ANNUAL GIVING

Your annual support makes great things possible at the U-M.

The Eco-Explorers Group from the School of Art & Design traveled west in the Maskell Express.

The School of Art & Design's Eco-Explorers group, an interdisciplinary and collaborative program combining science, art and environmental education, prepared for its trip to Yellowstone National Park with Annual Fund help. The student group will explore ecosystems through field sketching and will share findings with several Michigan school districts, including Pinckney, Milan and Brighton community schools.

The Michigan Engineering Fund at the College of Engineering helps support "The Engineering Profession," a class designed to help undecided first-year students choose a major. About 200 students enroll in the class every semester. Each week a different department of the College presents fundamentals from its discipline through the formulation and solution of problems. High-profile alumni and friends are guest speakers. The class has helped students make better, more informed choices of majors.

School of Information students on Alternative Spring Break in Washington, D.C .: (from left) Jennifer Spamer of Ann Arbor, Jeremiah Mason of Laurium, Mich., Erin Matas of San Francisco and Woo Yong Lee of Seoul, Korea.

The Enrichment Fund at the School of Information supported student participation in the Alternative Spring Break program at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, where master's degree candidates archived primary sources associated with the civil rights era. Students also worked in New York City and Washington, D.C., on special projects for organizations such as the Library of Congress, the United Nations and the Museum of Television and Radio.

Gaining real world experience is vital to complementing academic study in Kinesiology. The Division of Kinesiology's internship program partners with a network of more than 100 sport, leisure, entertainment and broadcasting organizations and collegiate and professional sports programs. Annual support helps fund the internship program and related events like Career Day and the Alumni Career Networking Seminar, where students learn about careers and job seeking from alumni professionals.

Atanas Ilitch (AB'85) of Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich., (second from right), president of Olympia Development and spring 2006 commencement speaker for the Division of Kinesiology, with new alumni (from left) Jared Karner of Dundee, Mich., Lindsey Moore of St. Clair, Mich. and Nicole Oshanki of Northville, Mich.

Annual Fund gifts help the School of Natural Resources and Environment maintain its position as the hub of University interdisciplinary environmental education and research. Recently these contributions helped the School buy an extensive database, previously unavailable to the public, which maps levels of toxic hazards throughout the United States. The database has enormous research potential and offers multiple opportunities for collaborative work. Issues for study include environmental inequality, corporate environmental performance, and racial and socioeconomic disparities in health and mortality.

Gifts to the Annual Fund at the School of Nursing assist deserving students like Bo Un Jun of Ann Arbor. Jun sought a nursing career to realize her dream of becoming a medical missionary, but a lack of family funds made her education an uncertain prospect.With help from the Annual Fund, Jun entered in fall 2005 and had a busy, productive first year. She did well in her studies, performed and recorded a CD with an a cappella group, and helped disabled U-M students as a volunteer.

At the College of Pharmacy, first-year Doctor of Pharmacy student David Johnson of Sumter, S.C., is helped into his white coat by fourth-year student Sheena Parikh (left) of Grosse Pointe, Mich., as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Lynda Welage (right) readies another white coat for the next first-year student. (Photo by Gregory Fox)

The College of Pharmacy's Annual Fund supports the White Coat Ceremony, an annual rite of passage in which P-1 (first-year Doctor of Pharmacy or PharmD) students don the symbol of their profession, assisted by upperclassmen. The message of success and tradition is built into the ritual. After accepting their white coats, P-1 students recite the American International Health Alliance pharmacy student code of ethics, a pledge to abide by the highest professional and ethical standards.

Gifts to the Annual Fund of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy helped underwrite summer internships with organizations working on issues such as children's rights, international security, disaster relief and public governance. Because these groups can afford to pay interns little or nothing, Annual Fund support made it possible for students like Josh Rosenfeld of Olney, Md., to work for Direct Relief International, which provided $25 million in assistance to earthquake and tsunami victims in Southeast Asia, and Krista Boyd of Minneapolis to develop evaluation tools for Amnesty International's "Stop Violence against Women" program.

School of Social Work student Ericka Sailor (at left) with Dean Paula Allen-Meares. (Photo by Scott Galvin, U-M Photo Services)

The School of Social Work's Annual Fund helps support students like Ericka Sailor of Detroit. Sailor is this year's recipient of the Alumni Society Fellowship in Children and Families, established with annual gifts and matching funds from the Ann and Robert Lurie Family Foundation. Sailor found her passion for social work on a mission trip to Bucharest, Romania, where she worked with orphans and homeless children. She vowed that nothing, including educational costs, would deter her from her path, and said the fellowship eased her burden considerably. "I am grateful to the donors who made this fellowship possible," Sailor said at an awards ceremony. "Thank you for investing in my future."

At UM-Flint, grants from the Annual Fund help support the yearly Student Leadership Conference, an initiative of the campus' Bridges to Success program. The conference prepares emerging student leaders for challenges and changes on campus, in their professional lives and in their communities. Annual Fund gifts help bring in nationally known speakers from the worlds of business, education and entertainment, as well as funding other conference needs.

To read more about how annual gifts make a difference at the U-M, visit http://www.giving.umich.edu/difference/