University of Michigan

The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (U-M) is a public coeducational university in Michigan, United States. The flagship and oldest campus of the University of Michigan, U-M Ann Arbor is considered to be a Public Ivy, and is consistently ranked as one of the top public academic institutions in the world.{{ref|worldranking}} The University of Michigan's professional graduate schools in the fields of law, medicine, business, engineering, and education are consistently ranked by US News & World Report in the top 10 in the country. The U-M's departments of philosophy, economics, political science, history, and mathematics are also highly respected for their academic reputations and research activities.

University activities

Libraries and museums

The University Library system is one of the largest academic library systems in the United States. It comprises 19 individual libraries with 24 separate collections — roughly 7.96 million volumes, in total — and grows at the rate of 150,000 volumes per year.{{ref|library}} The University was the original home of the JSTOR database, which contains about 750,000 digitized pages from the entire pre-1990 backfile of ten journals of history and economics. The University recently entered into a path-breaking book digitization program with Google.

Related Topics:
University Library - JSTOR - 1990 - History - Economics - Google

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Two prominent libraries, the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library and the Shapiro Undergraduate Library, are located on Central Campus and connected by a skywalk. The Duderstadt Center on North Campus contains books on art, architecture, and engineering. The Duderstadt Center also contains multiple computer labs, video editing studios, and a 3D virtual reality room. North Campus is also the location of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.

Related Topics:
Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library - Shapiro Undergraduate Library - Skywalk - Duderstadt Center - Art - Architecture - Engineering - Computer lab - Video editing - 3D - Virtual reality - Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library

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The University of Michigan is also home to a number of museums, whose foci include archeology, anthropology, paleontology, zoology, dentistry, and art. The natural history public collections can be found at the University of Michigan Exhibit Museum of Natural History, which displays items from the collections of the paleontology, zoology, and anthropology museums. The Exhibit Museum also holds the largest display of dinosaur specimens in Michigan as well an instance of the official state fossil, the mastodon. One of the better-known museums is the University of Michigan Museum of Art, with a permanent collection that includes European, American, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African pieces, and temporary exhibits on a wide variety of subjects.

Related Topics:
Museum - Archeology - Anthropology - Paleontology - Zoology - Dentistry - Art - Fossil - Mastodon

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Research

The university has one of the largest annual research expenditure of any public university in the United States, totaling roughly $750 million in 2004{{ref|research}}. The Medical School has the largest research expenditures at nearly $300 million while the College of Engineering is second with more than $135 million.{{ref|research2}}

Related Topics:
$ - 2004

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The U-M was at the center of the development of one of the first university networks and has made major contributions to the mathematics of information theory, notably through Claude Shannon. Other major contributions include the construction of the precursor to the National Science Foundation (NSF) computer networking backbone, the virtual memory model, and computer databases. The University is also a major contributor to the medical field with the EKG, gastroscope, Jonas Salk's polio vaccine, and the ECMO (extracorporal membrane oxygenation) system.

Related Topics:
Information theory - Claude Shannon - National Science Foundation - Computer networking - Database - EKG - Gastroscope - Jonas Salk

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The National Election Studies and one of the nation's most watched economic index, the University of Michigan's Consumer Confidence Index, are based at the University. The University is also home to major research centers in optics, reconfigurable manufacturing systems, wireless integrated microsystems (WIMS), and social sciences. The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) is located at the University, and huge support was recently given to the life sciences with the establishment of the Life Sciences Institute (LSI) and the construction of associated facilities. Undergraduate students are able to participate in various research projects through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) as well as the UROP/Creative-Programs. These programs received a #1 national ranking.{{ref|UROP}}

Related Topics:
National Election Studies - Economic index - Optics - Life science

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