V V V w s F 4t, n J W -IV -w U In her fourth year as president, Mary Sue Coleman works to establish her image on campus By Jason Z. Pesickfl Editor in Chief he University of Michigan has an identity problem. As a large public university, it serves the state of Michigan and its residents. It relies on hundreds of millions of dollars from the state each year and cannot raise its tuition rates as high as its private peers. Unlike the private schools, the University has a broader and more complex mission than just grooming a few thousand of the nation's most elite students. gree but who has spent plenty of time in the Midwest. In the spring of 2002, when the University Board of Regents announced that Coleman would be the 13th president of the Universi- ty, among the University community and its alumni there was a collective, "Who?" "When Mary Sue came in, I didn't know who she was," said political science and pub- lic policy Prof. John Chamberlin. She was the first president since Rob- ben Fleming took the position in 1968 who had not previously worked at the University - and she was from Iowa. Wasn't there an administrator somewhere on the East Coast we could have picked off? Although Coleman has since won him over, when University alum and "60 Min- utes" star journalist Mike Wallace heard of the regents' choice, he was skeptical. He didn't have any idea who she was, he told me over the phone. It's not difficult to understand why the regents chose Coleman. After former Presi- dent Lee Bollinger left to become president of Columbia University shortly after finish- ing second to Lawrence Summers in the race to become Harvard's president, the regents were looking for someone who would stick around for a while. Ann Arbor is full of peo- ple who will say they felt used by Bollinger, that he used Michigan as a stepping stone to the East Coast. One of Bollinger's most ambitious - and most controversial - ideas was to pour hun- dreds of millions of dollars into the life sci- ences. The centerpiece of that project was the Life Sciences Institute, which four years ago was not taking off quickly - to say the least. Regent Olivia Maynard said that four years ago LSI was getting started "but had no direction yet." As a former scientist her- self, Coleman seemed to stand a chance of saving the project. Coleman says the regents were blunt about which issues they wanted her to tackle. The men's basketball program was mired in the aftermath of a booster scandal, the affirma- tive action cases still had not been resolved at the Supreme Court, many of the University's top administrative positions were empty and its large medical system was facing financial challenges. It also didn't hurt her candidacy that she is a woman, the first to serve as University president. Coleman was the last candidate to be interviewed. "She was spectacular," Regent Andrew Fischer Newman told me. And so the regents made their surprise selection, despite the popularity of interim President B. Joseph White, a former Busi- ness School dean whom even members of the leftist Students Organized for Labor and Economic Equality liked. When The Michi- gan Daily was listing its endorsements for the November 2002 elections, the editors slipped in B. Joseph White for University president, months after Coleman had already taken over as president. Coleman, now 62, started the job just weeks before this year's seniors started moving into their dorm rooms to begin their freshman year. As they were just starting to jump into col- lege life, Coleman was jumping into her new job. She had the tough dual assignment of addressing the issues the regents wanted her to tackle and getting to know the University - all without a full team of vice presidents in place. She decided to keep Paul Courant, then the interim provost, on board for three more years; she did not know the University well enough to pick her own provost - the University's second-highest ranking offi- cial. Since becoming president, Coleman has appointed four other vice presidents in addi- tion to a new provost, Teresa Sullivan, who will likely assume the position in June. Coleman skillfully handled most of the issues bothering the regents - either the work Bollinger started but did not have time to complete or the mess Bollinger left behind, depending on whom you ask. She told me she is happy with the way she dealt with the basketball scandal fallout and that the Life Sciences Institute is "booming," although Maynard said, "We're probably not out of the woods yet." Under Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs Robert Kelch, the health system has been making money - and a lot of it. Coleman has also proven herself a successful fundraiser during a time of declining state support; her Michigan Dif- ference capital campaign is well on its way to raise its goal of $2.5 billion. After almost two years of tackling those issues and learning the ropes, Coleman out- lined her vision for the University in the Pendleton Room of the Michigan Union in 2004. Coleman wanted to maintain the Uni- versity's high academic quality, engage the University in the challenges facing American society, promote collaboration and increase access to the University. She announced ini- tiatives on team teaching, ethics, health care and residential life. "As I told you at the outset, sometimes issues choose a president, and sometimes a president can choose her own issues," she said near the end of the speech. The speech presented many good ideas, but it did not present a clear vision for the University or define who Coleman is. T he day I spent with Coleman in December started with break- fast at her house (the big white one on South University Ave- nue) before most of the campus was awake. She served us cof- fee, juice, fruit and muffins that TOP: Coleman prepares a meal in her kitchen at home. MIDDLI Michigan's Men's Glee Club. BOTTOM: Coleman working in h the Fleming Administration Building.