Tagged: Mary Sue Coleman

The president of the University of Michigan is stepping down.

Mary Sue Coleman officially announced her retirement today: 

The University of Michigan deserves the best in a leader, and I want to give the Board ample time to select the next president. I am committed to working with the Board members to ensure a smooth leadership transition.

University of Michigan Provost Philip Hanlon will be the new president of Dartmouth College. Hanlon has served as provost since 2010.

"(Hanlon) has steered the University through some of its most fiscally challenging years, all the while advancing our academic excellence and impact," U of M President Mary Sue Coleman said in a statement.

Hanlon started with the university in the mathematics department in 1986. He's a graduate of Dartmouth.

University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman and several researchers will travel to Brazil this coming Saturday for a very busy week of meetings and working sessions.

The U-M group hopes the visit will strengthen relationships with several leading universities and foundations. Coleman previously led U-M faculty to China, Ghana and South Africa.

Coleman said this trip presents a wonderful opportunity to listen to colleagues in Brazil. She hopes to provide new opportunities for collaboration and attract more Brazilian students to the University of Michigan.

Most people would probably say their presidents. Based on a non-scientific experiment I’ve been conducting in casual conversations, a fair number of people, can even name the presidents of those schools.

Well, at least the one they attended.

In a meeting with members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education some tough words were levied at University of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman.

Coleman was at the meeting to testify on Gov. Snyder's funding proposal for higher education.

During the hearing, State Rep. Kevin Cotter (R-Mt. Pleasant) said the University of Michigan did not adequately give the legislature answers to questions about human embryonic stem cells.

More from Dave Murray of MLive.com:

Cotter said the school was supposed to provide answers to five questions about the use of human embryonic stem cells – numbers he said could be provided on one sheet – and the university instead sent a cover letter with 50 pages of copied newspaper articles.

“The university is thumbing its nose at the Legislature,” he said.

Genetski, R-Saugatuck, said the university’s funding “might be in jeopardy” if it is not more cooperative.

Coleman said she doesn’t think there is a problem with the way the university responded, and she and the lawmakers “would have to disagree” on the issue.

University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman says Michigan’s higher education institutions will make a strong bid for federal grants to develop the infrastructure to support alternative energy vehicles.

“The president just announced a $1 billion commitment back on Friday and, believe me, we at the University of Michigan and Michigan State and Wayne State and other also with some of our other universities will be front and center to try and get some of that money,” said Coleman.

Coleman was on a panel in Lansing talking about the re-invention of the state’s economy.

The federal grants will go toward making 10 to 15 communities across the country models for how to create the infrastructure for cars and trucks powered by electricity, the sun, natural gas or some other alternative energy source.

Coleman says the cooperative arrangement between Michigan’s three big research universities makes the state a strong contender.

University of Michigan officials have sent a letter to all 38 Michigan state senators, asking them to vote “no” on a bill that would ban domestic partner benefits. 

Before Michigan voters approved a law that banned same-gender marriage, the University of Michigan and several other public universities in the state offered benefits to the same-sex partners of employees and their children. 

The language was later reworked to remove specific references to same-sex partnerships, substituting "other eligible individual,"  but the effect of the policies is the same.