Michigan Today

Text Size

Michigan Today Home

U-M Heritage

Professor White's Trees

U-M Heritage

Do you love the Diag, with its criss-cross paths and canopy of trees? If so, you have one man to thank. The story of Andrew White, who nurtured intellects and seedlings alike.

Most emailed stories

HEALTH

Spring cleaning for your nose

Nose

Allergies? Sinus problems? A good schnozz-cleaning is literally just what the doctor ordered. Here's how to do it.

Talking about words

Trophies

Talking about words

Our language guru considers "signes of victorye" from the Stanley Cup to Ashton Kutcher.

Talking about movies

The talkies' first great screenwriter

Dudley Nichols

Dudley Nichols gave John Wayne some of his best lines, and his screwball writing for Hepburn and Grant remains hilarious. If you want to know movies, you need to know about Nichols.

U-M IN THE WORLD

An undeclared crisis

'Weathered (Self-Portrait) by Robert Dockter

The US now incarcerates more people than any other country. More than one percent of the US population is behind bars. U-M profs say there's a better way.

Letters to the editor

Want to respond to something you read in Michigan Today or about U-M? Submit letter here.

To share your personal news and read about other alums, go to alumni notes.

To read about U-M history and contribute your own stories about what U-M was like when you were here, go to Your U-M History.

(May 1st, 2008)

I love this article about Keeping faith (April, 2008). My experience at the Art School seemed devoid of the opportunity to gain faith-based objectives. It was definitely a place where your faith needed to be entrenched, and at the time mine was not. I am glad to hear that Campus Crusade for Christ is there. I hope this continues to grow and the stigma that belief in Christ is not founded on intellectual concepts. One needs only to read Ravi Zacchariah to find intelligence and Christianity do go together. U-M can only benefit from God's Grace. The void of humanity on campus in the mid 80's was to me a symptom of neglect of faith. As a whole our country after 9-11 has become more aware of the need of God's Grace. This article gives encouragement for a new generation of U-M graduates.

Congratulations! May God Bless the school.

Sharon English Lutz
B.F.A.
1985
Art
Tampa,

(April 22nd, 2008)

Re: Keeping faith (April, 2008): Does Michigan allow a professor or student to question Darwinian theory without fear of loss of job or failure to achieve tenure or receipt of failing grades? I would think that a college environment would allow free discussion and questioning of theories, including Darwinian theory. Or have prominent atheist scientists stifled the discussion and questioning of all theories except those that they espouse?

Ann Trichilo
B.A.
1965
Education, Math
,

(April 21st, 2008)

Re: Keeping faith (April, 2008): I cannot begin to say how much I appreciated my experience at UM-Flint and two brief semesters at UM in Ann Arbor.

I must note that I had no bitter experiences with any professor in either school. I was very outgoing in my Christian and charismatic faith, but found that students either were accepting of me or tolerated me without being offended.

I was so tremendously blessed to be active in the Chi Alpha Christian group on campus. This provided a great deal of support for me and left me with Dear Friends whom I will never forget. Chi Alpha was an outreach of the Assemblies of God to the secular campuses. Gregg Glutting was our campus pastor in Flint and Joe Sasyc was our Ann Arbor campus pastor. They were great!

My faith was strengthened at the University of Michigan and, I think, not only by Chi Alpha, but by the educational experience in Math-Computer Science as well. I viewed my studies as a matter of faith, also, and profited from them in many ways.

I thank God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ for the education and ministry which he has given me since leaving the University (Bible School, a Master's in Christian Counseling, a Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry, and seventeen hours of work toward the Ph.D in theology). U-M helped prepare me for this beautifully.

Min. Mark C. Robison, KPC Deacon
B.S.
1986
UM-Flint -- Math
Virginia Beach,

(April 18th, 2008)

Re: Keeping faith (April, 2008): My faith journey was strengthened and broadened through my excellent experience at University of Michigan through Campus Ministry. I was involved in the Campus Ministry program at the First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor for 4 years. Opportunities for involvement are vast on the Ann Arbor campus. I participated in and later facilitated several Inter-faith Trialogue Series. Students from the major 3 monotheistic religions met regularly to discuss differences, similarities, stereotypes, and just life on a regular basis. On a campus so diverse and complex, it was refreshing for me to experience new ideas and challenges to my faith. I took several religion courses including some textual criticism courses. Ralph Williams's course (The Bible as English Literature) was one of the best courses I took.

Having faith is a dynamic and deeply personal journey. Having doubts is part of having faith--it isn't a tangible, hardcopy, static object, although sometimes people misuse what they call their faith as if it were an object (that they want to hit you over the head with). Many people forget that God, faith, and religion are not the same thing. Religion and how one bears witness to her/his faith is a personal human construct deeply based in history, culture, and tradition. For people of faith, God is above and beyond what humans can imagine or divine. If you are looking for ways to deepen your faith journey in whatever tradition, there are plenty of ways to do this at the University of Michigan.

Kristen
B.S., Ph.D. Candidate
1996
SNR&E
Highland Park,

(April 17th, 2008)

I read your recent article on housework and gender, and I'm confused - why do you say having a wife saves a man an hour a week? From your graphic data, that was last true in 1976, but from your text, you say it was true in 2005, where a married man is shown as working 3 hours a week more than a single man. Last time I checked, having to work three hours more wasn't a real time saver. Not to say I do my fair share of the housework, which seems to be one of your points, but I certainly do much more housework now that I'm married than I did before. So your data and my experience reflect the same truth - having a wife means more, not less, housework, although working a lower percentage of the total household housework time - which will be true until men do 100% of the housework - by that time the robot Romba will have evolved into a complete housecleaning automaton. Probably by some guy who doesn't want to do his fair share of housework.

Thomas
BA, JD
1989, 1996
University of Oregon, Lewis and Clark Law School
Gettysburg,

(April 16th, 2008)

Re: Keeping Faith (April 2008): My faith was reduced to Secular Humanism while at the University. While in high school I battled my doubts in the Christian faith as an altar boy when learning about evolution in ninth grade. I finally rebounded back to the faith after rationalizing a belief held as fact among South Indian Christians.

Then, again I faced this dilemma when I took "Introduction to the New Testament" at the University. Our professor informed us of all the inconsistencies of the Bible such as how many years the Gospels were actually written after the fact, how the books of the Bible were transcribed by scribes hundreds of times over, and how much of the original text was lost in translation to other languages. All the while I reasoned that this must be much like the game "Telephone" that we all played as children in which the initial statement evolves into a completely different statement.

In addition, I found that many of my professors ridiculed religion in outward forms such as anti-abortion views and creationism to which I nearly always agreed with the professor. Up until my third year of college I viewed myself as a liberal Christian who held some serious doubts in his faith. That year Time Magazine did a piece on the belief of St. Thomas coming to India. I had held the very existence of a God and Christ on this seeming fact that had been brainwashed into my skull. Time's article showed that there was zero evidence that St. Thomas ever came to India. My faith was ruined. How could I believe anything they said if Moses could not even get the first chapter of the Bible correct? We learned at Michigan (and in high school) that Creationism is not true; Evolution is.

Now I am a proponent of the belief that Religion is the root of most evil in today's world. 9/11, the Crusades, the Holocaust, the Middle East, etc. Likewise, I question the beacons of purity in their crusade of self-righteousness. Aren't these the same people with the highest divorce rates? Atheists/Agnostics with the lowest?

Religion now boggles my mind. How can someone believe that God created the world in seven days and that the Earth is 6000 years old? Blasphemy, I say. To this day I respect the teachings of Christ and try to live up to them each and every day to the best of my ability, but I am not sure that I believe he is the Messiah or God.

Maybe, one day my views will change, it sure was a happier and easier time having religion in my life.

George Thomas
B.S.
3007
2007 LSA
Ann Arbor,

(April 16th, 2008)

It's fun to read about current word creations and comparisons to older contexts. My son's most recent soccer team went by the name ROFL Squad. The name was special in part for the need to explain it's meaning to the uninformed. When there's more discussion about these types of terms, the mystery evaporates and we can all enjoy them first hand. Thanks for the article.

WC Burgard
BFA
1979
School of Art and Design
Ann Arbor,

(April 16th, 2008)

Re: Exactly how much housework does a husband create? (April, 2008): Thanks for that information. I think us guys should save women all that pain and stay single.

James Thompson
BA
2001

,

(April 16th, 2008)

Early classes at U-M often planted a memorial oak (Professor White's trees, April 2008), so I have been told. It would be nice to resurrect that tradition this year since commencement is on the Diag.

Bea McLogan
B.A.
1944
LSA
Ann Arbor,

(April 16th, 2008)

I enjoyed reading about Professor White's trees (April, 2008), a story about planting trees but also about optimism and looking toward the future. The account of his trip to Ann Arbor at the age of 79, just to check on the trees, touched me. For those of us who just took the campus trees for granted, it's a good lesson in the long-term effects of positive decisions.

Chris Campbell
M.A., J.D.
1972, 1975
Rackham, Law
Travserse City,

See more

Back to top