Old School | The University Record

January 22, 2018

Called by the bell

Beginning in the 1840s, a bell was used to rouse students for class and chapel, a ritual they despised. After years of student efforts to silence the bell and its successor, a peal of five bells played from the newly designed library, and later the Baird Carillon became a fixture in Burton Memorial Tower.

January 15, 2018

Michigan hockey’s heritage

Canadian World War I veteran Joseph Barss came to study medicine at U-M, where he pitched the idea of a varsity hockey team to athletic director Fielding Yost, who made Barss the program’s first coach.

January 8, 2018

Ben Franklin statue’s demise

The Class of 1870 purchased what they believed was a bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin to display on campus near the Law School. Years later, it was found in “hundreds of pieces.”

December 11, 2017

Exemplar of Michigan music

As the oldest musical group and student organization on campus, the Men’s Glee Club has had a strong influence both within and without the university.

December 4, 2017

Albert H. Wheeler

Albert H. Wheeler was the first African-American professor to earn tenure at U-M and was an advocate for civil rights, culminating in his election as Ann Arbor’s first black mayor.

November 20, 2017

Winning with wings

The U-M football team’s iconic winged helmet made its debut in a 1938 game against Michigan State University, which the Wolverines won 14-0.

November 13, 2017

Great War campus life

During World War I, the university erected makeshift buildings to accommodate the wartime population influx, including this mess hall attached to the Michigan Union.

November 6, 2017

First athletic championship

In 1901, football coach Fielding H. Yost commanded his “Point-a-Minute” Wolverines to outscore opponents 501-0. The team went on to triumph over Stanford 49-0 in the first college football bowl game ever played, the Rose Bowl.

October 30, 2017

Breaking boundaries

In 1955, Rhoda Reddig Russell became the university’s first female academic dean when she was named to lead the School of Nursing.

October 23, 2017

Crossing the medical frontier

In 1869, U-M turned a former professor’s house into the first hospital owned and operated by a university.