Admitting women to Michigan: 'a dangerous experiment'.

In 1870, 53 years after its founding, the University of Michigan's Board of Regents begrudgingly voted to admit women as students. The minutes of the meeting cited concerns that this was "a dangerous experiment that could be disastrous in its consequences."

In August of 2002, 132 years later, Michigan's Board of Regents voted 80 to hire Dr. Mary Sue Coleman as the 13th president of the school.

This summer, Dr. Coleman addressed a luncheon group of 200 participants at a June conference sponsored by the Michigan ACE Network for Women at Michigan State University. Coleman and Dr. Lou Anna Simon, interim president of Michigan State University, were featured speakers in a program entitled Building Alliances. Conference planners parlayed the rare opportunity of having two major college female presidents in the same state into a breakfast/ lunch-speaking duo.

Traditional career paths

Coleman and Simon both followed the traditional faculty-to-administrator-to-provost-to-president path in ascending the higher education ladder. Dr. Simon spent her entire career at Michigan State. She became provost in 1993, one of the youngest in the country to hold this title at a major research university. She was named interim president in April of 2003 when President Peter McPherson took a leave of absence to assist with the reconstruction of the banking system in post-war Iraq.

Dr. Coleman has made several major career moves. After 19 years on the faculty as a biochemist at the University of Kentucky, she became as vice chancellor and assistant provost at the University of North Carolina. In 1993 she moved to the provost's position at the University of New Mexico. She became president of the University of Iowa in 1995 before being named to the same position at Michigan in 2002.

Diversity at Michigan