May 5, 2014

Old School: Puerto Rican leader

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Puerto Rican native Dr. Jose Celso Barbosa enrolled at the University of Michigan in 1877, after being rejected from the College of Physicians and Surgeons (which became Columbia University Medical School) because of his race. After graduation, he returned to Puerto Rico, practiced medicine, founded the pro-statehood Puerto Rican Republican Party and became known as the father of the Puerto Rican statehood movement. (Photo courtesy of Bentley Historical Library)

This month in history (50 years ago)

Pressure in the early 1960s grew to open the university year-round. A calendar of three terms was approved by the faculty and the Board of Regents, and the 1963-64 year was the last in which exams occurred after the Christmas break. The warm and relaxed days of May and June 1964 were last experienced by a massive student body. The new calendar moved the start of school to August, the second term to January-April, added a third term, and commencement was moved back to May 1.

— “The University of Michigan, an Encyclopedic Survey,” and “The Making of the University of Michigan” by Howard H. Peckham

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