10 defining issues of Mary Sue Coleman's University of Michigan presidency

When Mary Sue Coleman was introduced to the public as the University of Michigan's 13th president in 2002, she held up her hand to the crowd and pointed out her new home, Ann Arbor, on her makeshift map of the Mitten State.

"This is going to be the experience of a lifetime," Coleman said in May 2002. "I hope I can be very good for Michigan. I'm going to try my best."

Twelve years later, Coleman is stepping down from the biggest role in her long academic career. She has steered U-M during a time of economic downturn in Michigan, the evolution of modern higher education and the tremendous physical and fiscal growth of the Ann Arbor campus.

Under Coleman, 70, U-M has captured record donations, spread its footprint in the city and the world, embraced entrepreneurship and struggled to establish a racially diverse student body. During her tenure, U-M's athletic department more than doubled, the endowment increased twofold and tuition rose by more than 70 percent.

Coleman, who announced her retirement a year ago, will be replaced by Brown Provost Mark Schlissel on July 14. Her final Board of Regents meeting is Thursday, June 19. Once retired, she'll maintain a home in Ann Arbor and one in Colorado, where her son and grandchildren live.

Coleman's impact on the university will be felt long after she's gone. Here are 10 defining issues of her 12-year tenure:

Footprint growth

When Coleman considers the highlights of her tenure, one she often mentions is the purchase of the 174-acre former Pfizer property, which U-M has since dubbed the North Campus Research Complex. U-M snagged the property for $108 million, and while the price tag was large, it was well under market value. The 28-building campus is strategically located in Northeast Ann Arbor, near U-M's north campus. Its purchase provided the land-strapped university the space necessary to grow for, as Coleman has said, pennies on the dollar.

"That's a huge advantage for us," Coleman said in an editorial board interview earlier this year. "If you're thinking about a 50-year or a 100-year plan, that might be an area where we build more research facilities. That might be an area where we ultimately do more healthcare work."

In the last decade, U-M purchased more than a half-dozen properties along the South Division Street area, and has expanded it's footprint at the edge of campus with the addition of its Institute of Social Research and with the $185 million, eight-story graduate student dorm currently under construction. It also bought the 16-acre Edward Brothers property on South State Street, near U-M's athletic campus.

U-M's growth has at times been a point of tension with the city, because as U-M expands, the city's tax base shrinks because U-M is exempt from property taxes.

"They've got to figure out they can't keep buying property. That's just whittling us away pretty quickly," said Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje.

The school has also grown its footprint outside of Ann Arbor and outside of the U.S.. Coleman has visited China, Africa, Brazil and, most recently, India during her presidency, each time with the goal of strengthening the school's international education programs.

Student housing

Coinciding with the expansion of U-M's footprint is a building boom that Coleman has presided over during the past 12 years. U-M spent $4.9 billion on 1,830 projects that touched 313 buildings from fiscal 2002-03 to 2012-13, and from June 2013 to May 2014 the school completed another $400 million in construction.

In the past decade U-M has spent an average of $523 million per year on construction, including the building of a $754 million children's and women's hospital.

During her tenure, Coleman focused on improving housing for students. She launched the Residential Life Initiative in the mid-2000s, and since then U-M has poured more than $550 million in improving its existing student housing facilities, $75 million in the residential life portion of North Quad, which opened in 2010, and $185 million toward a dorm for graduate students, which is under construction.

The initiative is aimed at creating spaces that facilitate both student living and student learning, and has modernized many of the historic dormitories built on Central Campus in the early 20th Century.

"We did a lot of preliminary work before president Coleman got here. It actually was stalled and we were pretty discouraged because our residence halls, the infrastructure [needed improvements and] deferred maintenance. I can't tell you what a breath of fresh of air it was that we could have a conversation with her," said E. Royster Harper, vice president of student affairs. "She has been an advocate."

Diversity

Black students this year launched a campaign shedding light on racism and underrepresentation on U-M's campus, decrying U-M's low undergraduate black enrollment of 4.6 percent. During a rally on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Black Student Union demanded increased black enrollment on campus and an improved climate, among other things.

"It is a problem. Our campus is not diverse. It's simply not," U-M student government president Bobby Dishell said. "There are some factors that are outside of her control, such as Prop 2, but there are also more things that we can be doing to recruit and retain a more diverse swath of students."

Added Harper, on U-M's struggle to gain a diverse student body: "This has not been for lack of leadership. And it has not been for lack of effort. It's been complicated and complex."

When Coleman came to Ann Arbor in 2002, U-M was in the midst of two lawsuits that had national implications for the use of affirmative action in higher education. In 2003, the Supreme Court upheld U-M's consideration of race in law school admissions in Grutter v. Bollinger; but struck down the undergraduate admissions office's method of assigning points to minority students, saying that process gave race too much weight in college admissions. Coleman considered the two decisions a victory, and after tweaking its practices U-M continued to consider race in admissions.

But in 2006, 58 percent of Michigan voters approved Proposal 2, a ban on affirmative action restricting U-M from considering race in admissions. Proposal 2 was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in April. During a speech on the Diag after the ban passed in 2006, Coleman vowed that U-M would continue to promote diversity on campus.

Yet eight years later, U-M has struggled to establish a racially diverse campus. Blacks comprise 4.6 percent of undergraduates this year, compared to 8.9 percent in 1995 and 7 percent in 2006.

"Many people asked why the university was taking on such a divisive issue in such a public way. My answer was always the same: It was the right thing to do," Coleman, during a February Board of Regents meeting, said of U-M's public support of affirmative action in the 2000s. "That we have not been able to make more progress with underrepresented minority enrollment, along with the challenging climate and inclusion issues our community is experiencing, deeply troubles me."

Tuition, state funding and cost containment

Coleman presided over 12 years of striking tuition growth that has only recently begun to slow. When she started in 2002, a first- or second-year in-state undergraduate student paid $7,485 annually and an out-of-state student paid $23,365.

Today, in-state students pay $13,142, a 75 percent increase. Out-of-state students pay $40,392, a 72 percent increase and one of the highest non-resident rates at a public university. The average Michigan public college charges $11,600 for in-state students and $31,463 for out-of-state students.

"I understand that in order for us to continue to provide great programs and expand our services we have to have tuition increases," said Dishell. "That being said, I do think tuition, especially for out-of-state students, has gone up [more than necessary]."

He continued: "That price barrier is huge and I think we are losing some students."

Coleman and her team point to drastically declining state funding as spurring the tuition increases. When Coleman began in 2002, U-M received $350.8 million form the state. The legislature finalized the fiscal 2014-15 higher education budget earlier this month, and U-M is set to receive $295 million.

"In the last couple of years at least the cutting has stopped. We've had modest little teeny-weeny little increases, but it's not cuts anymore. For my first ten years, it was every year was cuts," Coleman said.

Over that time, Coleman has led the charge to contain costs through organizational shifts and benefit changes, shaving off $265 million in recurring costs from the university's budget since 2004. The contentment effort has, at times, been controversial. A shared services center meant to centralize and downsize U-M's administrative staff was criticized by faculty this year as a poorly implemented and communicated top-down initiative and a step toward a more corporate model.

Under Coleman, U-M-awarded scholarships have increased significantly. U-M now awards $145 million in scholarship funding, up from $99 million in 2007. Low-income students from Michigan can graduate U-M with minimal federal loans. Yet U-M has one of the lowest numbers of Pell Grant recipients, which are an indicator of low-income students, in the state.

Fundraising

When Coleman came to Ann Arbor in 2002, U-M was in the midst of the Michigan Difference campaign, which had a $2.5 billion goal. Coleman helped U-M finish $700 million above target. U-M is now in the midst of a $4 billion fundraising campaign, and in the last year the school announced its two largest-ever donations, a $200 million gift from New York developer Stephen M. Ross and a $110 million gift from California billionaire Charles Munger.

Coleman has secured seven of the University's 11 largest donations. While the majority have been for units like athletics, the business school and the health system, Coleman has also elicited multimillion dollar gifts for creative writing, art and music.

"President Coleman had done an incredible job with development," said Dishell. "While we are a public university that year after year after year faced cuts from the State of Michigan, she was able to make some of that up with fundraising."

In the Victors for Michigan campaign underway, U-M set a $1 billion goal for scholarship funds. Coleman herself gave $1 million in 2013 toward global scholarship.

"She talked the talk and walked the walk. She went out. She made the pitch," said Cynthia Wilbanks, U-M's vice president for government relations. "She stimulated donors to really be very focused on the kind of scholarship and financial aid support for those in need in order to buffer many students whose families were in a very difficult circumstance in sending their kids to college. "

Executive pay

Executive pay has come under scrutiny from faculty and staff at the university this year. A group of about a dozen faculty members released an open letter to regents this spring. The letter criticized high pay for U-M's top administrators and asked the school to be more transparent about supplemental pay. Also in the spring, U-M's faculty governance passed a resolution asking U-M to begin publishing supplemental pay figures.

U-M distributed $54 million in supplemental pay to administrators, faculty and staff in 2013. That year the school's top 16 executives made $7.49 million in base pay.

Coleman has said U-M benchmarks itself with peer institutions when offering salaries. High salaries are in part justified, she has said, because of U-M's size, its $6.7 billion budget and its reputation as an elite university.

"This is the one area that I've been deeply involved with in my tenure. I always want to be able to stand up and justify what we're doing," Coleman said in a meeting with faculty in January. "It's not about working hard, it's about the consequences of failure."

Coleman is regularly listed on the Chronicle of Higher Education's highest-paid public college presidents. This year she is No. 9 on the list.

During Coleman's tenure, her base pay has increased by more $128,000, to $603,400. When she began in 2002, she received $202,500 in additional compensation annually, bringing her total pay to $677,500. This year, Coleman earned $175,000 in deferred compensation, a $100,000 retention bonus and $100,000 lump-sum bonus, bringing her total pay to $978,300, plus U-M's standard 10 percent retirement match.

Sustainability

In 2011, Coleman stood before hundreds of faculty and university leaders during her annual leadership breakfast and pledged that U-M would become a more sustainable campus by 2025.

She pledged the school would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent, that crews would apply 40 percent less chemicals to U-M's grounds, that the school would reduce its waste by 40 percent and that 20 percent the food served at U-M would come from local sources. The pledge was sweeping, but at the time Coleman said it was necessary if the school wanted to be a leader in environmental research.

"People will see that Michigan is not just talking, they’re walking the walk," she said in 2011.

Under Coleman, U-M launched competitive sustainability-related scholarships, including the Graham Undergraduate Scholars or Dow Sustainability Fellows graduate program, and sustainability research funding grew to more than $60 million per year, a 200-percent increase since 2003. More than 850 faculty teach more than 600 sustainability-related courses at the university.

The school's dining halls have gone trayless. As the transportation department retires old buses, it replaces them with hybrids. Two large solar panel fields have been installed on U-M property in Northeast Ann Arbor. All new construction with a price tag of $10 million or more is now LEED certified.

Athletic department growth

During Coleman tenure, the department's budget grew 146 percent, from $56 million in fiscal 2003 to $137.5 million this year and revenues grew at a similar rate. The department has also raised ticket prices for football games. In 2002 student tickets were $18.50 per game. They're since more than doubled in price and are $40 per game.

"Part of their growth has just been the growth in cost of running the place," Coleman said. "We’ve had to do a lot of renovations of the facilities, because our facilities in athletics had really become subpar."

Under Coleman, Michigan Stadium added luxury boxes in a $228 million renovation, Crilser Center received $52 million in upgrades and the athletic department built the Al Glick Field House for $26 million. U-M installed new scoreboards to its largest venues and erected a 48-foot-wide marquee outside the stadium. Football Saturdays became a more engaging experience, with the football team playing night games and the stadium hosting elaborate halftime shows. The department also added two sports: men's and women's lacrosse.

Although athletic director Dave Brandon dreamed up many of the changes, Coleman had the final say. “What she's been so wonderful about is opening up her mind and trying new and different things,” Brandon said last year.

Entrepreneurship

Since 2002, the university launched its Center for Entrepreneurship, Office of Technology Transfer, the Business Engagement Center and the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. The school also partnered with Wayne State University and Michigan State University to establish a research cluster that rivals those in Massachusetts and California.

Researchers and faculty at the school made a record-setting 421 inventions during fiscal 2012-13. Research spending at the school has increased from $749 million in 2003 to $1.33 billion last year.

Coleman said U-M's entrepreneurial arm suffered from "benign neglect" when she came to Ann Arbor in 2002.

"A number of folks who were advising the university on its entrepreneurial activities, on its tech transfer and patent licensing activities, and she was attentive to their analysis that we were not a leader in those areas," recalled Wilbanks. "She was convinced that those were areas where the university could lead, and as a result her voice in making a case for that type of activity was really important."

Added Hieftje: "My greatest appreciation for Mary Sue was opening up the university to the idea of tech transfer and then she followed through ... and that's made a big difference."

Ann Arbor's SPARK, which Coleman co-founded, has become a robust resource for local biotech and information technology companies. President Barack Obama's appointed her as co-chair on his National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Coleman launched a program in 2011 that would invest $25 million of its endowment into its own spinoffs. U-M's Venture Accelerator, also launched in 2011, has helped more than 20 U-M spinoffs get their start.

"[Ten years ago] we didn't have the accelerator, we didn't have the business engagement center, we didn't have the tech arb for the students. Our policies for royalty splitting were not the best, now they're much improved," Coleman said earlier this year.

"It's the whole infrastructure that has changed," she continued. "What we've helped done is try to make the path easier for faculty and students who want to do this kind of activity."

Digitizing books

In 2004 U-M entered into an agreement with Google to digitize the school's vast library holdings. Coleman counts the decision — a controversial one at the time — among her most important while at U-M.

"It speaks to a fundamental set of values about knowledge, about education, about a responsibility, and an obligation, to people who have less," Harper said. "She saw digitizing as a way of making this knowledge more available all over the world."

U-M digitized its library to increase access to content, preserve its print holdings and transform the way the modern library works. U-M has digitized well over a million books. The process has been controversial among some authors who feared the move infringed on copyright statuses.

Other universities have since joined U-M's effort, and their digital collections are available in the HathiTrust Digital Library.

"As a country, we are at risk of losing millions and millions of items that constitute our heritage and our culture, because of a lack of conservation and planning," Coleman said in a 2006 speech.

"We know that these digital copies [archived at Michigan] may be the only versions of work that survive into the future," she continued. "We also know that every book in our library, regardless of its copyright status today, will eventually fall into the public domain and be owned by society. As a public university, we have the unique task to preserve them all, and we will."

Correction: The original story reported the wrong figure for state appropriations. State aid to U-M will be roughly $295 million this year.

Kellie Woodhouse covers higher education for the Ann Arbor News. Reach her at kelliewoodhouse@mlive.com and follow her on twitter.