Bollinger hopes to unite, personalize 'U'

By Erin Marsh
Daily Editorial Page Editor

As is the national trend in education, community outreach, and seemingly all levels of government, President Lee Bollinger would like to build a bridge.

It's not specifically a bridge to improved technology or development for the future - although those elements are certainly included in his vision.

Bollinger

Quite simply, Bollinger wants to build a bridge that will help Bursley residents feel as much a part of University life as South Quad residents. He wants to facilitate relations between student groups, departments and colleges - and he wants all of them to feel more a part of the University's central administration. "More than a bridge to the 21st century," Bollinger said in his first major public address last spring, "we need a bridge to Palmer Field."

During the same address, Bollinger announced his intention to move the University president's office out of the Fleming Administration Building to some "more centralized" location on campus. Bollinger proposed that the administration's present operations center is offputting to students, in the sense that Fleming is an architecturally foreboding figure and is remote from most students' everyday paths.

Moving into the students' realm - both physically and philosophically - is an interesting concept. Early in his presidency - which, at a February, 1997 inception, is still young - Bollinger declared his intention to make the University more accessible in many ways.

Supporting his pledge, in July Bollinger led the University Board of Regents to pass a 2.9-percent tuition increase - the lowest in eight years. Passing a tuition increase in line with the average rate of inflation - unlike increases of recent years, which have reached as high as 13.5 percent - should go a long way in making an University education more feasible for thousands of students. Aided by generous state appropriations, Bollinger's determination to cut administrative costs and pass the savings on to students appears to have scored a significant success with the budget for the '97-'98 school year.

Bollinger continues his quest for unity with support for diversity-building programs like former University President James Duderstadt's Michigan Mandate and the Michigan Agenda for Women. Encouraging increased minority representation among the student and faculty population will lay the founding stones from which to build Bollinger's bridge to a better University.

09-03-97