History of the University of Michigan
As early as 1806, Father Gabriel Richard, who ran several schools around the town of Detroit, had requested land for a college from the governor and judges appointed by the President to administer the territory.
Governor William Hull and Chief Justice Augustus B. Woodward passed an act in 1809 to establish public school districts, but this early attempt amounted to little.
[2] Woodward harbored a dream of classifying all human knowledge (which he termed encathol epistemia), and discussed the subject with his friend and mentor Thomas Jefferson at Monticello in 1814.
Under the act, the Didactors exercised control over not only the university itself, but education in the territory in general, with the authority to "establish colleges, academies, schools, libraries, museums, atheneums, botanical gardens, laboratories, and other useful literary and scientific institutions consonant to the laws of the United States and of Michigan, and provide for and appoint Directors, Visitors, Curators, Librarians, Instructors and Instructrixes among and throughout the various counties, cities, towns, townships, or other geographical divisions of Michigan.
John Monteith, who had moved to Detroit a year earlier after graduating from Princeton Theological Seminary, was granted seven (and the Presidency).
[7] The cornerstone of the university's first building, near the corner of Bates St. and Congress St. in Detroit, was laid on September 24, 1817, and within a year both a primary school and a classical academy were functioning within it.
[8] Five days after the laying of the cornerstone, the Treaty of Fort Meigs was signed between the United States and various Native American tribes.
[12] The University of Michigan was sued in 1971 by descendants of the tribes who claimed that the land grant should have been held in trust, with the proceeds used to provide for their education.
Monteith, his office of President abolished, was appointed to the Board of Trustees, but left that summer to accept a professorship at Hamilton College.
[19] In practice, however, the Regents never appointed a Chancellor, instead leaving administrative duties up to a rotating roster of professors,[18] and the Governor chaired the board himself.
The German, or Humboldtian model, was conceived by Wilhelm von Humboldt and based on Friedrich Schleiermacher’s liberal ideas pertaining to the importance of freedom, seminars, and laboratories in universities.
In 1872, Ann Arbor hosted 49 saloons, and the spectacle of student intoxication and public donnybrooks concerned school administrators and state politicians.
Harper's Weekly published an article in July 1887 that noted the school's "broad and liberal spirit" and the wide-ranging freedoms of its students.
Burton raised admissions standards and sought to heighten the academic rigors of the university's courses, while taming the often-rowdy social lives of his students.
Burton was succeeded by Clarence Cook Little, a highly divisive figure who, among other things, offended Roman Catholics with his vocal endorsements of contraception.
[citation needed] In February 1931, local police raided five fraternities, finding liquor and arresting 79 students, including the captain of the football team and Michigan Daily editors.
[28] During World War II, the university grew into a true research powerhouse, undertaking major initiatives on behalf of the U.S. Navy and contributing to weapons development with breakthroughs including the VT fuze, depth bombs, the PT boat, and radar jammers.
Hatcher fostered early construction in the school's nascent North Campus, and created an Honors College for 5% of entering freshmen.
[citation needed] During Hatcher's administration, the ISR, with its ambitious ongoing effort focused on research and applications of social science, received its own building.
The campus tumult of the 1960s was to some extent foreshadowed during World War I, when disputes arose between faculty, administrators, and students over issues including military instruction and teaching of the German language.
On November 5, 1962, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered two speeches to capacity crowds in Hill Auditorium and also participated in an intimate student discussion and faculty dinner reception at the Michigan Union.
Radicals adopted increasingly confrontational tactics, including an episode in which members of the Jesse James Gang, an SDS offshoot, locked themselves in a room with an on-campus military recruiter and refused to release him.
In March 1970, the Black Action Movement, an umbrella name for a coalition of student groups, sponsored a campus-wide strike to protest low minority enrollment and to build support for an African American Studies department.
[citation needed] The university's student government fell one vote short of approving a marijuana co-op that was based on the premise of high-quantity purchases and free distribution.
For the previous 50 years, all major academic surveys had listed Michigan as one of the nation's top five universities, a standing that began to diminish.
The university again saw a surge in funds devoted to research in the social and physical sciences, although campus controversy arose over involvement in the anti-missile Strategic Defense Initiative and investments in South Africa.
[citation needed] In 2021 music professor Bright Sheng stepped down from teaching an undergraduate musical composition class, where he says he had intended to show how Giuseppe Verdi adapted William Shakespeare's play Othello into his opera Otello, after a controversy over his showing the 1965 British movie Othello, allegedly without giving students any warning that it contained blackface.
At a time when many other universities were choosing to sell their hospitals and clinics, UM created a tighter bond between its Medical School and its Hospitals & Health Centers unit in 1997, forming the University of Michigan Health System to act as an "umbrella" over those entities and M-CARE, and designating an Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs who reports directly to the President.
Recently, the university has constructed over 1 million square feet (90,000 m²) of academic and laboratory space devoted to the life sciences.
[39] The campus also consists of leased space in buildings scattered throughout the city, many occupied by organizations affiliated with the University of Michigan Health System.
