The University of Michigan

by Wilfred Byron Shaw

Two of the larger gifts to the University have come through collective effort on the part of the alumni. The Michigan Union, made possible through the $1,200,000 raised by students and alumni, has been mentioned in another chapter. Alumni Memorial Hall, which stands just across the street, is also largely the result of comparatively small gifts from hundreds of graduates. It is an imposing building of classical outlines, designed as a memorial of the men who served in the Civil and Spanish-American Wars. It is intended to be at once an art gallery and the headquarters of the Alumni Association, which has a spacious reception room on the first floor and commodious offices in the basement, where the University Club also has a large and well-furnished room. The building was completed in 1910 at a cost of $195,000, of which $145,000 was contributed by the alumni, and was formally opened with an exhibition of Oriental art and the work of modern American painters under the charge of the late Charles M. Freer of Detroit, who loaned many of the pictures shown.

Other gifts arising from general alumni effort are the Williams Professorship fund and the Alumnae Hall of Residence for women, given to the University by the alumnae; while Faculty, alumni, and student efforts have been responsible for several paintings, notably the Chase portrait of Dr. Angell, the portrait of Dr. V.C. Vaughan by Gari Melchers, and Ralph Clarkson's recent picture of President Hutchins, which is to hang with Dr. Angell's portrait in the Union.

The greater portion of alumni gifts, however, have come from individual graduates. These include such monumental benefactions as the Hill Auditorium, for which a bequest of $200,000 was left by the late Regent Arthur Hill, '65e, of Saginaw; the Martha Cook Building which was completed at a cost of about $500,000 by the Cook family of Hillsdale, the Betsy Barbour Dormitory, costing some $100,000 given by ex-Regent Levi L. Barbour, '63, '65l, of Detroit, and the great library of American history, with its special building, given by Regent William L. Clements, '82e, of Bay City. This library, which is reported to have cost $400,000, and has been judged by experts to be worth much more than that now, and the $200,000 building to come, represent a princely gift. Ex-Regent Barbour also gave, in 1917, a fund of $100,000 to be used for providing scholarships for Oriental women in the University. To this he added two years later property in Detroit from which the income alone, during the term of the ninety-nine years' lease now in effect upon it, will amount to nearly $2,500,000. The sum of $100,000 was also left by the late Professor Richard Hudson, '71, to establish a professorship in history, at present held by Professor Arthur Lyon Cross, Harvard, '95. Professor Hudson also left his library to the University, which has benefited by many similar gifts from alumni, notably the historical books given by Clarence M. Burton, '73, the library of Thomas S. Jerome, '84, of Capri, Italy, and the musical library presented by Frederick and Frederick K. Stearns, '73-'76, as well as the libraries of several members of the Faculties given the University upon their death. These include the library in Romance Literature of Professor Edward L. Walter, '68, the philosophical library of Professor George S. Morris, '81 (hon.), the Germanic Library of Professor George A. Hench, the geological library of Professor Israel C. Russell, and the classical library of Professor Elisha Jones, '59.

Too numerous to mention in detail are the many special gifts for research, such as the continual funds for the work of the University Museum supplied by Bryant Walker, '76, of Detroit, or the large telescope and other gifts to the Department of Astronomy by Robert P. Lamont, '91e, of Chicago, or for fellowships, the purchase of books, educational material, and scientific apparatus, as well as the numerous funds left for various designated purposes and administered by the University.

The various memorials left by the graduating classes should not be forgotten in this connection, though some of them, owing to poor judgment, have been ill-adapted to the purposes they were intended to serve and have more or less mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps the best known example was the ill-fated statue of Ben Franklin, long a Campus landmark, left by the class of '70. Early in his academic course he became the victim of the paint-buckets of successive classes, and eventually his outlines became so blurred that he was perforce retired. Aside from the tree-planting efforts of '58, the first class memorial was the reproduction of the Laocoön group, now in Alumni Memorial Hall, presented by '59. Reproductions of painting and sculpture were for many years the favored forms of class memorials, of which the most unique and valuable was the complete set of casts from the arch of Trajan at Beneventum, presented by '96. In recent years many classes have left portraits of members of the various Faculties, while others have left loan funds which have been of inestimable service to many worthy but impecunious students.

The University chimes, a peal of five bells, presented by James J. Hagerman, '61, Edward C. Hegeler, and Andrew D. White, must not be forgotten. They are now in the tower of the Engineering Shops, whence they were removed when the old Library was torn down.

Perhaps the most far-reaching in its effects was the fund left by 1916. This was accompanied by a recommendation to the General Alumni Association that an alumni fund be created of which their contribution was to be the nucleus. The Association took measures to act upon this suggestion, but owing to the war and the preoccupation of the alumni in the Union, its establishment was delayed for several years. The plan for this fund, as finally approved in 1920, provides for an incorporated board of nine directors, the first members of which were appointed by the Board of Directors of the Alumni Association. This project, while still in its formative stage, has great possibilities for the future of the University, judged by the success of similar funds in other institutions. This is particularly true at Yale, where the alumni fund amounts to nearly $2,000,000 in addition to some $1,500,000 given for various purposes.

There are obvious advantages in thus organizing the stream of alumni gifts now beginning to flow so strongly toward the University. It not only provides a trustworthy and conservative body to which any gift may be entrusted, whether in the form of a class fund, individual contribution, or bequest, but it also ensures that all such gifts which are unrestricted, shall be utilized wherever, in the judgment of the Directors, the University's need is greatest. The existence of such a fluid source of income properly administered can be made of incalculable benefit, particularly in the numerous critical occasions, when the regular income is entirely unequal to the emergency, though it is not proposed to relieve the State from providing for the normal needs of the University, but to meet the special demands which are continually arising in such an institution. Finally, the existence and administration of such a fund will tend to tie the alumni to the University as could no other agency, particularly if, as elsewhere, a good part of the income arises from small annual subscriptions, collected by a class officer, who remits the total as a class contribution.

Thus, though the alumni of the University have no direct voice in the administration, as have the graduates in many other institutions, they have established several agencies through which their natural desire to have a recognized share in University affairs may be expressed. These include first of all the General Alumni Association, with its many subsidiary class and local organizations, which maintains the Alumnus as its official organ, and with at least the outlines of an advisory body in the Alumni Council with its Executive Committee. The alumni also have further means of associating themselves with the affairs of the University through the power of appointment of a majority of the members of the Board of Governors of the Michigan Union and the Directors of the Alumni Fund, which rests with the Directors of the Alumni Association; while the four alumni members of the Board of Directors of the Union are likewise elected by the alumni at large at the annual meeting in June.

With so large and widely distributed a body of graduates it is to be expected that many have become prominent in the life of the country, and in their professions. An analysis of the names of Michigan men and women in "Who's Who" for 1912-13 showed that, exclusive of the holders of honorary degrees and Summer School students, the names of 604 former students appeared, of whom 498 were graduates and 106 were non-graduates. This is approximately 3.2 percent of the total names given in that edition, and was 6 percent of the college graduates listed. There is no reason to suppose that the same percentages at least would not apply in a similar survey of the latest edition.