Regents of the University of Michigan

The Regents of the University of Michigan, sometimes referred to as the board of regents, is a constitutional office of the U.S. state of Michigan which forms the governing body of the University of Michigan, University of Michigan–Flint, and University of Michigan–Dearborn.

Regents of the University of Michigan
History
Founded	March 18, 1837; 187 years ago (1837-03-18)
Preceded by	Board of Trustees of the University of Michigan
Structure
Seats	8 elected, voting 1 ex officio, non-voting
Political groups	Democratic (6)   Republican (2)
Length of term	8 years
Authority	Article VIII, sec. 5, Constitution of Michigan
Salary	unpaid
Website
regents.umich.edu

The Board of Regents was first created by legislative act in 1837, and the regents as a body corporate have been defined in the Constitution of Michigan since 1850. There are eight regents, two of whom are elected to an eight-year term by statewide ballot every two years, plus the president of the University of Michigan, who serves ex officio but does not vote.

Michigan is one of four states with public university governing boards elected directly by the people (along with Colorado, Nebraska, and Nevada).^[1] In contrast, the state universities and the consolidated or coordinating boards in other states are controlled by governors and legislatures. The board of regents is one of three elected university governing boards—along with the Michigan State University board of trustees and the Wayne State University board of governors—defined by the constitution of Michigan.

Current board

The current board of regents consists of eight regents, two of whom are elected on a partisan statewide ballot every two years to an eight-year term, plus the president of the University of Michigan as an ex officio member. The regents (excepting the president) serve without compensation, and meet once a month in public session. As of December 2023, the board consists of six Democrats and two Republicans:

• Santa Ono, ex officio, President of the University of Michigan
• Michael J. Behm, Democrat from Grand Blanc, first elected 2014
• Mark Bernstein, Democrat from Ann Arbor, first elected 2012
• Sarah Hubbard, Republican from Lansing, first elected 2020
• Denise Ilitch, Democrat from Bingham Farms, first elected in 2008
• Jordan Acker, Democrat from Huntington Woods, first elected in 2018
• Paul Brown, Democrat from Ann Arbor, first elected in 2018
• Ronald Weiser, Republican from Ann Arbor, first elected in 2016
• Katherine White, Democrat from Ann Arbor, first elected in 1998^[2]

History

See also: History of the University of Michigan

The board of regents was created by the Organic Act of March 18, 1837, that established the modern University of Michigan. The terms of the regents and their method of selection have undergone several changes since 1837, but the board has served as a continuous body since then. Although the board of regents was formed as a new legal entity in 1837, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in 1856 that it was legally continuous with the board of trustees of the University of Michigan that was formed in 1821, and with the Catholepistemiad, or University, of Michigania that was formed in 1817.

In 1817, Michigan Chief Justice Augustus B. Woodward drafted a territorial act establishing a "Catholepistemiad, or University, of Michigania. The territorial act was signed into law August 26, 1817, by Woodward, Judge John Griffin, and acting governor William Woodbridge (in place of Governor Lewis Cass, who was absent on a trip with President James Monroe). In consequence of the foregoing territorial act and the 1856 ruling, the present-day University of Michigan recognizes 1817 as the year of its founding.

Controversy over the homeopathic school

Prior to 1850, the University of Michigan in its various incarnations was a product of the Michigan Legislature (or its territorial equivalents), and the Board of Regents and its predecessors were subject to oversight and control by the Legislature. The state constitution of 1850 elevated the Board of Regents to the level of a constitutional corporation, making the University of Michigan the first public institution of higher education in the country so organized.^[3] The Legislature did not give up its control easily, and the Board of Regents engaged in a number of battles with legislators before the matter was settled, several of them involving the establishment of a school of homeopathy.

In 1851, a group of citizens who supported the homeopathy movement petitioned the Legislature to force the Board of Regents to add professors of homeopathy to the medical school staff. The board took no action, but Zina Pitcher wrote a detailed account of their thinking to leave for their incoming replacements (the first class of elected regents in 1852):^[4]

...shall the accumulated results of three thousand years of experience be laid aside, because there has arisen in the world a sect which, by engrafting a medical dogma upon a spurious theology, have built up a system (so-called) and baptized it Homœopathy? Shall the High Priests of this spiritual school be specially commissioned by the Regents of the University of Michigan, to teach the grown up men of this age that the decillionth of a grain of sulphur will, if administered homœopathically, cure seven-tenths of their diseases, whilst in every mouthful of albuminous food they swallow, every hair upon their heads, and every drop of urine distilled from the kidneys, carries into or out of their system as much of that article as would make a body, if incorporated with the required amount of sugar, as large as the planet Saturn?^[5]

 

Building housing the Homeopathic Medical College at the center of the Regents' battles with the Legislature

Nothing further happened until 1855, when the Legislature revisited the subject and modified the Organic Act to include the provision that "there shall always be one Professor of Homœopathy in the Department of Medicine."^[6] The Board of Regents again took no action to comply. In 1867, the Legislature used the power of the purse and passed a statewide property tax to benefit the university "provided the board of regents would comply with the law of 1855, and appoint at least one professor in the medical department of the university."^[7] Although the money was desperately needed, the regents again refused to comply, and two years later the money was released by the Legislature without restriction.^[8] By 1871, the expressed public desire for a Homeopathic School led the Board of Regents to consider establishing one at Detroit, separate from the Medical School. In 1875, the school was actually established, but in Ann Arbor, not Detroit.^[9]

In 1895, the positions were reversed, and the Legislature tried to force the regents to move the Homeopathic School from Ann Arbor to Detroit. The regents refused, and the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution explicitly defined the powers of the Board of Regents independently of the Legislature, while every other corporation the constitution created had its powers specified by the Legislature. Justice Claudius Grant wrote: "No other conclusion was...possible than that the intention was to place the institution in the direct and exclusive control of the people themselves, through a constitutional body elected by them."^[10]

This ruling established the precedent that regents are constitutional officers and the Board of Regents is an independent body answerable to the people of the state, not to the Governor or Legislature. The Homeopathic School at the center of the battle was eventually merged into the Medical School in 1922.^[11]

List of members

The name, size, and method of filling the body now known as the Regents of the University Michigan has changed several times in its history.

Catholepistemiad, or University, of Michigania (1817–1821)

The Catholepistemiad, or University, of Michigania, was established by the Governor and Judges of Michigan Territory in 1817, following a plan devised by Chief Justice Augustus Woodward. The Catholepistemiad was self-governed by the professors (or Didactors) that held its thirteen professorships (didaxiim). In fact, the thirteen didaxiim were divided up between just two men, who thus controlled the entire institution:^[12]

• Rev. John Monteith, President (and holder of seven professorships)
• Father Gabriel Richard, vice-president (and holder of six professorships)

Board of Trustees of the University of Michigan (1821–1837)

In 1821, the Governor and Judges of Michigan Territory renamed the Catholepistemiad to the University of Michigan, and placed control of the university in the hands of a board of trustees consisting of 20 citizens plus the Governor. Their previous positions abolished, Father Richard and Rev. Monteith were both appointed to the board of trustees; Monteith left that summer for a professorship at Hamilton College, while Richard remained on the board until his death in 1832.

As it was common during this era for the Governor to be absent, the various men who served as Acting Governor are included in this list in italics, but no specific dates should be inferred as to when exactly they were Acting Governor. Also, no predecessor/successor relationship among specific Trustees should be inferred from their relative position in the table. Using the terms in office cited in the historical sources, at some points there are up to 22 simultaneous Trustees, even though only 20 were called for.

Year	Governor (ex officio)		Appointed Trustees
1821	Lewis Cass	William Woodbridge	John Biddle, Nicholas Boilvin, Daniel LeRoy, John Anderson, John R. Williams, Solomon Sibley, John L. Leib, Peter J. Desnoyers, Austin E. Wing, William Woodbridge, William Brown (all served 1821–1837)	Rev. John Monteith	Henry Jackson Hunt	John Hunt	Charles Larned	Philip Lecuyer	Father Gabriel Richard	Benjamin Stead^[13]	Christian Clemens	William H. Puthuff^[14]
1822				Abraham Edwards						Thomas Rowland
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
					Jonathan Kearsley	Noah M. Wells					James Kingsley	L. Humphrey	Richard Berry
1828
1829
1830		James Witherell
		John T. Mason
1831
	George B. Porter	Stevens T. Mason
1832
1833
1834	Stevens T. Mason
1835		John S. Horner							John McDonnell
1836
1837						Ross Wilkins	John Norvell

Source: (Shaw 1942)

Appointed Regents of the University of Michigan (1837–1852)

The Organic Act of March 18, 1837, created the modern board of regents. In its original form, it consisted of 12 members appointed by the Governor with the consent of the Senate, along with the Governor himself, the Lieutenant Governor, the Justices of the Michigan Supreme Court, and the Chancellor of the state. The act also created the office of chancellor of the university, who was to be appointed by the Regents and serve as ex officio President of the board. In fact, however, the Regents never appointed a chancellor, instead leaving administrative duties up to a rotating roster of professors, and the Governor chaired the board himself.

Although the name of the institution they governed was the same, the Board of Regents was a distinct legal entity from the board of trustees. The Board of Trustees transferred all of their property to the new board of regents, but forgot to include the lot in Detroit where the Catholepistemiad had first been located. The court case involving the eventual recovery of this property led to the Michigan Supreme Court deciding in 1856 that the board of regents, the board of trustees, and the Didactors of the Catholepistemiad were a legally continuous entity. The Regents continued to treat 1837 as the founding year of the University of Michigan until 1929, when they reversed policy and adopted 1817 as the official founding date. That act makes the University of Michigan officially, if not actually, the oldest university in the Big Ten; in actuality, Indiana University, founded in 1820 and granting degrees before the University of Michigan was in existence, is the oldest Big Ten school.

Note: Successorship is well-defined for the ex officio Regents, but no specific predecessor/successor relationships is implied for the appointed Regents, except where specifically noted by an asterisk (*) which denotes Regents explicitly named as a successor to the previous one.

Year	Ex officio Regents								Appointed Regents
	Governor	Lt. Governor	Chancellor	Supreme Court Justices
1837	Stevens T. Mason	Edward Mundy	Elon Farnsworth	William A. Fletcher	George Morell	Epaphroditus Ransom			Thomas Fitzgerald^[15]	Ross Wilkins	John Norvell	Lucius Lyon	Isaac E. Crary	Samuel Denton	John J. Adam	Michael Hoffman	Zina Pitcher	Henry Rowe Schoolcraft	Robert McClelland	Gideon O. Whittemore
									John F. Porter*										Seba Murphy*
1838
							Charles W. Whipple		Jonathan Kearsley*							Gurdon C. Leech*
1839
											Charles C. Trowbridge*	George Duffield*							Joseph W. Brown*
1840
	William Woodbridge	James Wright Gordon												Samuel W. Dexter	Michael A. Patterson*	Francis J. Higginson			Daniel Hudson*	William Draper
1841
	James Wright Gordon	Thomas J. Drake?^[16]												Oliver C. Comstock*		John Owen*		Martin Kundig	George Goodman
1842
	John S. Barry	Origen D. Richardson	Randolph Manning	Alpheus Felch						Elisha Crane	Andrew M. Fitch				William A. Fletcher
1843
					Daniel Goodwin	Epaphroditus Ransom						Marvin Allen		Lewis Cass*					Dewitt C. Walker*
1844
													Alexander H. Redfield*	Edward Mundy					Robert R. Kellogg*	George Duffield
1845
				Warner Wing														Austin E. Wing	Minot Thayer Lane
1846
	Alpheus Felch	William L. Greenly	Elon Farnsworth		George Miles					Charles Coffin Taylor	Elijah Holmes Pilcher				Elon Farnsworth
1847			(office abolished)
	William L. Greenly	Charles P. Bush^[16]
1848
	Epaphroditus Ransom	William Matthew Fenton				Sanford M. Green		Edward Mundy						John Guest Atterbury		Justus Goodman				Benjamin F. H. Witherell
1849
																			Edwin M. Cust
1850
	John S. Barry				Abner Pratt					Robert McClelland								Gustavus Lemuel Foster*	Epaphroditus Ransom*
1851
								George Martin

Source: (Bentley Historical Library 2006)

Elected Regents of the University of Michigan (1852–present)

The state constitution of 1850 made the Regents of the University of Michigan a statewide elected body, and also created the office of President of the University of Michigan, who was to be an ex officio member and preside over the Board without a vote. The first regents elected under the new system were elected in 1852.

Originally, one regent was elected from each of the eight judicial circuits in Michigan, for a six-year term, with all regents up for election simultaneously. By the time of the next election, the number of circuits had grown to ten, so ten regents were elected for the term beginning in 1858. This fluctuation in the size of the board, combined with the controversy over the regents' firing of President Henry Philip Tappan just before the end of their term in 1863, led to a new law that fixed the size of the board at eight members, elected on a statewide basis to an eight-year term, with terms staggered such that two are up for election every two years. The constitutional convention of 1908 added the Superintendent of Public Instruction as an ex officio member of the board, a move which was reversed by the constitutional convention of 1963.^[17]

Year	Ex officio Regents		Elected Regents
	President	Superintendent of Public Instruction
1852	Henry Philip Tappan		Andrew Parsons	Elisha Ely^[18]	James Kingsley	Edward S. Moore	Charles H. Palmer	William Upjohn	Michael A. Patterson	Elon Farnsworth
1853			Henry H. Northrop
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858			George W. Pack	John Van Vleck	Luke H. Parsons	Benjamin L. Baxter	Levi Bishop	George Bradley	Ebenezer Lakin Brown	James E. Johnson	Donald McIntyre	William M. Ferry
			Henry Whiting	Oliver L. Spaulding
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863	Erastus Otis Haven
1864			Alvah Sweetzer	James A. Sweezey	George Willard	Edward C. Walker	Thomas J. Joslin	Thomas D. Gilbert	Henry C. Knight		seats eliminated
1865			Cyrus M. Stockwell
1866
1867									John M.B. Sill
1868							Hiram A. Burt
1869	Henry Simmons Frieze
1870									Joseph Estabrook	Jonas H. McGowan
1871	James Burrill Angell
1872			Claudius B. Grant	Charles Rynd
1873
1874					Andrew Climie
1875
1876							Byron M. Cutcheon	Samuel S. Walker
1877										Victory P. Collier
										George Duffield, Jr.
1878									George L. Maltz
1879
1880			Ebenezer O. Grosvenor	James Shearer					Jacob J. Van Riper
1881					Austin Blair
1882						James F. Joy
1883							Lyman D. Norris
1884							Arthur M. Clark	Charles J. Willett
1885
1886						Charles S. Draper			Moses W. Field	Charles R. Whitman
1887
1888			Charles Hebard	Roger W. Butterfield
1889									Hermann Kiefer
1890					William J. Cocker
1891
1892						Levi L. Barbour	Henry Howard	Peter N. Cook
1893
1894							Henry S. Dean			Frank W. Fletcher
1895
1896			Charles H. Hackley
			George A. Farr
1897	Harry Burns Hutchins
1898	James Burrill Angell					Charles D. Lawton
1899
1900								Eli R. Sutton
1901					Arthur Hill
1902								Levi L. Barbour	Henry W. Carey
1903
1904			Peter White	Loyal Edwin Knappen
1905
1906						Walter H. Sawyer
1907
1908			Chase S. Osborn				Frank B. Leland	Junius E. Beal
1909	Harry Burns Hutchins	Luther L. Wright			John H. Grant
1910									George P. Codd	William L. Clements
1911			Lucius L. Hubbard	Benjamin S. Hanchett					Harry C. Bulkley
1912
1913		Fred L. Keeler			William A. Comstock
1914					Victor M. Gore
1915
1916
1917
1918									James O. Murfin
1919		Thomas E. Johnson
1920	Marion LeRoy Burton
1921
1922
1923
1924							Ralph Stone
1925	Alfred Henry Lloyd
	C. C. Little
1926		Wilford L. Coffey
1927		Webster H. Pearce
1928
1929	Alexander Grant Ruthven			Esther M. Cram
1930					R. Perry Shorts
1931						Richard R. Smith
1932
1933		Paul F. Voelker	Edmund C. Shields
1934					James O. Murfin				Charles F. Hemans	Franklin M. Cook
1935		Maurice R. Keyworth
		Eugene B. Elliott
1936			David H. Crowley
1937
1938					Edmund C. Shields	John D. Lynch
1939
1940							Harry Kipke	J. Joseph Herbert
1941
1942									Earl L. Burhans	Alfred B. Connable
									Franklin M. Cook
1943									Vera B. Baits
1944			Ralph A. Hayward	R. Spencer Bishop
1945
1946				Roscoe O. Bonisteel	Otto E. Eckert	Charles S. Kennedy
1947
1948							Kenneth M. Stevens
1949		Lee M. Thurston
1950
1951	Harlan Hatcher		Murray D. Van Wagoner
1952			Leland I. Doan
1953		Clair L. Taylor
1954
1955
1956							Paul L. Adams	Eugene B. Power
1957		Lynn M. Bartlett
1958							Donald M.D. Thurber		Carl Brablec	Irene Ellis Murphy
1959
1960			Frederick C. Matthaei, Sr.	William K. McInally
1961
1962					Allan R. Sorenson	Paul G. Goebel
1963		(no longer ex officio Regent)
1964				Robert P. Briggs			William B. Cudlip
1965
1966								Alvin M. Bentley
1967			Frederick C. Matthaei, Jr.		Otis M. Smith				Robert J. Brown	Gertrude V. Huebner
1968	Robben Wright Fleming			Lawrence B. Lindemer
1969			Robert E. Nederlander	Gerald R. Dunn				Lawrence B. Lindemer
1970
1971					James L. Waters	Paul W. Brown
1972
1973							Deane Baker
1974
1975								David Laro	Sarah Goddard Power	Thomas A. Roach
1976
1977
1978
1979	Allan F. Smith
1980	Harold Tafler Shapiro
1981								Nellie M. Varner
1982
1983
1984
1985			Veronica Latta Smith	Neal D. Nielson
1986
1987									Philip H. Power
1988	James Johnson Duderstadt
1989
1990
1991										Shirley M. McFee
1992
1993			Laurence B. Deitch	Rebecca McGowan
1994
1995					Andrea F. Newman	Daniel D. Horning
1996	Homer Neal
	Lee C. Bollinger
1997							Olivia P. Maynard	S. Martin Taylor
1998
1999									Dave Brandon	Katherine E. White
2000
2001
2002	B. Joseph White
	Mary Sue Coleman
2003						Andrew Richner
2004
2005
2006
2007									Julia Donovan Darlow
2008
2009				Denise Ilitch
2010
2011
2012
2013							Mark Bernstein	Shauna Ryder-Diggs
2014	Mark Schlissel
2015									Mike Behm
2016
2017			Ron Weiser
2018
2019					Jordan B. Acker	Paul W. Brown
2020
2021								Sarah Hubbard
2022	Santa Ono
2023
Next election	n/a		2024		2026		2028		2030

Source: Names and dates (Bentley Historical Library 2006), party affiliations (Kestenbaum)

Notes

1. Hebel 2004
2. "Regents".
3. Guevara 2005, p. 17
4. Hinsdale 1906, p. 106
5. Michigan Dept. of Public Instruction 1852, pp. 325–326
6. Hinsdale 1906, p. 107
7. Wing & Gay 1890, p. 350
8. Hinsdale 1906, p. 57
9. Hinsdale 1906, pp. 107–108
10. Shaw 1920, pp. 168–169
11. Michigan State Medical Society 1922, p. 145
12. Hinsdale 1906, pp. 11
13. Appointed but declined to serve (Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society 1908, p. 412).
14. Shaw 1942, pp. 59, 153, indicates William H. Puthoff of Michilimackinac served from 1821 to 1834, but William H. Puthuff, mayor of Michilimackinac, died in 1824 (Journal of the Council 1824).
15. Resigned June 1, 1837, shortly before the Board held its first meeting (Hinsdale 1906, p. 171).
16. Charles P. Bush, acting Lieutenant Governor 1847–1848, is listed as an ex officio Regent in (Bentley Historical Library 2006), but Thomas J. Drake, acting Lieutenant Governor 1841–1842, is not. It is not clear whether this is an omission or a change in treatment of the acting Lieutenant Governor between 1842 and 1847.
17. Bentley Historical Library 2007
18. Elisha Ely died November 2, 1854, and his position was unfilled for the remainder of his term. (Hinsdale 1906, p. 183)

References

• Bentley Historical Library (2006), , archived from the original on 2008-02-10
• Bentley Historical Library (2007), , archived from the original on 2008-09-08
• Guevara, David L. (2005), Institutional Autonomy and Public Institutions of Higher Education (PDF), Education Law Consortium, University of Georgia
• Hebel, Sara (October 15, 2004), "State Regents: Should They Be Elected or Appointed?", The Chronicle of Higher Education, 51 (8): A1
• Hinsdale, Burke A. (1906), Demmon, Isaac (ed.), History of the University of Michigan, University of Michigan, retrieved 2007-08-16
• Journal of the Legislative Council of the Territory of Michigan: First Session—First Council, Detroit: Sheldon and Reed, 1824, retrieved 2019-10-05 – via HathiTrust
• Kestenbaum, Lawrence, "University of Michigan Board of Regents", The Political Graveyard
• Michigan Dept. of Public Instruction (1852), System of public instruction and primary school law of Michigan. Prepared by Francis W. Shearman, superintendent of public instruction, Lansing: Ingals, Hedges, OCLC 48522069
• Michigan Historical Collections, vol. 36, Lansing: Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society, 1908, retrieved 2018-11-04
• Michigan State Medical Society (1922), The Journal of the Michigan State Medical Society, vol. 21
• Shaw, Wilfred (1920), The University of Michigan, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe
• Shaw, Wilfred, ed. (1942), The University of Michigan, An Encyclopedic Survey, vol. 1, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, OCLC 1349782
• Wing, Talcott E.; Gay, Helen W. (1890), History of Monroe County, Michigan, New York: Munsell, OCLC 957977

Further reading

• Chase, Theodore R. (1880), The Michigan University Book. 1844–1880., Detroit: Richmond, Backus, OCLC 68793919

External links

• Regents of the University of Michigan
• Proceedings of the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan (1837-2005)