It Happened at U-M
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April 1, 2024
‘Michigan is not to be outdone’
When U-M established a course in the principles of aerodynamics in 1914, the seven young men who gathered before a professor in the West Engineering Building quietly made history. Professor Felix W. Pawlowski’s “Theory of Aviation” class was the first aeronautical engineering course taught in the United States.
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March 25, 2024
Saving Michigan’s forests from ‘the most appalling consequences’
Volney M. Spalding, an 1873 U-M graduate who taught botany and zoology, worried about the fate of northern Michigan’s magnificent forests. In the fall of 1881, with the opening of the School of Political Science, Spalding began teaching what was considered the first forestry course in the United States.
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March 18, 2024
Born to handle winning
When Jim Abbott pitched his first Little League game as an 11-year-old growing up in Flint, he fired a no-hitter. It was a glimpse of the extraordinary career to come. Born without a right hand, Abbott played baseball at U-M and the major leagues and was inducted into the College Baseball Hall of Fame in 2007.
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March 11, 2024
Dr. Death comes to campus
Nicknamed “Dr. Death” early in his medical career because of his strong support of euthanasia, Jack Kevorkian was a 1952 graduate of the Medical School. Kevorkian’s papers, including recorded conversations with desperate patients, were donated to the university after his own (unassisted) death.
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March 4, 2024
Engineering a prominent career
George Maceo Jones earned three degrees from U-M over a decade. When he received his doctorate in 1934, he became the first African American man in the country with a Ph.D. in civil engineering. He settled in Chicago, where he established a practice as a civil engineer and focused on public housing projects.
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February 19, 2024
‘A project that will aid all mankind’
In the wake of the terrifying atomic bomb that ended World War II, U-M students and alumni looked for ways to channel a destructive power into safe, beneficial uses. The Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project was launched in 1948 to honor 579 U-M students, faculty and alumni who died in the war.
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February 12, 2024
‘I really disliked writing papers’
Thomas Knoll, a doctoral student in computer vision algorithmics, was trying to write his dissertation about the processing of digital images. But he found working on a software program he’d been noodling with far more interesting. That program was Photoshop, which brought Knoll and his brother John an Academy Award.
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February 5, 2024
A pioneer admired by classmates and patients
When Ida Gray graduated from what was then called the U-M College of Dental Surgery in 1890, she became the nation’s first Black female dentist. A year later she was in practice, prompting a writer to note, “Her blushing, winning way makes you feel like finding an extra tooth any way to allow her to pull.”
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January 29, 2024
Changing attitudes with a groundbreaking novel
Forman Brown came to U-M in 1918, shy, aloof and attracted to men. Brown used his U-M experiences as the foundation for “Better Angel,” a 1933 semi-biographical novel he wrote using the pseudonym of Richard Meeker. “Better Angel” was reissued in 1987 to acclaim, prompting Brown to step forward as its author.
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January 22, 2024
Racing to win a historic title
Orval Wardel Johnson, a member of the U-M track team, faced All-American quarterback Pete Elliott in a bid to serve as president of the LSA Class of 1949. Johnson prevailed, and LSA seniors had elected their first African American class president, a first for Michigan and any predominantly white university in the nation.
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