It Happened at U-M
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January 15, 2024
A priceless collection discovered, lost, and found again
When Professor Francis W. Kelsey returned to Ann Arbor in 1920 from an expedition in Egypt, he brought back the seeds of what is today the largest papyrology collection in North America — but not before the initial papyri were lost on a London shipping dock en route to the U.S. and recovered by Kelsey himself.
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December 4, 2023
‘You’ve got to be excellent’
Willie Hobbs first stepped foot on U-M’s campus as an 18-year-old first-year student in 1952. Twenty years later, as Willie Hobbs Moore, she was a three-time U-M alumna and the first African American woman in the country with a Ph.D. in physics, eventually rising to the executive level ranks of Ford Motor Company.
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November 20, 2023
‘I’m just like everybody else’
Marina Oswald was left widowed when her husband was shot and killed in Dallas in 1963. Just over a year later, she enrolled at U-M for classes at the English Language Institute. Oswald studied alongside some 30 international students in an eight-week course. She left town on Feb. 28, 1965, an alumna of U-M.
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November 13, 2023
Lessons in reading, writing and the Bible
In 1818, young people in the village of Detroit made their way into the new academy built by the University of Michigania for the inaugural class of the first Sunday school in the Territory of Michigan. The initial U-M classes were at the elementary school level, with parents paying a small subscription fee.
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November 6, 2023
Sharing more than a birthday
Joan and Janice Ottenbacher were always close as sisters. A lifesaving operation at University Hospital in 1964 made their bond extraordinary. The 15-year-old identical twins were patients in the first human organ transplant in Michigan when Joan donated her kidney to Janice.
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October 30, 2023
Breaking barriers and making gay rights history
U-M student Kathy Kozachenko, who campaigned in residence halls and student neighborhoods, made history in 1974 by becoming the country’s first openly gay elected official. As a senior, she won a seat on the Ann Arbor City Council more than three years before Harvey Milk became the first openly gay man in public office.
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October 23, 2023
Making waves with engineering innovation
When a new engineering building opened on campus in 1904, it featured an innovation never seen on a college campus: a naval tank. Built into the foundation of the building, the basin stretched the length of a football field with 10 feet of water. Its purpose was the research and development of ships’ hulls.
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October 16, 2023
Teaching farmers in Ann Arbor
No one will mistake today’s U-M for an agricultural college. But for a few years before the Civil War, leaders were determined to teach the art and science of farming. President Henry P. Tappan was committed to building agriculture into the U-M curriculum, which pitted him against the Michigan State Agricultural Society.
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October 9, 2023
Powered by the sun
When the student-driven Solar Car Team and its car, Sunrunner, won the first Sunrayce USA in 1990, it propelled a legacy of leadership in competitive vehicles fueled by the sun. More than 100 U-M students collaborated to design, test, and build Sunrunner, with much of the work taking place on North Campus.
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October 2, 2023
‘The finest sports building in the country’
With a $745,000 price tag, Michigan’s intramural sports building was rising along Hoover Avenue in 1928. When it opened later that fall, it became the first such building on an American college campus and accommodated the growing popularity of intramural activity at U-M.
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