August 19, 2025: University of Michigan Studying: Three Presidents

[Laterthis week, we’ll be moving my youngerson Kyle into his first-year dorm at Michigan. So this week, through proudDad tears, I’ll share a handful of UMichigan contexts, leading up to a specialpost on some of Kyle’s plans there!]

On takeawaysfrom the tenures of the three 19th century university presidents.

1)     Henry Philip Tappan(pres from 1852-1863): Although there had technically been universitypresidents since the 1817 founding (as I discussed in yesterday’s post), until 1851the university was under control of the territorial/state legislature and sothose leaders had very little actual power. But anApril 1851 act gave the university independence and established a presidentialposition selected by the regents, and the first such independent president wasthe philosopher and educational innovator Henry PhilipTappan. Known as “Johnthe Baptist of the age of the American university,” Tappan took a hugenumber of influential actions during his decade as president, from establishinga law school to constructing anobservatory, adding BS degrees to organizing aGlee Club and student newspaper. As the first hyperlinked article aboveillustrates, he was also divisive due to his lack of overt religion, which eventuallyled to his forced resignation in 1863; but by that time every aspect of the universitybore his imprint.

2)     ErastusOtis Haven (pres from 1863-1869): The university’s second independentpresident had followed a very winding path before assuming that role: Erastus OtisHaven had been a seminary principal and Methodist minister before servingas a professor and chair of Latin and English at Michigan in the early 1850s;in 1856 he left the university and moved to Massachusetts, where he edited the MethodistnewspaperZion’s Herald, served in the State Senate, and worked as HarvardUniversity overseer; but when Tappan resigned he was coaxed back to becomeMichigan’s . The ongoing Civil War and other challenges led to significantfunding difficulties at the state level, however, and Haven only served for ahalf-dozen years before he resigned in 1869 to become presidentof Northwestern, a private Methodist university. The fate of thisgroundbreaking public institution seemed at that moment very uncertain.

3)     James Burrill Angell(pres from 1871-1909): Enter then-University of Vermont President and longtimeeducator, reformer, and diplomat JamesBurrill Angell. While Angell would positively affect every aspect of theuniversity during his nearly four decades as president, nowhere was hisinfluence more clear and important than in its international presence. Thatmeant much more than just the university’s standing and reputation (although hischanges affected those to be sure): appointed Minister toChina in 1880, Angell helped bring a number of Chinese students to theuniversity; named EnvoyExtraordinary to Turkey in 1897, he built a relationship with that nation;and so on. Even those nations with which he did not have a direct diplomaticconnection became connected to the university during Angell’s tenure, such asthe 80Japanese students who came to study law around the turn of the century. Angellretired in 1909 but lived his remaining seven years in the President’s House, atestament to this most influential University of Michigan President.

NextMichiganStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?