Center for the Continuing Education of Women scholarship winners, 1971
Courtesy of the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan
University of Michigan Library Digital Collections
This photo appeared in the June 1971 issue of Michigan Alumnus with the following caption: “Nine women, selected from among 272 applicants, have received $1,500 merit scholarships from the University’s Center for the Continuing Education of Women. Seven of the nine are pictured here. Seated (left to right) are Marilyn Leese, Jane Wolfe, Carol Taylor, Susan Stokes, and Kay Bauman. Standing (left to right) are Edith Withey and Carolyn Houser.”
A journey of institutional self-discovery committed to challenging our conception of the past and taking action to build a truly inclusive present and future.
The first IHP exhibition, In Search of Memories: Exploring the Archival Gaps between Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, at the UCEN Gallery at the University of Michigan-Flint, 2024.
Photo provided by Michigan Photography.
As the co-chairs of the Inclusive History Project, we are excited to share our Year 2 Report, which details the IHP’s progress and achievements over the past year. More than ever, we believe in the necessity of an honest and critical self-assessment of the University of Michigan’s history that celebrates successes and acknowledges where we have fallen short of our institutional mission. In the pages of this report, we invite you to see how our steadfast commitment to deepening our understanding of our past and taking action that enables the university to build a truly inclusive present and future is being realized.
Elizabeth R. Cole & Earl Lewis
Co-chairs, Inclusive History Project
The IHP is committed to building a project that covers the whole university and engages deeply and meaningfully across and beyond our campuses.
The IHP is charged with studying and documenting a comprehensive, inclusive history of the University of Michigan that stretches across the university’s three campuses and Michigan Medicine.
Through the histories we tell and the partnerships we create, the IHP is committed to engaging with faculty, staff, students, alumni, patients, and neighbors. This broad and deep engagement is fundamental to a fuller understanding of the university’s past and its contemporary effects.
The IHP must foreground the continuing impact of the university’s history on its present, and build out from a renewed knowledge and acknowledgment of our institution’s past to make concrete commitments to reshaping its future.
The IHP was announced as a presidential initiative in June 2022. It emerged in response to contexts that include the rich histories of campus activism and institutional support for efforts to advance inclusion and equity here at the university, historical name reviews that have taken place on the Ann Arbor campus over the last several years, and the broad movement of other colleges and universities to reckon with their histories. It also builds on wide-ranging efforts to study and reckon with U-M’s history that are underway on our campuses.
Drone view of UM-Flint campus in the fall, 2020
Photo provided by Michigan Photography, University of Michigan. Photographer: Eric Bronson
State Street in front of Michigan Union, 1947
University of Michigan News and Information Services Photographs, Bentley Historical Library
University of Michigan Library Digital Collections
© Regents of the University of Michigan
This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Students crossing State Street in front of the Michigan Union on the Ann Arbor campus, 1947
In July 2023, the IHP’s Framing & Design Committee released a design for the IHP’s next five years that includes a research plan and priorities, recommendations for additional project activities, and an articulation of the values and commitments that must guide the IHP’s work.
The IHP is engaged in rigorous, scholarly work to study and document the university’s full history. Our research is organized by four Frames, which are essential themes that provide a structure for the project’s wide-ranging research.
Black activism at U-M, 2015
Courtesy of Austin McCoy
U-M graduate student Austin McCoy speaking at a protest in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
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