History
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September 5, 2017
A heroine etched in stone
In 1862, the University of Michigan received its first significant work of original art — the marble sculpture of Nydia, the blind flower girl of Pompeii.
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August 14, 2017
Medical Miracles
The University of Michigan’s contributions to medicine and public health have saved lives and enriched communities.
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July 24, 2017
Revolutionizing information
From alumnus Claude Shannon, the father of information theory, and Irma Wyman, the first woman to be chief information officer at Honeywell, to the creation and impact of Google, the University of Michigan and its graduates have forever altered the sharing of knowledge through technology.
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July 19, 2017
U-M, Detroit Historical Society team up for bicentennial project
A new museum exhibition at the Detroit Historical Museum explores and celebrates the people and episodes connecting U-M and the city of Detroit, its birthplace 200 years ago.
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July 5, 2017
Bold experiment
Women were admitted to U-M starting in 1870, the first for a large state university.
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June 19, 2017
President Harold T. Shapiro’s birthday
Harold T. Shapiro, U-M’s 10th president, was born on June 8, 1935, in Montreal. During his presidency, which ran from 1980-87, the “theme of quality over quantity, of ‘smaller but better’ became the guiding principle” in a period of budget reductions.
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June 5, 2017
A summer with Shakespeare
Now an undeniable Ann Arbor summer tradition, Shakespeare in the Arb began in 2001, when Katherine Mendeloff, lecturer IV in Residential College, LSA, was asked to direct an outdoor production as part of a three-year Ford Motor Co. grant for arts in the Nichols Arboretum.
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May 22, 2017
The iconic Burton Memorial Tower
The first suggestion for a campanile — a usually freestanding bell tower — arose in an editorial in the Michigan Alumnus in May 1919. According to The University Record archives, the editorial writer suggested “a new clock tower ‘set high in the center of campus, to be at once a landmark and a thing of beauty.’”
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May 1, 2017
The beloved professors of U-M
Joseph Whiting and George Palmer Williams taught the first entering class of the University of Michigan.
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April 24, 2017
The first commencement
By the time of the university’s first commencement on Aug. 6, 1845, the first days of the entering class must have seemed like ancient history. Enrollment had grown nearly tenfold, to 52 students, with a full complement of freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors.
