University of Michigan - Michiganensian Yearbook (Ann Arbor, MI)

Page 9 text:

PEOPLE- WATCHING ... A I favorite pasttime at I -M is people-watching on the Diag, and there ' s plenty of variety with almost 35,000 students on campus. HACKEY-SACK was the in sport to play a few years ago- I even the book stores were selling sacks. It remains) popular among U-M students. TREES may seem like ideal study spots (above), but when the weather is nice, more work is likely to get done indoors. PROLOGUE 5

Page 8 text:

A More Perfect Union IRISH SHANTY . . . This con- struction was a short-lived, semi-serious statement about the IRA that gave local skateboarders some fun last spring on the Diag. SNOWED IN ... The Chemis- try Building looks suspiciously peaceful after a snowfall, but don ' t be fooled by the picture. showing its years, too, having been completed in| 1920 at a cost of about $1.15 million. Often, people off the street hung out in the I Union, making it at least uncomfortable if not unsafe for students. But that was before Frank! Cianciola came to Michigan. Cianciola is an enthusiastic, whiskered man I who is always willing to talk about his favorite subject-the Union. His past record working with the University of Akron and Kent State University unions impressed U-M enough that he was approached in 1 979 with a regental com- mitment to spend $4.6 million toward the Un- 1 ion ' s renovation and the mandate of a student referendum. What we wound up doing for that amount of money was considerably different than the original package, Cianciola explained. We didn ' t have a program in place for the build- ing now, nor did we have a master plan for renovation. One of the things particularly important in the turn-around was to communicate that the Union is not just a building-it ' s a program, the director continued. There are a lot of oppor- tunities for students to get involved with organ- izations here. But the real goal of the whole thing is to make students comfortable, to give them a place so they can identify with the Union and with the University as a whole. By the spring of 1981, Cianciola and a group BcnncH I ! MEETING PLACE ... The Diag as seen from the Graduate Library steps is a sight familiar to all U-M undergraduates; it is a central view of Central Campus. 4 PROLOGUE

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BIKERS BEWARE . . . this biker is about to go off the sidewalk and into South Uni- versity. Happily, drivers are used to pedestrians and bikers cutting them off. LAWN PARTY . . . When the j weather permits, many classes like this English 241 poetry group, opt for a change ofj scenery and meet outdoors. Frank Sk ' lionkamp m I ft Mali Korbclak of 35 students had drawn up a Master Plan which included redesigning the layouts of the bottom two floors to make them more appeal- ing. These plans led to the formation of the MUG and the repositioning of the student bookstore (the University Cellar was there at the time) as well as putting the Campus Information Center desk on the first floor. When I came here, this facility served as a pass-through facility-people in the street hung out here, Cianciola noted. The kind of en- vironment we have now led to the article in the New York Times in 1986 that named the Michigan Union as one of the top ten unions in the country. And at that, Cianciola kicked back in his chair and smiled a very satisfied grin, the grin of an artist who had created a masterpiece. he freshman gets out in front of one of the most compelling, digni- fied, and strangely beautiful build- ings he has ever seen. And as he walks up the front stairs in search of a tele- phone, there ' s the plaque with John F. Ken- nedy ' s picture on it. Kennedy first announced the idea of a Peace Corps on these steps back in 1960 during his presidential cam- i paign. Well, it figures. After all, this is the Uni- ] versity of Michigan. It must be a big number , By Michael A. Bennett 6 PROLOGUE