The most influential adviser to the University president may not have an official place in the Fleming Administration Building or on the University payroll. Her role is generally not publicly recognized with plaques and buildings, but the life of the president's wife is full of societal constraints and expectations, making her role just as challenging as that of her husband ...
 |
| Vivian Shapiro |
But they are better recognized by Hatcher, Fleming, Shapiro, Duderstadt and Neal.
Though their images are fleeting, their influence is permanently etched into University history.
They are the surrogate mothers to 35,000 students, the around-the-clock unofficial public spokespersons for the University and the chief advisers to the president.
But out of the public eye, they have the challenging task of maintaining their own careers and raising their own families, while accommodating the rigorous schedule of the University president. Behind the scenes, these women must also harbor and protect their children from the criticism disenchanted students sometimes launch at their husbands.
However, the rewards of the job can be immeasurable. The joys of being surrounded by 35,000 students have been described as "unmatched."
The responsibility to continue the University's worldwide connections through extensive travel and entertaining dignitaries like the Dalai Lama, Eleanor Roosevelt and President and Mrs. Gerald Ford is a unique task.
These women are among the leaders of the Maize and Blue and the Ann Arbor community. Each is not simply the wife of the president. These women are professors, academics, artists and crusaders.
Strain at home
 |
| The Hatcher family |
As the daughter of a professor, Anne Hatcher's upbringing revolved around the world of academia and university campuses. Growing up surrounded by faculty members, Hatcher said she developed a mistrust of all higher levels of the administration, making the news of her husband's selection as University president difficult to absorb.
"I was opposed to it," Hatcher said. "I knew something like this would happen because he was moving up. This came sooner than I would have hoped."
Hatcher said she was distressed because she feared her young children would not have a "normal upbringing," living in the president's large white house on South University Avenue.
"I was not happy about it because my children (Bob and Anne Linda) were only 7 and 5," Hatcher said. "It kind of spoiled my vision of how I was going to bring them up. So I was not happy about it, but since he felt it was the thing he wanted to do I had to support him, and I went along in the traditional view of the wife of the president."
Anne Duderstadt also said she was initially skeptical about her husband's promotion to University president in 1988.
"I didn't want Jim to take the Michigan presidency in the first place when the regents offered it to him because of the stress I believed it would put on our family," Anne Duderstadt said. "But eventually we decided together that we simply could not turn down this assignment."
An evolving role
 |
| The Duderstadt family |
"Anne Hatcher maintained social aspects of the presidency," said History Prof. Nicholas Steneck, who teaches a course on the history of the University. "For years there were student teas and houseguests."
Former University President Harlan Hatcher said his wife played the traditional role of the University president's wife, being a partner to her husband and looking after the social side of campus life.
"She was terrific," Harlan Hatcher said. "She kept the house open and arranged to meet with students in the house. She was just terrific."
Fleming took on the the role of first lady during the tumultuous politics of the late 1960s. Fleming said one of the first questions she was asked was whether she planned to continue "Mrs. Hatcher's tradition and have teas."
"If that's what the students want, I guess that's what we'll do," Fleming said in a 1988 panel interview at the Bentley Historical Library.
For a year the social climate on campus was stable and tranquil, but before long, things began to change.
"During 1968, 1969, 1970, the students' manner of living was changing," Fleming said. "Mores were different; bare feet and blue jeans were the order of the day."
The teas and formal dress were just two casualties of the new era.
"Realization of the discrimination of the last 200 years dawned on campus at that time, and the students made Mr. Fleming and the other administrators feel that they were responsible for everything that had happened up to that point," Fleming said.
Fleming said her experiences in that era were a mix of good and bad. She said she admired the spirit of the students, but admitted to being scared after bricks were thrown through the windows of the president's house during a student protest.
By 1980, when the Shapiros moved into the president's house, the student body was less volatile, and Vivian Shapiro and her husband looked for outlets where they could improve communication with students.
"So many decisions the University has to make are very difficult, and some can be very complicated to explain," Shapiro said in the 1988 panel. "The students have learned to ask questions and they think its their duty. They are unabashed, but are still naive."
When the Duderstadts stepped up to the helm in 1988, their lives outside of the office were saturated with social and official functions.
"(Anne) Duderstadt's schedule was as full as his on many days," Steneck said. "It was not simply just tagging along as a wife, but doing things independently. The analogy to Hillary Clinton is not all that wrong."
Anne Duderstadt described the role of the "first lady of the University" as a "24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year responsibility."
"Both Jim and I served in these roles because of our love for the University," she said. "Neither of us can imagine doing it for another institution since it requires an extraordinary degree of loyalty and commitment."
The toil of the presidency weighs heavy on both partners, requiring a team effort and constant support of one another.
"(Anne) was indeed my chief adviser," James Duderstadt said. "Since the presidency is a total immersion, experience that occupies most of one's waking moments, almost everything we did involved University activities of some type."
Personal time
 |
| Sally and Robben Fleming |
Hatcher was involved with the Red Cross board and hosted local women groups' meetings at her home. She said the "full-time job" of maintaining the president's house was an "activity in itself."
"I had always been very independent," Hatcher said, adding that she was a teacher for 10 years before she married.
"I had no feeling of being the dependent little wife," Hatcher said. "I felt that I was somebody. I had proved myself as being someone who contributed to society."
Hatcher said that after 16 years of service she was prepared to bid the position farewell.
"In general it was a good experience," Hatcher said. "I certainly would not want to have lived that kind of life for my whole life. I was relieved. I was getting very tired. I had more than enough."
Fleming was an active member of the Ann Arbor community.
"I thought it was important to have community-University relationship," she said. "I was on the boards of the Community Center, Planned Parenthood and the United Way, and I tutored through the Michigan Literacy Council."
Vivian Shapiro said that she managed to maintain her position as a faculty member in the University's department of psychiatry, even as she and her husband adjusted to their new roles.
"I was determined that my professional identity would remain intact," Shapiro said. "I really did not know what it was going to be like to be part of the administration as a faculty member."
Shapiro said that over the course of time, her concern shifted from the the attitude of, "I'm not going to change my identity," to the question of "What is this kind of responsibility all about?"
But her dual role as a faculty member and as the president's wife produced an uncomfortable conflict when her department in the School of Social Work was phased out.
"Everybody assumes I could have influence in that decision," Shapiro said. "We had lost our funding and some people wanted the University to grant further support and pressured me to act. I would say I am very, very careful on the subject of special influence. I feel that it is inappropriate to try to have more influence than I ought to by virtue of my faculty appointment."
Anne Duderstadt dedicated her private time to renovating the president's house on 815 S. University Ave., and the Inglis House, which is frequently used to house visiting dignitaries.
"Each of Michigan's first ladies has had a unique impact on the University," James Duderstadt said. "Each first lady has become an important part of the history of the University."
Over time, each first lady of the University has brought a sense of individuality and dignity to the position.
"I think being here has changed my whole life," Fleming said. "It has given me a lot more self confidence, and a feeling of well being. It has been a growing experience, a widening experience.
"It has just been of tremendous advantage to me throughout my years here," she said. "It has been the apex. I remember telling Charlie Overberger (former vice president for research) when we were about to leave, 'From now on it's going to be all down hill.'"
See also: Bollinger brings new style to traditional role