University of Michigan

The University of Michigan was established in 1817 by the Michigan legislature by way of a land grant signed away in treaty by the Native Americans of the Michigan Territory[?]. It has provided a diverse student population with a diverse set of educational opportunities including academic and professional programs, intramural and NCAA sports programs, and more cultural activities than most residents of Ann Arbor can exploit.

The University of Michigan is often called "The Harvard of the Midwest", a title also claimed by the University of Chicago, Truman State University[?], and Macalaster College[?], among others. In response to the comparison with Harvard, among students, alumni, and staff of the University of Michigan, Harvard is often called "The Michigan of the East."

A condition of the treaty which is the basis for most of the land grant schools in the state of Michigan was that the education of all of the Native Americans of the state would be guaranteed for all time. Whether the state's obligation to the native people has been met is a topic for debate.

The university in 2003 has 51,000 students and 5,600 faculty in three campuses. The University of Michigan system includes the main Ann Arbor campus as well as two other campuses, the University of Michigan, Dearborn[?] and the University of Michigan, Flint[?]. The university claims to be the largest pre-medicine and pre-law university in the country and to have the largest yearly research expenditure of any university in the United States. In the 1990s the University of Michigan claimed to have the largest assemblage of Apple Macintosh computers outside of the factory.

In 2003 a lawsuit involving the school's affirmative action admissions policy reached the U.S. Supreme Court with President George W. Bush taking the unusual step of publicly opposing the policy before the court issued a ruling.

Famous alumni of the University of Michigan include:

• George Crumb, composer, completed his doctorate in music there in 1959
• Gerald R. Ford studied economics and political science. He played center on two national-championship American football teams and was the team's most valuable player in 1934. He received his B. A. degree in 1935
• Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Michigan in 1967
• Lawrence Kasdan[?] studied creative writing and won four Hopwood Awards
• Madonna won a scholarship while in high school to study dance at the University of Michigan; she left the university in the late 1970s
• Arthur Miller, playwright, author of Death of a Salesman, The Crucible
• Richard Gephardt, United States House Minority Leader[?], graduate of UM Law School.
• Claude E. Shannon, "father of information theory"
• Chris Webber[?], NBA star, currently with the Sacramento Kings
• Larry Page, co-founder of Google
• Christine Lahti[?], actress
• Lucy Liu, actress

Michigan's sports teams are called the Wolverines. They participate in the NCAA's Division I-A and in the Big Ten Conference.

The University of Michigan Health System includes three hospitals: C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, University Hospital, and Women's Hospital, as well as nearly 150 clinics and MCare, an HMO. The university opened the first university-owned hospital in the United States in 1869. The EKG, gastroscope[?], and Jonas Salk's polio vaccine were invented at the university.

The University of Michigan is often referred to simply as UM and U of M. These terms are also used to refer to the University of Minnesota, the University of Montana[?], the University of Missouri and the University of Maryland[?].

External Link

• http://www.umich.edu