referred to in jest as "The Michigan of the East" by university students, alumni, and staff.

The university in 2003 had 51,000 students and 5,600 faculty in three campuses. The University of Michigan system includes the main Ann Arbor campus (which had about 39,000 students) as well as two others, the University of Michigan-Dearborn and the University of Michigan-Flint. The latter two differ significantly from the main campus. The following information concerns only the Ann Arbor campus.

The University of Michigan boasts of one of the largest health care complexes in the world, one of the best university library systems in the country, and the some of the best computer access for students and faculty of any campus in the world. It is one of only two public institutions consistently ranked in the nation's top ten universities. Most of its academic departments, graduate, and professional schools (including its law, medical, and business schools) rank in the U.S.'s top ten. The university is the largest pre-law and pre-medicine university in the country (more Michigan students are accepted into U.S. medical schools than students from any other undergraduate campus in the nation) and has the largest yearly research expenditure of any university in the United States. Michigan also has the highest tuition of any American state school.

Founded in 1853, the College of Engineering extensively supports numerous engineering and science related degree programs. The Aerospace Engineering program at the University of Michigan was the nation's first in 1914 and maintains strong relationships with Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

The University of Michigan is often referred to simply as UM and U of M. The latter term is also used to refer to the University of Minnesota, the University of Montana, the University of Missouri (Columbia) and the University of Maryland. (Note, however, that Missouri is more often referred to as MU, Mizzou, or UMC.) University of Michigan students, faculty, and alumni may assert, half-jokingly, that only the University of Michigan is "really" the "U of M," or that it has a better claim to that appellation than the others have. A less commonly used nickname is "Umich," which is used in its website URL http://www.umich.edu.

Students and faculty

The students at the University of Michigan come from all 50 states and over 100 foreign countries. Almost 50 percent of undergraduates come from the top five percent of their graduating high school class and most are in the top tenth of their class.

Michigan's teaching and research staff is considered one of the top five faculties in the country. They have included an astronaut, distinguished world authorities, Pulitzer Prize winners, internationally acclaimed performing artists and composers, Supreme Court Justices, best-selling novelists, artists, and filmmakers. Michigan has more than 100 named endowed chairs.

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.

Campus

The campus of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor is composed of three main areas: North Campus, Central Campus and South Campus. North Campus contains most of the engineering facilities as well as the school of music and the school of art and architecture. The College of Literature, Science and the Arts occupies Central Campus, while South Campus supports mainly athletic programs. Central and North campuses differ notably in architecture; while the buildings in the former appear rather classical or gothic, the North Campus has a much more modern architectural look. Each campus' (except South) unique bell tower indicates this clearly.

Alumni

Famous alumni of the University of Michigan include:

Athletics

Michigan's sports teams are called the Wolverines. They participate in the NCAA's Division I-A and in the Big Ten Conference; its hockey program competes in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association. The Michigan football team won the first Rose Bowl game in 1902, and has won an NCAA-record 833 games through the 2003 season.

Michigan has a huge rivalry with Ohio State, considered one of the biggest college rivalries in sports, especially in football. It also has a rivalry with Michigan State, and the schools compete for the Paul Bunyan Trophy on a regular basis. The Wolverines also have a long-standing rivalry with Minnesota; the two schools battle for the Little Brown Jug, a small jug with the respective schools' "M" on either side and the scores of previous games down the middle.

The most famous football coach of the modern era was Bo Schembechler.

The school fight song is "The Victors," and was declared by John Philip Sousa as "the greatest college fight song ever written." The School song is "The Yellow and Blue." A common rally cry at Michigan football games is "Go Blue."

Health system

The University of Michigan Health System includes three hospitals: C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, University Hospital, and Women's Hospital, as well as nearly 150 clinics and MCare, an HMO. The university opened the first university-owned hospital in the United States in 1869. The EKG, gastroscope, and Jonas Salk's polio vaccine were invented at the university.

Student Government

The University's large student population (comparable to that of a small city) is conducive to an extensive student government infrastructure. The two main divisions of the University of Michigan, the College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA) and the College of Engineering (CoE) are administrated separately.

The LSA Student Judiciary is the judicial branch of the student government of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts at the University of Michigan. The judiciary has original jurisdiction over cases arising out of or concerning regulations, legislation, or other actions enacted by the student government, cases concerning the constitution and bylaws of the government, and election-related cases.

The judiciary is composed of seven student members. A 1996 amendment to the student government's constitution stipulates that they must serve as members of the college Academic Judiciary. A Chief Judge is elected internally.

For the College of Engineering, the University of Michigan Engineering Council (UMEC) manages student government affairs.

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