John U. Bacon

Because my last 700-word commentary completely covered every subject in the sports world that occurred in 2013, my editor thought, “Hey, why not preview the year in sports in January?!”

Why not? Because I have no idea what’s going to happen, that’s why. Nobody does. That’s why we watch sports: We don’t know how it’s going to end. It’s also why we shouldn’t watch pregame shows: everybody is just guessing.

Nonetheless, if The Chronicle wants to pay me to make wild, unsupported guesses – then doggonnit, that’s what I’ll do. Just one of the many duties that come with being a hard-hitting investigative journalist.

Let’s start at the bottom. That means, of course, the Detroit Lions.

The Lions finished yet another season by missing the playoffs, and firing their coach. If you’re surprised by any of this, you have not been paying the slightest attention, and probably don’t know that the football is the one with pointy ends.

In my lifetime, the Lions have won exactly one playoff game – and I am no spring chicken. At this rate, if I want to see the Lions win the Super Bowl, I’ll have to live… several lifetimes.

In 1997, I wrote: “The Lions’ four decades of mediocrity beg more fundamental questions. Why did [the Lions] pick Wayne Fontes in the first place? Why have they been so patient with him? And why are the Lions so attracted to nice guys who finish third?”

Seventeen years, seven head coaches, and zero playoff wins later, we are asking the same questions. First wild guess: 17 years from now, we’ll be asking the same ones.

Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo has gotten the Spartans into the NCAA tournament every year, for 16 straight years. He once told me, as a joke, that maybe they should miss the tournament one year, just to remind their fans it’s not a birthright. Maybe, but not this year. The Spartans are 15-1, ranked fourth, and flying high.

Izzo has won seven Big Ten titles, been to five Final Fours and won the national title in 2000. But I’ve often said his best season of coaching was 2010, when they lost two-time Big Ten player of the year Kalin Lucas, and got to the Final Four without him.

By that measure, this could be Michigan head coach John Beilein’s best season, too. Last year they got to the NCAA finals for the first time since the Fab Five. They were expected to do big things this year, too. But then star center Mitch McGary had to bow out for back surgery. It was a colossal blow – to which the Wolverines have responded by winning six straight games, including their first four Big Ten contests. Do not count them out.

That brings us to the Detroit Pistons, for some reason. The Pistons made the playoffs for eight straight years until their owner, Bill Davidson, passed away in 2009. They haven’t made it back since,  and they won’t this year.

The Red Wings, in contrast, are extremely well run, and proved it by making the playoffs every season since 1990 – a record that spans longer than the lifetimes of some of their players. Another wild guess: their streak will not be broken this spring, either.

The Tigers are in for an interesting year. After Jim Leyland retired, they hired Brad Ausmus to manage the team. Ausmus, a Dartmouth grad, might be the smartest, best looking manager the game has ever seen. And that will carry him right up to… opening day.

In college football, the questions are simple: Are the Spartans really all that? And when will the Wolverines return to being all that?

The Spartans went 13-1 last season, beating Michigan and Ohio State to win the Big Ten title, then followed up with a Rose Bowl win over Stanford – all with players those schools didn’t want. Can they do it again, and prove it was no fluke?

At Michigan, the Wolverines are trying to prove that the last decade was a fluke, and they still belong among the nation’s elite teams. The big story this month was not a big bowl win or a big recruit, but the firing of an offensive coordinator, and the hiring of a new one. Good move.

I’ve never seen a fan base so excited over the hiring of an offensive coordinator. And I’ve never seen that excitement so justified.

Will Michigan’s offense be better than last year’s? Well, as my dad so often told me as a kid, when you’re on the floor, you can’t fall out of bed. The best date on the schedule next year might be October 25, when the Wolverines travel to East Lansing to face the Spartans.

Be sure to tune in 11 months from now, when I will publicly deny making any one of these predictions.

About the writer: Ann Arbor resident John U. Bacon is the author of the national bestsellers “Fourth and Long: The Future of College Football,” “Bo’s Lasting Lessons” and “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football.” You can follow him on Twitter (@Johnubacon), and at johnubacon.com.

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of columnists like John U. Bacon. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

John U. Bacon

This spring, the University of Michigan women’s softball team won its 15th Big Ten title, and fifth in a row. It went to the NCAA tournament – for the 18th straight season – and won its 14th NCAA regional crown, before losing on Friday in the super-regional to third-ranked Alabama.

In other words, just another typical season for Michigan softball – a team led by Carol Hutchins, one of Michigan’s best coaches, of any sport, in any era. Winning titles is what they do.

And this was not even one of Hutchins’ best teams.

That’s how well this machine runs – and make no mistake, it is a machine. Hutchins’ teams have won more Big Ten titles than the rest of the conference – combined. But it’s a machine she put together, part by part, one that took years of tinkering just to win her first race.

That Hutchins even got the chance was a bit of a miracle in itself. She grew up in Lansing, the fifth of six kids. Her own mom didn’t see the point in her playing sports, let alone competing. But Hutchins refused to quit.

She attended Lansing Everett High School, where she shared the court with a young man named Earvin Johnson – better known as Magic. Right off, the differences between men’s and women’s sports were glaring. Magic’s team got nice home and away uniforms and practiced after school. Hutchins’ team wore reversible “pinnies,” and practiced late at night.

When both Magic and Hutchins enrolled at Michigan State, the contrast was even greater. The men’s basketball team traveled by private plane, and stayed two to a room in nice hotels. The women drove rented vans, and slept four to a room, at the cheapest places they could find.

But none of this dampened Hutchins’ love for sports. She ultimately switched from basketball to softball, and from the Spartans to the Wolverines. When she interviewed at Michigan for a position split between assistant softball coach and administrative assistant, former athletic director Don Canham asked her one question: Could she type?

Hutchins thought about it for a moment. Then she said, with complete conviction, “Yes. Yes I can.” Except, of course, she couldn’t – but if she had told the truth, Michigan would have lost out on its winningest coach.

Fresh off her master’s degree, Hutchins received a whopping three thousand dollars her first year – which had her mom shaking her head all over again. Two years later, Hutchins became Michigan’s head coach. In her eighth season, her team won its first Big Ten title – and since then, they’ve been winning them almost every year.

Finally, in 2005, her team became the first softball squad east of Oklahoma and north of Cal-Berkeley to win an NCAA title – about as stunning as a hockey team from Alabama taking the national crown.

How does she do it? First, her players love her, and so do her assistants. The seniors cry at their banquet, realizing a great phase of their lives has just ended. The assistants never leave, despite getting many good offers to go elsewhere. And when you’re on her team, you get to see her goofy side – “and no one else gets to see that,” recent graduate Kristin Larsen says.

During a road trip, Larsen managed to get Hutch and the team hooked on “The Office.” When they got back to Michigan, they set up a camera in the clubhouse for “confessionals,” and the players would actually tape these during games – including a 10-run inning to cap a come-from-behind victory during the 2008 NCAA regionals. A few days later, Hutch herself showed up for practice dressed as Dwight – and the players howled.

When you get to third base, Hutch – as even her players call her – gives you peanut M&Ms out of her back pocket. Hit a homer, and she tosses a few in the air for you to catch as you round third.

But Hutch is not always warm and fuzzy. Former athletic director Bill Martin said, “If every coach at Michigan was stamped out of the same mold as Hutch, you wouldn’t need an athletic director. Her kids thrive in the classroom, and she’s a great colleague and mentor to other coaches. She was an absolute pleasure to work with – except after a loss.”

For 10 years, Martin’s office was right next to hers. He quickly learned that, on a Monday after her team lost even one of the four games that weekend, “don’t come in. She is a big grump!”

Well, as Woody Hayes often said: Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a busboy. Hutch’s mom should be glad to know: her daughter is no busboy.

About the author: John U. Bacon is the author of the New York Times bestseller “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football.” He also co-authored “A Legacy of Champions,” and provided commentary for “Black and Blue: The Story of Gerald Ford, Willis Ward, and the 1934 Michigan-Georgia Tech Football Game,” which has been airing on various stations in Michigan and nationally.

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of columnists like John U. Bacon. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

John U. Bacon

Steve Kampfer grew up in Jackson, and learned to play hockey well enough to earn a scholarship to the University of Michigan. He was a good student and a good player on some very good days, but few expected Kampfer to make it to the NHL. I confess that I was one of them.

What chance he had seemed to vanish on an October night in 2008, when he was leaving a campus bar. He started jawing with another student, who happened to be on the wrestling team. Things got hot, but it was all just talk, until the wrestler picked up Kampfer and turned him upside in a single, sudden move – then dropped him head first on the sidewalk.

Kampfer lay there unconscious, with blood sliding out of his mouth. His stunned friend thought he might be dead.

They rushed Kampfer to the hospital, where they discovered he’d suffered a closed head injury and a severe skull fracture, near his spine. He woke up on a flatboard, his head in a neck brace and tubes running out of his body.

His coach, Red Berenson, talked to him about the possibility – even the likelihood – that he would never play hockey again. The goal was simply to make a full recovery, but they wouldn’t know that for three months.

Kampfer was a student in my class at the time, which met twice a week at 8:30 in the morning – not the most popular hour for college students. Just one week after the incident, at 8:30 Monday morning, Steve Kampfer walked back into my class, wearing a neckbrace. He never discussed the injury. He never made any excuses. He never missed a single class.

But his life was far from normal. I found out just how far only this week, when his mom gave me a paper he had written for another class. In it, he explains how hard it was just to eat, shower, go to the bathroom, or read a book. Nothing was the way it had been – not even sleeping.

Beyond the inconvenience, there was fear. When he looked in the mirror and saw his neck supported by a huge plastic brace, he knew if he turned his neck just an inch, he could be paralyzed forever. Anytime somebody ran toward him, it scared the hell out of him.

After a few weeks, he started going back to the rink – not to skate, but to ride a stationary bike for five minutes a day. Then eight. Then ten. It was the best part of his day, when he would imagine his bones healing, his neck turning, and himself skating again. And on some days, he let himself dream every hockey player’s dream, of raising the Stanley Cup over his head.

After two months, Kampfer started skating again, and got to work building up his legs, and his heart. Instead of becoming gun-shy, he got tougher, and faster. The next year, he had a strong senior season, earned his degree, then reported to the Boston Bruins’ top farm team in Providence, Rhode Island.

I thought that was great, but was as far as he was going to get. But the Bruins called him up in December 2010, and he played very well, before he injured his knee. Boston went on to win the Stanley Cup for the first time in almost four decades, when Number 4, Bobby Orr, was still a young star.

Kampfer had played in 38 games, three short of the 41 required to get your name engraved on the Stanley Cup. But Boston’s general manager petitioned the league, in the hopes of getting Steven Kampfer’s name on the same silver cylinder as Gordie Howe, Wayne Gretzky and Steve Yzerman. Those legends all have bigger names, of course, but not better stories.

Last week, Steve Kampfer got the Stanley Cup for a day, one of the NHL’s most cherished customs. He could have held his party in Boston or Ann Arbor, but chose to take the greatest trophy in team sports to downtown Jackson, surrounded by his friends and former coaches and teachers.

Naturally, they all wanted to get their picture taken with Kampfer, hoisting the Cup over his head – and that sucker weighs 50 pounds. I saw him do it over a hundred times. I had to remind myself this was the same kid who, not so long ago, couldn’t lift his own head.

After Kampfer’s friends took their last picture, I said, “Hey Steve – you must have gotten a hell of a workout tonight. Are you feeling it?”

“No way,” he said, with a deeply satisfied smile. “This thing never gets heavy.”

About the author: John U. Bacon is the author of the upcoming “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football,” due out Oct. 25. You can pre-order the book from Nicola’s Books in Ann Arbor or on Amazon.com.

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of columnists like John U. Bacon. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

John U. Bacon

Last year, Michigan’s men’s hockey team was in danger of breaking its record 19-straight appearances in the NCAA tournament – a streak that started before many of the current players were even born. They were picked to finish first in the league – but they finished a disastrous seventh, unheard of in Ann Arbor.

The only way they could keep their streak alive was to win six league playoff games to get an automatic bid. Oh, and they’d have to do it with a back-up goalie named Shawn Hunwick, a 5-foot-6 walk-on who had never started a college game. Things looked bleak, to say the least.

But the kid caught fire. The Wolverines actually won all six games, they stretched their streak to 20 straight NCAA tournaments, and Hunwick won the league tournament MVP award. He was like Rudy – with talent.

But there are no sequels for Cinderella. One run is all you get.

This fall, Hunwick alternated games with the original starting goalie, Bryan Hogan, who was healthy again. They both played well, but Hogan won more games. Luck was not on the little Hunwick’s side.

So, when Red Berenson had to pick a goalie to play in the Big Chill game at Michigan Stadium – in front of the largest crowd ever to watch a hockey game – he picked Hogan. Hunwick was disappointed – but not surprised.

But in warm-ups, Hogan pulled a muscle, so they had to throw Hunwick in net, with no preparation – and the kid shuts out Michigan State, 5-0. A star was re-born. Once again, Hunwick took his team on an incredible run, finishing the regular season with an eight-game winning streak to steal the conference crown from Notre Dame on the last night.

Michigan went on to win the NCAA West Region, thanks to Hunwick’s MVP performance, and the team advanced to hockey’s final four. But that meant they had to face the best team in college hockey, North Dakota. Michigan got ahead, 1-0, then counted on Hunwick to do the rest – and he did, knocking back 40 shots, including a few simply spectacular saves, without letting in a single goal.

Against the best players in college hockey, many of whom were days away from signing big NHL contracts, the best player on the ice was the 5-foot-6 walk-on goalie who didn’t even have a full scholarship. But he was the one who made it to the championship game last Saturday, not the future NHLers.

Against Minnesota-Duluth, for all the marbles, Hunwick was fantastic again, making 35 saves and being named the Frozen Four’s best goalie. But three minutes into overtime, Duluth scored a good goal. Hunwick didn’t have a chance. The dream ended one goal short.

But the best thing Hunwick did this season happened a few weeks earlier, on Senior Night, when he had a shut-out going against Northern Michigan. Finishing the shut-out could only help his chances for winning league awards, but Hunwick told the coaches he wanted to come out, and let Bryan Hogan, the man who’s job he had taken, finish the game.

“Hey, we’re friends,” Hunwick told me. “And I didn’t win his job. He just got hurt.” If anyone knew how it felt to be the back-up, waiting for a chance that might not ever come, it was Shawn Hunwick. “I’ve been on the bench, and I’ve been in the spotlight. This is definitely a better view.”

Amazingly, Hunwick didn’t get elected to the league’s first or second all-star teams – in a ridiculous oversight – and the NHL scouts continue to ignore him. But I’ve never seen any athlete get two chances to play Cinderella – and Hunwick nailed it, both times.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the Wall Street Journal, and ESPN Magazine, among others. He is the author of “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller, and “Third and Long: Three Years with Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines,” due out this fall through FSG. Bacon teaches at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.

John U. Bacon

The past two Sundays, ESPN has been running a documentary called “The Fab Five,” about Michigan’s famed five freshman basketball players who captured the public’s imagination twenty years ago. It’s not quite journalism – four of the Fab Five produced it themselves – but it is a pretty honest account of what those two years were all about. And it is undeniably compelling. The first showing reached over two million homes, making it the highest rated documentary in ESPN’s history.

A lot of this story, you already know: In 1991, five super-talented freshmen came to Michigan, and by mid-season the Wolverines were the first team in NCAA history to start five freshmen. They got to the final game of March Madness before losing to the defending national champion Duke Blue Devils. The next year, they made it to the finals again, but this time they lost to North Carolina when Michigan’s best player, Chris Webber, called a time-out they didn’t have.

Along the way they made baggy shorts and black socks fashionable, and imported rap music and trash talk from the inner-city playgrounds to the college courts. It’s been that way ever since.

They stirred up a lot of controversy, but at the time the two most sympathetic figures were head coach Steve Fisher, a truly nice guy who seemed to be a hapless victim of his own recruiting success, and Chris Webber, the most polished of the bunch, due partly to his private school background. To many fans, the rest of the Fab Five were just a bunch of clueless, classless clowns who didn’t belong on a college campus.

The Fab Five certainly had its vices, but selfishness wasn’t one of them. In the history of college basketball, few starting fives worked better together than the Fab Five, mainly because they really didn’t care who scored.

I started writing stories about them after they left Michigan, and quickly discovered they’d known all along what they were doing, and did a lot of it merely to gain a competitive advantage. That doesn’t make all of it right, of course, but it dispels the popular notion they were just a bunch of out-of-control kids from the ‘hood simply seeking attention. They weren’t that needy, and they definitely were not stupid.

I found the ones I spoke to – Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard and Jimmy King – to be unfailingly friendly, respectful and helpful. At one point, three of the Fab Five were listed among the NBA’s top five charitable givers.

It also turned out Steve Fisher really could coach – witness the masterpiece over Kentucky in the 1993 NCAA semi-finals – and he wasn’t a victim, either. I learned the latter on a cold Sunday morning in 1996 – a year after the last of the Fab Five had left – when my editor called me to find Maurice Taylor’s Ford Explorer that had rolled over on M-14, near Plymouth.

After I tracked down the truck, a car dealer told me it cost about $35,000. The Secretary of State told me Taylor’s grandmother bought it, and the records showed the car cost twice as much as her home. Within 24 hours, we found several other Michigan players were driving cars they probably couldn’t afford, either. It didn’t take much to smell something fishy.

The investigation that started that day resulted in two coaches fired, two banners brought down, and the entire program put on probation for years.

But I had to wonder: If the press could figure all this out in about 24 hours, why couldn’t Steve Fisher connect the dots right under his nose over several years? They say he wasn’t part of the payola plan, and that’s probably true. But you’d have to be willfully blind not to see its effects by 1996.

When Fisher was fired, he said they’d built an elite program and “done it the right way.” That’s not true – and by the time he was fired, he knew it. To this day, Fisher has never accepted any responsibility for what happened on his watch, and Chris Webber has never apologized for taking over a quarter-million dollars from a booster. Fisher now coaches San Diego State, which played in the Sweet Sixteen last night, while Webber is a very wealthy TV commentator. Those who followed them at Michigan paid the price for their mistakes.

Twenty years ago, I thought the leaders of the Fab Five were Steve Fisher and Chris Webber. But it turns out the real leader was Jalen Rose, who finished his degree by writing term papers in the back of NBA team planes. He and the other three have proven to be thoughtful, successful and even honest men, committed to their communities and their families. I’ve come to have great respect for them – and much less for their so-called leaders.

What a difference 20 years makes.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the Wall Street Journal, and ESPN Magazine, among others. He is the author of “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller, and “Third and Long: Three Years with Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines,” due out this fall through FSG. Bacon teaches at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009.

John U. Bacon

On Saturday, more than 100,000 frozen fans will watch Michigan play Michigan State at the Big House. Not in football, which happens every other year. But in hockey, thus setting the record for the biggest crowd ever to watch a hockey game – anywhere.

To build a hockey rink on a football field, a six-man crew works for three weeks. First, they install the floor out of big plastic tiles called Terratrak, which were originally designed to create portable runways for fighter jets in the desert. If they can handle F-15s, they can handle Bauer Supremes. Then they put up the boards, the glass, and start flooding the rink with some 40,000 gallons of water.

Don’t worry – these guys have built rinks in San Diego and Mexico City. For them, Michigan’s a skate in the park.

The game will be televised by the Big Ten Network, and will receive worldwide attention. Lawrence Kasdan, the Michigan alum who wrote and directed the classic movie “The Big Chill,” will drop the opening puck. And every time Michigan scores, fireworks will fly.

But that’s not the most impressive part.

No, for that you have to go back to 1984, coach Red Berenson’s first season behind the Michigan bench. The Wolverines were drawing the smallest crowds in the history of Yost Arena, just three thousand a night – not even half the capacity. Berenson was so desperate to increase the crowd, on Friday afternoons he would walk up State Street to the Diag with a wad of tickets for that night’s game, and actually try to give them away. More surprising: it didn’t work.

In Berenson’s first year, the average attendance increased by a total ten people. Ten. Few people wanted those tickets – and even fewer recognized the guy trying to give them away.

But if they knew anything about hockey, they would have.

Berenson was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, but blew off the Montreal Canadiens to attend Michigan – unheard of at the time. He set almost every school scoring record, while earning a business degree – the best years of his life, he says.

The ones that followed weren’t too bad, either. He was the first college player to jump straight to the NHL, where he spent 17 years as a player, and four more as a coach. But he knew it was a business, a point hammered home when he earned NHL’s coach of the year honors in 1980, and a pink slip in 1981.

Michigan had tried twice before to bring the Red Baron home to coach, but the third time proved the charm.

Berenson thought it would be easy to resurrect the once-proud program, but he quickly discovered none of the recruits remembered when the Wolverines were great. They didn’t remember him, either.

“I had no idea what I was getting into,” Berenson now admits, with a chuckle.

It took Berenson four years to get a winning record, six to return to the NCAA tournament, seven to start selling out the building, and 12 to win his first NCAA title.

“Looking back, I can’t believe it took us so long just to have a winning season,” he says. “I’m glad I didn’t know that when I took over.”

Berenson turned 71 on Wednesday. “I didn’t expect to be doing this so long. But I’m glad I have.”

Tomorrow, he will coach a game outdoors, on the kind of rink he grew up playing on as a kid during World War II.

But this one will be surrounded by over 100,000 fans.

And he didn’t have to give even one of those tickets away.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the New York Times, and ESPN Magazine, among others. His most recent book is “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Bacon teaches at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio; Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism; and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.

Championship ring on the hand of a UM men's gymnast at the May 20, 2010 board of regents meeting in Dearborn. (Photos by the writer.)

During the May 20 meeting, regents approved a 3% average rate increase for room and board during the 2010-11 academic year in campus residence halls. A double room will increase from $8,924 to $9,192 – an increase of $268. The most expensive room – a single with a private bath – will cost $12,166, up $354. Rates for the Northwood apartment complex on UM’s north campus were also raised an average of 1%.

Three construction projects – including a $17.7 million expansion to the University Hospital emergency department and a new $2.5 million indoor golf practice facility – were approved, with no discussion.

A large part of the meeting consisted of presentations, including an update on how the university’s health system might be affected by recent national health care reform, and a report on the non-traditional education programs task force, which generated some comments from regents.

Several sporting achievements were highlighted at the start of the meeting, as has been the case in other recent months. Most prominently, the men’s gymnastics team attended and were congratulated for their recent NCAA championship win. The celebration included a cake, and regents were given caps – which some wore during the meeting – commemorating the achievement.

Sports-related news not mentioned during the May 20 meeting was the university’s response to allegations that its football program violated NCAA rules – the university announced that response a few days later.

President’s Opening Remarks

UM president Mary Sue Coleman began by introducing the delegation from the Michigan-China University Leadership Forum, who attended the meeting as part of their two-week visit here – they leave on Saturday, May 29. UM’s relationship with China continues to grow, she said, and is an important partnership.

Xuhong Zhou, leader of the Chinese delegation to the Michigan-China University Leadership Forum, was introduced at the May 20 board of regents meeting on UM's Dearborn campus.

Coleman will be traveling to China in late June and early July, as part of UM’s international initiative with that country. It includes the UM-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute, which was established in 2005. [During public commentary time at the end of the meeting, retired UM engineering professor William Kauffman condemned the university's relationship with China, saying that it undermined national security.]

In other remarks, Coleman noted that later in the meeting, the regents would be asked to approve the reappointment of Daniel Little as chancellor of the Dearborn campus, through 2015. He is the longest-serving chancellor in the 50-year history of the campus.

This was the first regents meeting following the May 1 commencement at Michigan Stadium, when President Barack Obama spoke. Coleman said they had received positive feedback about the speech from across the country.

She then introduced UM athletic director David Brandon, who in turn introduced the men’s gymnastics team, describing them as champions in the classroom as well as in athletic competition. He called up head coach Kurt Golder to the podium – when Coleman asked Golder to tell them about the recent NCAA victory, he replied, “Well … we won!” Golder described how Ben Baldus-Strauss had broken his thumb during the competition but had gutted it out. Baldus-Strauss also received the NCAA’s Elite 88 award earlier this year, Golder noted, given for his 3.948 GPA in biochemistry. Members of the team who attended the meeting came to the front of the room with their NCAA trophy, and were given a round of applause.

In noting other UM sports highlights, Coleman remarked on the recent victory by the men’s baseball team against Northwestern, after being down 14 points. “It was the most remarkable performance I have ever seen in baseball!” Coleman said.

Housing Rates Increased

During reports from UM’s executive officers, E. Royster Harper, vice president for student affairs, thanked regents for their “unwavering” support of living/learning environments on campus. She called the proposed 3% average rate increase wise and prudent, saying that 2% would be used for upcoming renovations of Alice Lloyd Hall, with the remaining 1% increase allocated to general operating costs for the housing system.

Later in the meeting, with no discussion, regents approved the following housing rate increases:

Residence Halls           2009-10    2010-11     Increase
Single                    $10,650    $10,970      $320
Double                      8,924      9,192       268
Triple                      7,890      8,126       236
Single (private bath)      11,812     12,166       354
Double (private bath)       9,998     10,298       300
Double (in suite)          10,650     10,970       320
Triple (in suite)           9,998     10,298       300

-

Provided in the meeting packet was comparison data on housing rate increases that occurred for the current academic year at 23 peer institutions, ranked in order of the percentage increase. The packet also contained information about projected rate increases at Big Ten universities for the coming year. Those increases range from a high of 5.4% at Ohio State (projected) to a low of 2.5% at the University of Minnesota (projected). [.pdf of comparative data] Not included was any reference to Eastern Michigan University’s recent decision not to raise room and board, fees or tuition.

In addition, regents approved a 1% average rate increase for family, graduate and undergraduate apartments at the Northwood Community Apartment complex, off of Plymouth Road on UM’s north campus. [.pdf of Northwood housing rates]

Construction Projects: Health, Infrastructure, Sports

Three sizable construction projects were approved by regents during the May 20 meeting with no discussion, totaling $28.9 million.

ER Expansion

Regents approved a $17.7 million expansion of the University Hospital’s emergency department, aimed at reducing overcrowding and patient wait times. In 2009, the hospital’s ER had over 77,000 patient visits.

The project will be done in phases, starting with the renovation of 6,400 square feet of space on level 2 of the Medical Inn Building, which will eventually house the hospital’s dentistry department. On level B1 of the hospital, roughly 22,500 square feet will be renovated to create 26 treatment bays, six enclosed triage rooms, two family consultation rooms, and expanded patient reception areas for the emergency department. In addition, space will be renovated and expanded adjacent to the ER to house the psychiatry emergency service.

The Ann Arbor architecture firm Hobbs + Black Associates will design the project, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2012.

Expansion of North Campus Chiller Plant

An $8.7 million project to expand the North Campus chiller plant was approved by regents without discussion. The original plant was built in 2005 and provides chilled water to that part of campus. Compared to having individual building chillers, the university saved an estimated $200,000 in energy costs last year, according to a cover memo on the project. The project would expand the system by 8,500 square feet and add two 1,300-ton chillers.

It will be paid for by funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – federal stimulus dollars. The project will be designed by the UM Department of Architecture, Engineering and Construction, working with the architectural and engineering firms of C2AE and S3 Architecture, with construction completed by the fall of 2011.

A map of the proposed UM golf practice facility – its location is indicated by the yellow oval.

Golf Practice Facility

Regents approved a $2.5 million, 10,000-square-foot indoor golf practice facility, to be located at the end of the UM Golf Course driving range (near the intersection of South Main and Ann Arbor-Saline Road).

The building will include a putting and chipping area, driving bays for the existing driving range, a team gathering space, coaches offices, locker rooms, a conference room, and storage. The project will be designed by Ann Arbor Architects Collaborative.

UM Health System and Health Care Reform

Matt Davis, an associate professor of pediatrics, internal medicine and public policy, briefed regents on how recent health care legislation might affect the university, and specifically the UM Health System (UMHS). He began by showing a photo of President Obama signing the bill into law, surrounded by legislators – including Rep. John Dingell. He noted that the Democrats looked happy – but that there were many Republicans who weren’t so happy. He said complete repeal was unlikely, though there will probably be incremental changes made to the law over time.

Describing it as a massive reform, Davis said that many aspects are unknown. However, there are some key elements that are clear, he said, and they can be summarized like this: “Coverage, coverage, coverage, coverage.”

Two examples of expanded coverage are taking effect this year: 1) extending eligibility for dependents through age 26, and 2) prohibiting insurance companies from setting lifetime limits on coverage and from establishing high-risk pools.

Two other areas of coverage will take effect in 2014, Davis said: 1) expanding Medicaid to cover people with income levels at 133% of the federal poverty line – it’s currently set at 50% in Michigan; and 2) providing subsidies for the purchase of health care plans via health insurance “exchanges.”

Davis highlighted four areas of emphasis as the university’s health system prepares for upcoming changes in 2014.

• All health insurance exchanges will have an “essential benefits plan,” or EBP. It’s not yet clear what the EBP will entail – the U.S. health and human services secretary will convene an expert group to help define the EBP, and university officials might be a part of that. What would UMHS like to see included in the plan? Is there research that the university could conduct on the issue?
• Medicaid reimbursements are still determined by states, and in most cases, reimbursements don’t cover costs. The university can work with Michigan legislators to come up with innovative way to restructure reimbursements, Davis said. He also cited another opportunity at the state level – helping develop a new health care provider assessment, which is likely to be passed into law.
• The U.S. medical profession tends to emphasize subspecialty care, Davis said, and wider health care coverage will likely exacerbate a shortage of primary care providers. UMHS has the opportunity to “widen the door” through outreach, inviting newly covered patients into the system.
• Davis described the concept of a “value proposition” – the amount of quality care that can be delivered for a specific cost. UMHS researchers are doing innovative work in this area, Davis said, citing research by Mark Fendrick, co-director of UM’s Center for Value-Based Insurance Design.

Chart showing potential financial impact of national health care reform on the UM Health System, in general terms. (Links to larger image.)

Davis also outlined the possible financial impact of other aspects in the reform package. Negative impacts could come from adjustments to Medicare payment rates, excise taxes on medical devices, drugs and some health plans, and a decrease in charitable care payments from the federal government. UMHS could see benefits from pilot programs and experiments with new care and patient models, and increased funding for preventive care, workforce initiatives and other programs.

Davis also discussed the issue of cost containment, saying there might be opportunities for UMHS to be a model for increasing the quality of care while keeping costs contained.

Davis concluded by noting the complexity of the reform. While challenging, he said the university is well-positioned to take advantage of opportunities that the changes might present.

Health Care Reform: Questions from Regents

Andy Richner asked whether a Medicaid provider assessment was desirable – was it something they really wanted? Davis replied that there might be some financial drain initially, but depending on how it was structured, there might be opportunity to draw down higher reimbursements in the long term.

Saying it sounds like there’s a lot of work to do by 2014, Andrea Fischer Newman asked if there was an organized effort in the state to tackle some of these issues. Davis said that every state will be different, and that in Michigan, the Michigan Health & Hospital Association has been very active.

Newman then asked Cynthia Wilbanks, UM’s vice president for government relations, whether Wilbanks had sufficient resources. [Wilbanks and her staff are the main advocates for UM interests in Lansing.] Wilbanks said she wasn’t prepared to answer that question at this point.

Non-Traditional Education Programs

Derek Collins, associate dean of Literature, Science, & the Arts, gave an update on the Non-traditional Education Programs at UM (NEPU) task force, which he chairs. The group, under the auspices of the provost’s office, was charged with assessing the university’s resources – buildings and other property, as well as people, including alumni and emeriti faculty. The task force was also asked to compile revenue-generating ideas that take advantage of those resources.

Collins said several areas looked promising – his presentation looked in detail at one of those areas: Continuing education. There are over 100 units at UM that offer professional development or enrichment programs, lifelong learning classes or other for-credit or non-credit courses, he said. Examples include executive education at the Ross School of Business, the College of Engineering’s Center for Professional Development, and the Medical School’s continuing education programs.

UM regent Kathy White, left, and provost Teresa Sullivan at the May 20, 2010 board of regents meeting on the Dearborn campus. The provost's office is overseeing a report on generating revenue via the university's non-traditional education resources.

But there’s no centralized location to get information about these programs, Collins said – UM is one of the only major universities, public or private, that doesn’t have a comprehensive gateway for continuing education. Centralizing this information isn’t just low-hanging fruit, he said, “it’s fruit that’s rotting on the ground.” In addition to making the information easier for people to find – and, presumably, sign up for – it would also make it easier for units within the university to share information and best practices, Collins added. Increased participation in these programs means increased revenue, he noted – with the potential to double the revenue currently brought in by continuing education programs within five years.

In general, over 530 ideas were submitted to the task force, Collins said – 62% of them related to continuing education. Other categories of ideas related to using under-utilized space at the university better – holding concerts in Michigan Stadium, for example – or adding new programs, like Elderhostels.

The task force is recommending that the ideas be categorized according to academic units, then shared with the leaders of those units, Collins said. They believe program development should be stimulated from the ground up, rather than top down from the administration.

Non-Traditional Education: Comments, Questions from Regents

Denise Ilitch asked that regents be given a copy of the inventory of suggestions, saying that it was important to look at ways to generate more revenue, and joking that occasionally regents came up with good ideas, too.

Andrea Fischer Newman said that anything the university can do to centralize information would be very helpful. She pointed out that deans were generally academics, not entrepreneurs – that wasn’t their priority. She asked where the report would go from here. Collins replied that Newman was right, and they should pair deans with people who have business experience. He said the task force is suggesting three phases over the next several years to work toward moving these ideas forward.

Mary Sue Coleman clarified that the provost’s office would be responsible for what happens next. Teresa Sullivan, the current provost who’ll be leaving this summer to become president of the University of Virginia, said there’s a modest amount of money in the upcoming budget that will be used to follow-up on some of the task force recommendations.

Regent Olivia Maynard urged the staff to move ahead – the university can’t afford to have a report sit on the shelf, she said. Collins replied that he shared her urgency and enthusiasm.

Regent Martin Taylor suggested bringing another update to the regents in six months. Unless someone is driving the effort, they risk losing it, he said.

Michigan Student Assembly Report

Chris Armstrong gave his first report as president of the Michigan Student Assembly – he was elected in March, and had been introduced at the April regents meeting in Grand Rapids.

Among the items in his report, Armstrong said that MSA would be focusing on preparing for fall voter registration on campus. They’ll have voter registration boxes across campus, and are working on a website where students can register online. Thousands of students were registered during the 2008 election, he said, and they hope to surpass those numbers.

Armstrong noted that he would be in Washington D.C. this summer for an internship, so he wouldn’t be able to attend the regents’ June meeting. As they prepare to set tuition rates, he urged regents to keep accessibility in mind. If there is a tuition increase, he said, there should also be an increase in available financial aid.

Public Commentary

Six people spoke during public commentary at the end of the meeting.

Douglas Smith addressed the regents about a situation involving the UM Department of Public Safety and Andrei Borisov, saying it “illustrates not only that shared governance by the faculty has been subverted by the UM administration, but that they are not shy about using their private police force to punish whistleblowers and suppress dissent.” Smith has spoken at previous board meetings – most recently in September and November of 2009 – expressing similar concerns stemming from a chain of events that led to Borisov’s dismissal as a research assistant professor in the university’s pediatrics department, and a subsequent confrontation with DPS officers. [A recent post on Insider Higher Education and an article in the Michigan Daily describe these issues in greater detail.]

William Kauffman, a retired UM engineering professor, told the regents that UM’s College of Engineering has declined significantly in its ability to educate students. He noted that the last astronaut from the university had graduated in 1964. He described it as a “cesspool of corruption,” with widespread fraud, plagiarism and falsification of records. Kauffman also expressed serious concerns about UM’s relationship with China, saying that the power and industry grab by the Chinese was threatening U.S. national security. He also noted that people from Iran had studied at UM, and now that country had nuclear capabilities. Kauffman passed out a packet of material that included a copy of an email in which he recommended that UM not be re-accredited.

Cardi DeMonaco Jr., a student at UM-Dearborn, addressed the topic of tuition increases. He said he understood that tuition will likely increase again this year. At UM-Dearborn, he said, tuition increases had risen on average 8.2% over the past five years. He wondered why Eastern Michigan University could afford to freeze its tuition, but UM couldn’t, and he urged regents to follow EMU’s lead. Education is a right, DeMonaco said, but soon only the rich will be able to afford it. He also noted that books at the university bookstore are more expensive than they need to be, citing an example of a used textbook for a matrix algebra class costing $125 at the bookstore, but available online for $19.

After DeMonaco’s remarks, regent Denise Ilitch thanked him, saying she had heard everything he’d said. The board would continue to be very focused and concerned about rising tuition, she said.

Bonnie Halloran, president of the Lecturers' Employees Organization (LEO), spoke to regents during public commentary.

Bonnie Halloran, a lecturer at the UM-Dearborn campus and president of the Lecturers Employee Organization, discussed the issue of contract negotiations between the administration and LEO. She asked the regents to make the lecturers whole in terms of benefits, and to support a move toward more equitable pay for lecturers. She noted that lecturers play a critical role in the classroom. Halloran also raised the issue of the recent non-reappointment of Kirsten Herold, the union’s vice president who has taught in the English department for 18 years. Calling it intimidation, Halloran urged the regents to intervene on behalf of Herold’s reinstatement. [At the regents April meeting, LEO's lead negotiator, Elizabeth Axelson, had raised similar concerns.]

Responding to Halloran, regent Martin Taylor said they understood the importance of lecturers, but that it was inappropriate to ask them to intervene regarding Herold. The correct avenue is to file a grievance, he said. Taylor also said he hoped that LEO could “step up the pace” of negotiations. Halloran replied that they are in the process of filing a grievance, and that they’re working very hard at the bargaining table.

Donald Anderson, a professor emeritus of political science and president of the UM-Dearborn Academy of Retired Faculty and Staff, spoke about health benefits being evaluated by the university’s committee on retiree health benefits. The committee will present its recommendations to the regents in June. Anderson urged regents to phase in changes over time, taking into account initial contract commitments, length of service and hardships that might result from sudden changes to benefits. Regents should be sensitive to the fragile financial situation of many retirees, he said. He questioned the goal of the committee, which is to bring down retiree health costs to the average or slightly above average of UM’s peer institutions. Was this really a goal worthy of the university? The better question is this, he said: What’s a fair, equitable way to contain retiree health care costs while recognizing the contributions of retirees who loyally served the university.

Saying she was speaking at the UM-Dearborn meeting because she’d been banned from the Ann Arbor campus, Linda Martinson said she’d been forced to take action against the university because of her wrongful expulsion as a student of the School of Nursing. Following her expulsion, Martinson was issued a no-trespass order – a packet that Martinson provided to regents included a copy of the order issued to her in 2008, which stated that her behavior had been perceived as “threatening and disruptive.” Martinson told regents that UM is seriously lacking institutional integrity. [Martinson had filed three lawsuits against the university in state circuit court – those cases were dismissed by agreement of both parties after she filed a separate federal lawsuit in September 2009. She's asking that the university void her expulsion, and is also seeking damages and attorney fees.]

Martinson continued speaking after the allotted three-minute period for her public commentary ended. After Mary Sue Coleman asked her to wrap up her remarks several times, a member of the university’s security staff came to the front of the room. Martinson continued for a couple more minutes before concluding her statement, and the meeting was adjourned.

Present: Mary Sue Coleman (ex officio), Julia Darlow, Denise Ilitch, Olivia Maynard, Andrea Fischer Newman, Andy Richner, Martin Taylor, Kathy White.

Absent: Larry Deitch

Next board meeting: Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 3 p.m. in the Fleming Administration Building, 503 Thompson St., Ann Arbor. [confirm date]

John U. Bacon

Michigan first baseman Mike Dufek stepped up to the plate in the tenth inning. The bases were empty, which in this game was rare.

Northwestern had shot out to an early 14-0 lead. We’re not talking football here, folks, but baseball. Then, incredibly, the Wolverines clawed back, run by run, until they tied the game with a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth. That brought Dufek up in the tenth inning, with the game in his hands.

That Dufek had even gotten that far was a story in itself.

His genes surely helped. Mike’s grandfather, Don Dufek, Sr., played football for Michigan. In the 1951 Rose Bowl, against undefeated Cal-Berkeley, Don Sr. ran for two touchdowns in the final six minutes to win the game and the MVP award.

Mike’s uncle, Don Jr., played both hockey and football at Michigan – the last guy to do that. The Red Wings drafted him, and so did the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, where he played for nine years. Mike’s other uncle, Bill, also played football for Michigan, and signed with the New York Jets.

Mike’s dad, Joe, turned down Michigan for Yale, where he became an All-American as an outfielder and quarterback. He started eight games for the Buffalo Bills, and played several years in the Canadian Football League. Clearly, Mike had the DNA.

He grew up in Scottsdale, where he played quarterback, too, but excelled in baseball. He wanted to play for Michigan in the worst way, but Michigan wasn’t that wild about him. They finally let him walk on – making Mike the first Dufek athlete not actively recruited by the University of Michigan.

Mike’s freshman year, he barely played on the field, and was barely eligible off it. But then Dufek caught fire. Last year, he led the team with 17 home runs – and he’s carried a B-minus average in sociology. This season, his teammates and coaches named him co-captain. He got it.

But Dufek’s home run total dropped from 17 to just five going into Sunday’s game – the game in which they fell behind by a staggering 14-0. If that was absurd, what happened next was positively crazy. The Wolverines scored 14 straight runs to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth, and force extra innings.

So the score was 14-14 when Dufek came to the plate in the bottom of the tenth. A teammate’s father told him “We need you to end it with a homer” – then his coach said the same thing.

The pitcher threw a change-up. Dufek swung – and missed. He moved up a foot in the batter’s box, in the hopes that the pitcher would throw him another change-up – and he did. “As soon as I saw that pitch, I knew I could hit it,” he told me. “And after I hit it, I knew it was gone.”

Boy, was it. It sailed more than 400 feet, far over the fence in centerfield, deep into the pine trees. The Northwestern outfielder punched the fence, incredulous that they had blown a 14-run lead. It finished the biggest comeback in Michigan baseball history, it was bigger than the biggest comeback in Major League history, and it might just be the biggest comeback in the history of college or professional baseball. Anywhere.

Dufek didn’t know all that as he rounded the bases, and he probably wouldn’t have cared. Coming around third base, he threw his helmet away, then jumped into the mob surrounding the plate. He got so many hugs, he was out of breath.

Mike Dufek might not ever play a single game of pro baseball. But he’s got his degree – and at least one memory none of the famous Dufek men can match.

Could be worse.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the New York Times, and ESPN Magazine, among others. His most recent book is “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Bacon teaches at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio; Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism; and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.

Dave Brandon addressed the UM Board of Regents for the first time publicly as athletic director, speaking at their April 15 meeting at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids. (Photos by the writer.)

Though most of the meeting entailed presentations and reports – focused on UM programs with links to the Grand Rapids area and western Michigan – the regents also unanimously approved several action items, with little discussion.

Increases for parking permit fees – 3% in each of the next three fiscal years – were set, as was the transfer of the Henry Ford Estate to the nonprofit Ford House foundation. The estate had been given to UM in the 1950s along with land that became the university’s Dearborn campus. Regents also approved a major expansion of the Institute for Social Research building on Thompson Street.

During public commentary, two leaders of the lecturers’ union spoke to regents, charging that UM lecturers are being asked to shoulder an unfair burden as the university tries to cut costs. The union is negotiating with the administration for a new contract – its current contract expires May 15.

After the meeting – held at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel – regents, executives and staff headed over to the nearby J.W. Marriott hotel for a reception hosted by the UM Alumni Association.

Opening Remarks

Mary Sue Coleman began Thursday’s meeting by noting that many of the regents and administrators had been in town since Wednesday, meeting with community and academic leaders in Grand Rapids. She noted that there are already many connections between the university and the western side of the state, pointing out that the president of Grand Valley State University, Tom Haas, is a UM graduate.

Another link comes through the Michigan College Advising Corps, a statewide initiative that UM announced on Thursday. The program aims to increase the number of low-income, first-generation and underserved students entering college by recruiting and training recent UM graduates to work full-time for up to two years as college advisers in underserved high schools. It will launch this fall in eight communities, Coleman said, including five in western Michigan: Battle Creek, Benton Harbor, Grand Rapids, Jackson, and Muskegon.

Coleman noted that the university is preparing for President Obama’s visit to the May 1 commencement in Ann Arbor, which Gov. Jennifer Granholm will also attend – among about 80,000 others. The ceremony will be broadcast live on the Big 10 Network starting at 10:30 a.m., and will be streaming live on the UM website. “It’s going to be an exciting day,” Coleman said.

Board chair Andy Richner gave brief remarks as well, saying that Thursday’s meeting underscored the strong connections between the university and Grand Rapids. He said he was especially glad to be in this particular venue – the Gerald R. Ford Ballroom – because it honors the legacy of Ford, “who just happens to be a graduate of the University of Michigan.” He promised that regents would more regularly visit the western part of the state. Their last meeting in Grand Rapids was held in 1998.

At left: Wayman Britt, Kent County's assistant county administrator, talks with UM vice president for government relations Cynthia Wilbanks and UM president Mary Sue Coleman before the start of the UM regents meeting in Grand Rapids.

Speaking on behalf of the Grand Rapids community was another UM graduate: Wayman Britt, Kent County’s assistant county administrator. Britt told regents that he had been captain of the UM men’s basketball team, which had gone to the NCAA final four in 1976. His daughters also went to school at Michigan, he said.

Britt was glad to see a strengthening of ties between the university and the Grand Rapids area, saying “we know how to get it done here in west Michigan.” One example: The State Games of Michigan, which launches in June and is co-chaired by Britt. He concluded by saying he hoped to see growing enrollment at UM from the western part of the state, and that he looked forward to regents regularly visiting Grand Rapids and Kent County.

New Athletic Director Promotes Upcoming Events

Though he was hired earlier this year and has been on the job about five weeks, Thursday was the first time that Dave Brandon had attended a regents meeting to address the board publicly as athletic director. Himself a former regent, Brandon gave an update on Michigan Stadium renovations and spoke briefly about the football program – though not mentioning or even alluding to the NCAA investigation of the program and coach Rich Rodriguez’ coaching practices.

Brandon reported that the stadium renovations will be done in time for the Sept. 4, 2010 season opener against the University of Connecticut. “I’m here to say there are plenty of suites and club seats still available,” he quipped. [The $226 million renovation project includes 83 private suites and 3,200 indoor and outdoor club seats.]

Brandon noted that tours of the suites will be given during this Saturday’s spring football game at the stadium. The free event allows fans to watch the team’s final spring practice, and will raise money for the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital through sponsorships and donations. [Brandon, with his wife Jan and Lloyd and Laurie Carr, are leading the fundraising campaign for the new hospital.]

Brandon said he’d had the chance to see some practices, and reported that the football team “looks terrific.” The players are “less young than they were a year ago,” he said, and have a better understanding of what big-time college football is all about.

In addition to football, Brandon highlighted several other UM sports. The Dec. 11, 2010 “Big Chill” will turn Michigan Stadium into a hockey arena, he said, between rivals Michigan and Michigan State. They’re hoping to break the world attendance record for spectators at an outdoor hockey game.

Spring sports teams are doing well, he said. Women’s softball, coached by Carol Hutchins, consistently ranks No. 1 or 2 in the nation – the previous day, they’d given Central Michigan an 8-0 “drubbing,” Brandon noted. Among the other sports he cited were the women’s gymnastics team, which recently won the Big 10 championship, and women’s water polo, which won its division title for the third consecutive year. There’s a lot of positive energy in the athletics program, he said.

In wrapping up, Brandon said that while they’d been making Michigan Stadium more beautiful, that made Crisler Arena look “even less beautiful.” He was looking forward to starting a major renovation project there. [Regents previously approved a $23 million addition to Crisler – a two-story, 57,000-square-foot basketball training facility that will include offices for men’s and women’s coaching staffs, locker rooms, two practice courts, film-viewing and hydrotherapy rooms, conditioning space and other amenities. Another $20 million will be spent on renovations to the existing arena.]

Brandon said the Crisler project will get underway as soon as Obama departs.

Parking Rate Increase

Regents unanimously approved were informed about increases for parking permits – 3% in each of the next three years. The change means that the highest-level Gold permit will increase from $1,443 this year to $1,577 by FY 2013, while Blue permits jump from $611 to $667 over that same period.

UM parking permit increases 2010-2013. (Links to larger image)

Tim Slottow, UM’s chief financial officer, told regents that the additional revenues were needed to help pay for the university’s parking infrastructure. He noted that in FY 2010, they’d held rates flat for all permits except Gold, which had increased by 4.5%.

According to a cover memo about the increases, parking revenues help fund debt service for new construction, as well as operations and annual maintenance projects. Capital projects include an addition to the Thompson Street parking structure and the Fuller Road Station, a joint UM/city of Ann Arbor project that includes a large parking structure.

The memo states that fees for Gold permits are in line with rates charged by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority. [The DDA charges $130 for monthly parking permits to city structures, or $1,560 per year.]

Other Capital Projects

Two other major projects were approved on Thursday: an expansion to the Institute for Social Research (ISR), and an upgrade to the pneumatic tube system at the UM hospitals.

Institute for Social Research

A four-level, $23 million expansion is planned for ISR, adding 44,700 gross square feet to the existing building at 426 Thompson St. Another 7,200 square feet will be renovated. The project, to be designed by the architectural firm of Lord, Aeck & Sargent Inc., will be paid for in part by federal stimulus funds via a grant from the National Institutes of Health. The expansion will allow the institute to house its research programs under one roof.

ISR’s director, James Jackson, attended Thursday’s meeting but did not address the regents.

Pneumatic Tube Upgrade

This $3 million project will entail improvements to an extensive pneumatic tube system that’s used to transfer patient materials among 120 stations in multiple buildings at UM’s medical complex, including the University Hospital, Cancer Center, Taubman Health Care Center, and Maternal Child Health Center. It will also integrate the system into the new C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital.

According to a cover memo about the project, the upgrade is expected to increase delivery times by 30-40%, and increase the system’s throughput during peak times from 150 to 200 transactions per hour.

Handing over the Henry Ford Estate

Regents unanimously approved transferring the Henry Ford Estate – Fair Lane to the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House, a nonprofit foundation. The property – originally the residence of Henry and Clara Ford – had been given to the university in 1957 by the Ford Motor Co., along with a $6.5 million donation. The gift helped UM establish its Dearborn Campus, located adjacent to the estate.

The transfer includes the main house, powerhouse, greenhouse, dam, garage, boathouse and surrounding property. Also included in the transfer are personal property on the estate, and endowment funds that had been restricted for use on the estate.

UM has been paying more than $300,000 annually for upkeep on the estate, and an estimated $12 million investment is needed over the next 10 years in infrastructure improvements. The estate is designated a National Historic Landmark.

Several regents noted that it was unusual for the university to give away property – it’s a deal that’s been discussed for several years. Mary Sue Coleman said she was pleased that they were able to arrive at this outcome.

Public Commentary: Lecturers’ Union

At the end of the meeting, two speakers during public commentary focused on current negotiations between the university and the Lecturers’ Employee Organization (LEO).

Elizabeth Axelson: Noting that she’d been a lecturer at UM for 20 years and is currently lead negotiator for LEO, Axelson said they’d initially been heartened to hear the provost say that budget goals could be met without layoffs, with resources for some new initiatives, and a “moderate salary program.” But that’s not what’s being offered to lecturers, she said.

Elizabeth Axelson, lead negotiator for the Lecturer Employees Organization (LEO).

Minimum salaries for the classification of Lecturer I or II are $31,000 in Ann Arbor, $26,000 in Dearborn and $25,000 in Flint, she said. The median full-time lecturer salary in Ann Arbor is $44,000. This is less than the starting pay for new high school teachers with a master’s degree, she noted, and less than the national average of $53,112 for lecturers, according to the American Association of University Professors.

LEO is asking for 3% annual raises over the next three years. The goal is to eventually gain equity with the teaching portion of the current median professor salary on each campus, Axelson said. The university has offered 1.75% increases for Ann Arbor lecturers. For Flint and Dearborn, raises would be tied to those given to tenure-track faculty, which could be flat. There would be no increase in minimum salaries.

Axelson said the university’s new cost-sharing proposal for benefits, which requires employees to bear more of the cost for health care, will effectively eliminate the 1.75% increase. LEO estimates that the average lecturer will end up losing about 4%.

Axelson also told regents that the union’s vice president, Kirsten Herold, who has taught in the English department for 18 years, had not been reappointed. “We see her non-reappointment as an abuse of the performance evaluation provisions of the contract; it would be a wrong move at any time, but doing it now looks like intimidation.”

She concluded by saying that lecturers were willing to share the burden of a difficult economy, but should not be expected to bear a greater burden than full-time employees who are better paid. “We hope you can help us achieve the goals of greater equity, a fair part of cost sharing, and a moderate salary program, at the bargaining table,” she said.

Catherine Daligga: Speakers for public commentary are required to sign up in advance – Kirsten Herold had signed up, but was unable to attend. Instead, Daligga read remarks prepared by Herold.

The remarks outlined the impact of layoffs on students in the College of Literature, Science & the Arts (LSA). First-year winter semester writing courses were full for the first time ever, with students being wait-listed, faced with having to take the course next year instead. One of Herold’s students wasn’t able to get into a fourth semester of Spanish until eight months after completing her third-term course. The student has experienced problems getting into other courses as well, and is concerned that she won’t be able to complete her degree in four years. (Herold’s statement noted that if the meeting had been held in Ann Arbor, the student would have been able to attend and speak directly to regents.)

With 6% budget cuts coming over the next three years, the worst is yet to come, according to Herold. They’ve heard that cuts are being discussed that would affect the heart of the undergraduate curriculum – for example, discussion sections for physics, which are taught by lecturers, as well as courses in psychology and first-year Spanish. Anthropology is cutting its part-time lecturers, and at least half of physics lecturers expect to lose their jobs, Herold noted. English lecturers are being replaced by graduate students.

The anxiety across the college is palpable, according to Herold. And LEO members are angry that they seem to be bearing a larger share of the burden – or in some cases, like Spanish, all of the cuts. It’s not clear that tenure-track faculty will be moved into courses that were previously taught by lecturers. If not, Herold pointed out that undergraduates in particular will be affected.

Michigan Student Assembly: New President

Former Michigan Student Assembly president Abhishek Mahanti was on hand to introduce MSA’s new president, Chris Armstrong, who was elected to that office in March. Mahanti described Armstrong as someone who’s “got a laugh that can light up an entire room.” Armstrong told regents that his priorities for the coming year would be to push for Saturday night dining and gender-neutral housing options. He also hopes to work with the administration on prohibiting exams on election days.

Armstrong brought up the fact that he’s received a lot of attention – including some national media – because he’s the university’s first openly gay student body president. The attention wasn’t something he sought, Armstrong said, but it was an opportunity to engage students in a positive way, and he’s excited for what that means to others on campus.

Presentations: Highlighting the Grand Rapids Connection

Regents heard four presentations during Thursday’s meeting that each touched on a link to the western side of the state. The meeting also included a signing ceremony for a new pharmacy admissions program.

Pharmacy Partnership Agreement

Near the beginning of the meeting, the presidents and provosts of UM and Grand Valley State University, along with UM pharmacy dean Frank Ascione, moved to a table in the corner of the room to officially sign a partnership agreement between the two institutions establishing the Pharmacy Preferred Admission Program. The program reserves up to eight spots each year in the UM College of Pharmacy‘s doctoral program, set aside for students from Grand Valley State who complete certain pre-pharmacy undergraduate coursework. The Grand Rapids-based university doesn’t have a pharmacy school.

Tom Haas, president of Grand Valley State, spoke briefly before the signing ceremony. He recalled that three years ago he, UM president Mary Sue Coleman and provosts from both institutions had lunch to discuss ways of partnering. The first result of that effort was a preferred-admission agreement signed last year, allowing UM kinesiology students to enter Grand Valley’s graduate program in occupational therapy. The pharmacy program is the second significant agreement, he said. “We’ll continue to look for those kinds of opportunities for continued mutual gain for the state of Michigan.”

Elementary Mathematics Laboratory

Deborah Ball, dean of UM’s School of Education, described the Elementary Mathematics Laboratory that will be expanding this summer to Grand Rapids. The two-week program is a combination teaching and research effort, bringing in students who’ll be entering the fifth grade and who are struggling with math. They receive intensive training, both in a classroom and with one-on-one tutors.

The “lab” component comes into play because the teaching is observed by researchers, veteran teachers, teachers-in-training, mathematicians and others who are interested in how kids learn and how teachers teach. They’re trying to understand why different teachers – given the same resources and environment – achieve dramatically different academic outcomes for their students. Their findings can be used in teacher training and instructional design.

The lab is a prototype that the school would like to develop more broadly, Ball said – they’re planning to launch a secondary-level lab this summer in Ann Arbor.

After the presentation, UM president Mary Sue Coleman held up a copy of the March 2, 2010 New York Times Magazine – Coleman said she saw it and thought the woman on the cover looked like Ball, and sure enough, it was. Ball was featured extensively in the issue’s cover story, “Building a Better Teacher.”

Research on Down Syndrome and Autism

Up next was Dale Ulrich, a UM kinesiology professor whose research focuses on people with Down Syndrome and autism. He described growing concerns over childhood obesity, and noted that the problem is even greater among kids with Down Syndrome, because they tend to be more inactive than the general population. Less than 10% know how to ride a two-wheel bike, for example. Medical advancements have extended the life span for people with Down Syndrome, he said, but what’s being done to improve their quality of life?

Ulrich leads the UM Center for Motor Behavior and Pediatric Disabilities, and discussed the work they’ve done at week-long bike-training clinics, including ones held in the Grand Rapids area. [Link to video about the bike camp] The camp uses bikes equipped with special rollers instead of back wheels – working one-on-one with aides and gradually adapting the rollers, most of the children are able to ride a regular bike by the end of the week, Ulrich said. The more remarkable thing is to see how their lives change after learning to ride, he said, as they gain self-confidence and independence.

The center has partnered with Grand Valley State’s College of Health Professions, among others, to develop a research project based on these efforts. Steelcase Foundation funded initial pilot studies, and now the project has received a $596,000 federal grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. The funds will support a three-year intervention program, with the goal of reducing sedentary behavior and body fat, increasing social skills and interaction, and increasing participation in community activities.

Offshore Wind Energy Research

Dennis Assanis, director of the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute at UM, described a large-scale research project aimed at studying offshore wind energy. The institute is partnering with Grand Valley State’s Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center, led by Arn Boezaart.

Studying offshore wind energy is important, in light of the country’s reliance on fossil fuels, Assanis said – there are compelling environmental, economic and national security issues involved. Wind is an untapped renewable energy resource, and a great opportunity for Michigan to create clean energy jobs, he said: “We know very well how to design drive-trains,” needed for wind turbines.

The project aims to build a research platform and tower in Lake Michigan, to collect data and push forward the commercial wind-energy development in the Great Lakes. To do that, they are trying to raise an additional $5 million, having already secured $1.427 million from the U.S. Dept. of Energy, $1.336 million from the Michigan Public Service Commission and $334,100 from UM. Additional funding will likely come from the private sector.

Boezaart described several things they’d like to learn from the research, including: 1) the impact of the environment on the platform and tower, 2) how the tower and platform impact the environment, 3) how to navigate the licensing, permitting and regulatory process, 4) the economic potential for the Michigan’s lakeshore region and western part of the state.

Boezaart said they need to move quickly, because other states and countries are leading the way with research and technology development. “Wish us well and favorable winds,” he said, “because we’ll need those.”

UM Health System Collaboration

Jack Billi, UM associate vice president for medical affairs, spoke to regents about several statewide partnerships the University of Michigan Health System has formed to improve the quality of care and cut costs.

The UM Faculty Practice Group was chosen five years ago as one of 10 sites nationwide to participate in the Medicare Demonstration Project – an effort to demonstrate how health care costs for Medicare patients can be lowered while at the same time improving prevention and care for chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension. UMHS is coordinating the project among doctors at 50 hospitals statewide. Aspects of this project were incorporated into the recently passed federal health care act, Billi said.

UMHS is also involved in the Physician Group Incentive Program, supported by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. The university is helping 26 physician groups and more than 90 clinics statewide redesign care for patients with chronic illnesses, using “lean thinking” principles they learned from the auto industry, Billi said.

The Michigan Quality Improvement Consortium is another effort in which UMHS is playing a role. The project’s goal is to develop clinical practice guidelines and performance measures that can be adopted by health insurance plans statewide.

The bottom line, Balli said, is that it’s possible to lower costs and improve care at the same time. Collaboration, he added, is key to all of these efforts.

Present: Mary Sue Coleman (ex officio), Julia Darlow, Larry Deitch, Denise Ilitch, Olivia Maynard, Andrea Fischer Newman, Andy Richner, Martin Taylor, Kathy White

Next board meeting: Thursday, May 20 at 3 p.m. at the Fairlane Center on UM’s Dearborn campus, 19000 Hubbard Drive. [confirm date]

John U. Bacon

It’s been a dismal year for Michigan fans. The football team and the men’s basketball team both failed to make it to the post-season, and together they lost to Michigan State three times.

The men’s hockey team was supposed to be the saving grace. Entering this season, the Wolverines had made it to the NCAA tournament a record 19-straight seasons. That streak started in 1991, before many of the current players were even born.

The Wolverines were picked to finish first in their league – but they finished seventh, unheard of in Ann Arbor. The only chance they had to keep their streak alive was to win four straight rounds of their conference playoffs. Nothing else could save their season.

It was a tall order. No team had ever come from that far down to win the league playoffs. And it got a lot taller when the Wolverines lost their starting goalie, Bryan Hogan, leaving them with the shortest goalie in the league, a five-foot-six backup named Shawn Hunwick. In his three seasons at Michigan, Hunwick had not started a single game.

Hunwick isn’t even the best player in his family. His older brother Matt had captained the Wolverines, and now plays for the NHL’s Boston Bruins.

They grew up in Sterling Heights, where Matt beat Shawn in just about everything, including daily fights. But Shawn was feisty, and always came back for more. When Shawn wanted to play hockey, Matt shoved him in net – like older brothers do – and made him play goalie.

But Shawn took to it immediately, and tried to convince his parents – a grocery store manager and a school maintenance man – to buy the expensive equipment needed to play the position. They initially refused, but Shawn persisted until they couldn’t say no. Shawn’s like that.

It’s not fair to say he looks like your paperboy – because he looks like your paperboy’s baby brother. When Hunwick’s in his stance, he barely reaches the cross bar, and looks like he has to jump for the high shots.

He paid his dues in places like Alpena, and Petrolia, Ontario, before he became Michigan’s “practice goalie.” These guys pay full tuition – brother Matt pays Shawn’s – and they don’t even dress for the games. All for the honor of having future pros fire slapshots at their heads two hours a day. There’s a reason why practice goalies are called “targets.”

In almost three years at Michigan, Hunwick played exactly 18 minutes of college hockey. But he never complained, he never skipped, and he never badgered his coaches for playing time. He just kept his mouth shut, and did his job, day in and day out.

In his first start, four weeks ago against Notre Dame, he got shelled for four goals in ten minutes, and Michigan lost. But the next weekend, the first round of the do-or-die playoffs against Lake Superior State, he gave up only two goals the first night, and none the next, to earn his first shut out.

The Wolverines then faced second-place Michigan State, which had already beaten Michigan three times. But with Hunwick in net, the Wolverines swept their arch-rivals, 5-1 and 5-3. Head coach Red Berenson realized he had pulled out a plum.

Next up: the Miami Redhawks, which finished first in the league, and second in the nation. But they were no match for Shawn Hunwick, who led Michigan to a 5-2 victory. The next night, with Michigan’s 19-year NCAA tournament streak on the line, Hunwick held off Northern Michigan, 2-1. Their season, and their streak, had been saved.

When the game ended, the Wolverines threw their gloves and sticks into the air and raced to hug their hero, like they’d won the Stanley Cup. Hunwick’s parents cried. Even Berenson, who’s about as expressive behind the bench as Mt. Rushmore, was caught smiling, on camera – twice. And when they called up his surprising savior to receive the MVP award, Berenson actually got a little choked up.

Back on the team bus, Shawn made his first call to brother Matt, and tried to give him the credit, but Matt wouldn’t hear it. “You made the saves,” he said.

And that’s how little brother earned one trophy big brother never did.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the New York Times, and ESPN Magazine, among others. His most recent book is “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Bacon teaches at Miami of Ohio, Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.