Blank with President Ford
1999
Rebecca Blank becomes dean. During her tenure, the school will be renamed in honor of President Gerald R. Ford; launch a joint-PhD program and a new undergraduate degree; establish three major research centers; and construct a new building, Joan and Sanford Weill Hall, with contributions from hundreds of alumni and friends. To honor and celebrate its most distinguished alum, the University of Michigan names the policy school after President Gerald R. Ford. In 2001, the school marks the occasion with a major naming ceremony at Hill Auditorium. Henry Kissinger delivers the keynote. Blank with Weill Hall construction crew
First Integrated Policy Exercise is taught by Ann Lin. The focus: sweatshop labor. The course became a required component of the curriculum, and has been taught annually ever since. International Economic Development Program students in Jordan
The New York Times publishes a stirring letter from President Ford, publicly and forcefully voicing his support for affirmative action as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs a case against the University of Michigan’s admission practices. “I don’t want future college students to suffer the cultural and social impoverishment that afflicted my generation.”
2001
space Photo: SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE
CLOSUP, the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy, is founded with an allocation from the state legislature; Elisabeth Gerber is recruited as founding director. The goal: to ensure continuous engagement between U-M’s academic researchers and the stakeholders and policymakers working to address state, local, and urban policy problems.
Students propose a new international economic development course. They’ll select a country for study, investigate its most pressing development issues, and plan a week-long spring break visit that will allow them to meet with policymakers. In the next ten years, roughly 250 students will participate, visiting Cuba, Ethiopia, Jordan, Peru, the Philippines, and other nations.
Some $12 million is contributed to the school’s endowment fund this year, most gifts in honor of Gerald R. Ford. Endowment funds support a variety of initiatives, including faculty professorships, lectures and public speakers, a policymaker-in-residence program, and more. Joint-PhD program established with economics, political science, and sociology; Mary Corcoran serves as founding director. In the first ten years, 38 students will earn the degree and find positions, some with policy organizations and most with prestigious universities, including Duke, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale January 23, President George W. Bush signs bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act.
2002
Ford School receives a $5 million award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to host the National Poverty Center.
2004
A crowd watches on as President and Betty Ford join the groundbreaking ceremony for Joan and Sanford Weill Hall, the school’s future home. Newsletter reports, “Throughout the school’s nomadic history, home has been a state of mind.” Over the last 90 years, the school has taken refuge in the library, Angell Hall, the law building, Haven Hall, Rackham Building, Lorch Hall, the Huron Annex, the Oakland Annex (staff will throw rocks, quite literally, when it’s torn down) and, according to legend, a space above a nightspot called the Nectarine Ballroom. Ford School begins U.S./China academic exchange with Renmin University’s School of Public Administration.
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U.S. State Department sends the school its first Diplomat-in-Residence: Dan Turnquist, who speaks five languages and has spent a quartercentury working as a labor officer in nine different countries.
S tate & H ill
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