Talk:List of University of Michigan alumni

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The Big Chill[edit]

The description says that one of the main characters works for The Michigan Daily; all but one of the main characters were U of M alumni. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.36.47.224 (talk) 02:49, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Theodore Kaczynski[edit]

The current final line of his entry reads: "He later chose to abandon his promising mathematics career to engage in a mail bombing campaign." I'm not saying that what Kaczynski did wasn't a "mail bombing campaign," and I'm not supporting what he did, but don't you think this sentence expresses bias against him that should be left out of Wikipedia? I think it would be fine to mention his bombing spree, but perhaps we could rewrite it in a way that also (briefly) mentions his motivations, so that the entry isn't as dismissive and antagonistic.

Another alum or two[edit]

John Koza, computer scientist. See existing Wikipedia entry. Was in grad school in '66-??. Andy Stein, violinist/arranger/versatile musician; see www.andysteinmusic.com. '69 I think.

Correction offered[edit]

Entry under Rhodes scholars misspells the name of Mark Killingsworth, as "Mark Killingswor".

Please note, I am unfamiliar with how to edit articles, so, offering the above suggestions hoping that someone else will pick up on them. Thanks.

I am unfamiliar with the editing process, but perhaps someone can do this for me. Charles Gibson (of ABC News) did not get his BA from the university. He was awarded a fellowship in 1973, but got his Bachelor's degree from Princeton. This can be confirmed on the ABC News website. mhuddleston(1/31/07)

One More Alumnus-- Perhaps Two Alumni[edit]

Hal Simms ('39?) - Broadcaster. "The Voice" of CBS and CBS NYC-based soaps (i.e., "This is The Edge of Night....) from 1950-1980 (?) Anyone over 45 will remember the "CBS eye" and the announcer, exuding in his "less is more" persona (lest the eye icon fails), the reminder that Italic text"THIS...is CBS"...and THAT was the voice of Hal Sims....(Email Mike Wallace for confirm).

Jeff Daniels - ('77) Prolific Screen Actor - he was there at Michigan in '74-'76. Please confirm.

divide into two pages[edit]

Could this page be divided into an alumni page and a faculty page? It is 95 kilobytes, which is larger than preferred. -- Gmosaki 06:47, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Also, I've inserted a key for academic units. This will clarify to which academic unit each alumnus is associated with, as well as discard the need to create separate alumni list for each academic unit article. PentawingTalk 21:26, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]


I've added designation of "SPH" for the school of public health. For some reason "MPH" for masters in public health keeps getting converted (perhaps by some sort of bot?) into "mph" which is probably for miles per hour. I've put in periods: M.P.H. to make distinction more apparent. Many graduates are probably from LS&A, but I don't have the patience to sort out and designate to whom the designation might apply, but I would be nice if someone ground through that process. 66.65.76.15 17:29, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does it make sense to create a breakout for not-for-profit? There are a number of graduates working for substantial foundations. For example, I added a graduate today who is now CIO (investments) for the Mott foundation. 66.65.76.15 17:50, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Recommendation[edit]

This list is over 200kB. One way to cut it back to a more manageabkle size is to reduce ALL comments to a single line. There are many listed graduates with descriptions that are more than 10 lines, even though the same graduate already has an article with full details. This is unnecessary duplication.

Syrenab 13:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've made a start at chopping out some extraneous stuff. There's plenty more to do. --Spondoolicks 10:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And I just cut the article in half by splitting it based on occupation, since there's already sections based on that criterion. Perhaps other sections could be split off in a similar manner. Bryan 09:07, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Split off[edit]

I have split off four articles from this main one. The four sub articles can be found at:

Hope this is better. The main article's now down to 50k, from 175 or so. The articles could still do with some assertive editing (for example, expunging all the red links and waffle, but it's a start. Proto::type 15:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Which Phil Power?[edit]

I don't think that the Phil Power linked from the Marshall Scholarship list is the right one. See http://www.giving.umich.edu/leadersbest/spring2006/difference.htm for the right one. Parkerdr 04:52, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

i'm changing the link by using his full name. Parkerdr (talk) 16:48, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Charles Keene Dodge - Science[edit]

I would like to know who wrote about "Charles Keene Dodge" under Science alumni.--Erythronium (talk) 15:05, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lee Boysel[edit]

76.186.110.112 (talk) 17:43, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the entry on Boysel is not worded well. He was president and founder of Four Phase Systems. In 1982 Motorola bought Four Phase. Boysel was never president or CEO of Motorola as the entry says.

University of Michigan Project[edit]

University of Michigan is not represented with a project at Category:WikiProject Universities. Please comment at Talk:University_of_Michigan#Should_University_of_Michigan_have_a_project.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:04, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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Propose removing extraneous infoboxes[edit]

The infoboxes for various categories (e.g., Nobel Prize, NASA, Turing Award) seem out of place. The infoboxes properly belong in the articles for those topics, not in this article that just happens to mention them, and I believe their presence here is more confusing than enlightening. I could see replacing them with just an illustrative image (e.g., a photo of a Nobel Prize), but even that does not seem to add much value (less than including images of representative alumni in each category). I propose removing all of the infoboxes for external topics from this article. Sarcasmboy (talk) 05:54, 13 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Propose simplifying heading outline[edit]

This is a very long article, even after all the great work others have done to prune it and split it up. I think there are some improvements that can be made to the table of contents to make it easier to navigate. In particular:

  1. Putting everything under a top-level Alumni heading is redundant, as the article title makes clear who these people are. I propose removing this extraneous level of heading in order to streamline the table of contents.
  2. Award-winner sections are all over the place, with Nobel laureates listed first, some (e.g., Pulitzer Prizes) listed alphabetically, and others (e.g., Turing Award) listed in the relevant sections. I propose starting the list with an Awards section containing the major award categories, with Nobels listed first and the others alphabetically.
  3. Move the only entry under Military into List of University of Michigan law and government alumni.
  4. Sections like Law, government, and public policy that are just links to other articles should have at least a couple sentences summarizing the truly notable alumni in those categories, as the bare link to the referenced article makes for an unappealing presentation.
  5. Move the Fictional Wolverines section to the end, just before References, and retitle Fictional characters.

In summary, it would look like this:

  • Award winners
    • Nobel laureates
    • [other major awards listed alphabetically]
  • Academia and education
    • Educators
    • University presidents
  • Arts (summary paragraph, link to List of University of Michigan arts alumni)
  • Business and not-for-profits
    • Business (include only entry under Finance)
    • Not-for-profit
  • Engineering and technology
    • Aerospace
    • Computers and technology
    • Other engineering
  • Journalism, publishing, and broadcasting
  • Law, government, and public policy (summary paragraph, link to List of University of Michigan law and government alumni)
  • Newsmakers
    • Activists
    • Criminals and other infamous newsmakers
    • Other newsmakers
  • Science and medicine
    • Astronauts
    • Mathematics
    • Medicine
    • Science
  • Sports
  • Fictional characters
  • References
  • External links

Sarcasmboy (talk) 19:31, 13 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for undertaking this. I think it's a good idea. My only concern is that there will be some confusion when a prominent (for example) physicist is listed under the Nobel Prize, rather than as a physicist. Maybe it's not so much an issue with a Nobel, which is likely to be anyone's crowning achievement, but the case of other awards maybe not so much. It's easy for example to imagine a journalist whose Pulitzer is just one of many achievements in a long career - not quite so defining, in other words. The problem already exists in the current page, and I don't think this makes it much worse, but if we're going to split out "award winners" then that separate list of awards has to be kept short, pared down to the three or four in the world that are in fact, defining and the first thing that comes to mind when you think of their recipients. Indeed now that I am thinking about it, maybe some awards - ones that don't cut across disciplines like the Nobel - could and should remain under the relevant "profession" heading. JohnInDC (talk) 00:16, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with your concerns about award winners being confusing to find. I considered proposing paring the list of awards down to a very small number, but thought that might lead to debates about what constitutes a "major" or "defining" award. I don't think anyone would argue that a Nobel Prize is a major award, but I suspect it very quickly becomes a matter of perspective after that. The absolute number of recipients of such awards is small enough that maybe it is worth listing them twice, once in a bare list at the top, and again with a short summary sentence in their relevant category. I do think having some rhyme or reason to where the award categories go would be preferable to the current hybrid. I was looking for examples of similar articles to see how they organized this information and have yet to find any that I feel did a great job of doing so clearly. Sarcasmboy (talk) 00:43, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the Nobel is special not only because it's such a singular honor, but because it cuts across many fields and can't be put under any other. MacArthur grants aren't quite as profound, but they're equally hard to categorize. Otherwise - I wonder if most major awards fall within a particular field? I dunno - bears a bit of looking (but I'm watching the football team play right now and am disinclined to look in this instant). JohnInDC (talk) 01:12, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
What a coincidence, I am also watching that game! But I am also easily distracted so looked at the non-Nobel awards represented on the page:
  • Churchill Scholarship or Marshall Scholarship: None of these people are Wikilinked, so (without further investigation) are likely non-notable. I don't think receiving a scholarship, even a highly selective one, warrants inclusion in this list. I propose removing this section entirely.
  • Turing and Grace Murray Hopper Award winners: Fits cleanly within a Computers and technology section
  • MacArthur Foundation award winners: Harder to categorize, as you observe, and recipients may be spread across multiple sub-lists in different articles. Maybe these should be moved into their respective profession sections with an annotation.
  • Pulitzer Prize winners: split roughly evenly between journalists (listed in this article) and writers/composers (listed in a separate article). This one seems the hardest to reconcile with the current article organization. I think the best thing to do is to move them into their respective professional sections with an annotation that they won a Pulitzer. (Though, as a counter-point, List of Harvard University people does include Nobel and Pulitzer winners at the top, and all other awards are just mentioned in the summary for a person.)
  • Rhodes Scholars: Only 9 of 27 people listed have articles, suggesting to me that having been a Rhodes Scholar isn't in itself enough to establish notability, and I think these should be moved to their respective sections with the Rhodes Scholarship mentioned in the summary. This article should be about organizing and summarizing already-notable people associated with the university.
  • National Medal of Science Laureates/National Medal of Technology and Innovation: About half of these people are already listed twice, once here and once under their respective profession. I think moving the former under Science and the latter under Engineering and technology would be appropriate. Sarcasmboy (talk) 01:55, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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