The high-tech tour that members of Team Michigan embarked on last Friday during the kickoff of the Campaign for Michigan gave them “a sense of what we are, a sense of what Michigan represents, a sense of what Team Michigan does,” said LS&A Dean Edie N. Goldenberg.
Stops along the way included visits with:
—Members of the Human Genome Project, led by Francis Collins and James Wilson, who are working on “an audacious concept. A path is being blazed,” Goldenberg said, in gene mapping and in gene therapy, “an approach that will be a revolutionary new form of medicine.”
Wilson, Goldenberg noted, set a series of goals he wanted to accomplish over his entire career. Two years later he has surpassed those goals.
“This team shows that knowledge can change lives, that knowledge can change the future, that knowledge and values can change society. There will be major steps taken here for the rest of the decade.”
—Students involved in a new form of campus activism, those who volunteer in the community. Some of the students were profiled in an ABC Television report by Bettina Gregory earlier this year that focused on social movements at colleges and universities.
These activities “are the heart of our mission,” Goldenberg noted. “They are part of our institutional identity. We groom leaders, we nurture talents, we provide skills and training.
“We have a heritage of activism, and have been at the center of social transformations. Others watch us and take heed. These students are making a difference to society. Their contributions will resonate for a long time to come.”
—The Rackham String Quartet, whose members stayed with alumni on a competitive national tour last year. Alumni Association Director Robert G. Forman told the audience that the group, which performed during the presentation, won three national competitions, “encouraged and supported by alumni and friends of the University along the way.”
—The 100-plus members of the Solar Car Team, whose Sunrunner placed first in the July 1990 G.M. Sunrayce U.S.A. competition among college and university entries and third—among both collegiate and corporate entries—in the World Solar Challenge in Australia in November 1990. “The team put in 110,000 ‘student hours’ just to reach the starting line, Goldenberg said. A new team is at work on “Maize and Blue” for the 1993 races.
—Members of the 1991–92 men’s basketball team, which made it to the final four in the NCAA championships last spring, losing to the ultimate champion, Duke, in the semi-final game.
