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MSU trustees approve med school building in Grand Rapids
BY JAMES PRICHARD
Associated Press Writer

GRAND RAPIDS — The Michigan State University board of trustees is moving forward with a long-planned expansion of the university's medical school into the city.

Trustees unanimously approved the purchase of a building site for the $70 million project during a meeting Thursday in Grand Rapids. The seven-story 180,000-square-foot structure will become the new administrative home and research hub of the College of Human Medicine.

The seven-story 180,000-square-foot building is to be built at the intersection of Michigan Street and Division Avenue, in the heart of Grand Rapids' burgeoning downtown medical district. It is scheduled to open in 2010.

"We have more student applicants than we have ever had, and they're expressing a very high degree of interest in what we're doing here in Grand Rapids," Marsha Rappley, dean of the medical school, told the trustees. "That has been a very strong attraction for them.

"We've been approached by people from across the country who are interested in opportunities here, opportunities as teachers and as scientists, and we are aggressively recruiting in both those areas."

Trustees agree to pay $15.75 million for the site and to buy 100 to 360 parking spaces for $26,900 each.

The 180,000-square-foot building will be named The Secchia Center after Peter Secchia, a philanthropist and former U.S. ambassador to Italy who is a Michigan State alumnus. He is donating $20 million toward the project.

Secchia, who was one of President Gerald R. Ford's honorary pallbearers during ceremonies earlier this month in Grand Rapids, did not attend the meeting. He and his wife, Joan, are recovering from injuries that they sustained Sunday in a traffic accident after attending a Michigan State basketball game in East Lansing.

The building will be constructed atop an underground parking garage across the street from Spectrum Health Butterworth Campus and the Van Andel Institute, two of the many local medical facilities with which the university already has formed partnerships.

Spectrum Health has agreed to pay $35 million toward the cost of the new building as part of an $85 million pledge, which also will be used to fund medical research. Michigan State has started a fundraising campaign to come up with the remaining $15 million of the project cost, plus another $5 million for furnishings.

The Van Andel Institute has pledged $16 million to Michigan State over the next eight years for research.

University President Lou Anna Simon said the partnerships are vital to the expansion project.

"What we're doing in this partnership with the leading health care institutions in this community is unique," Simon said. "We're doing this in a state that's experiencing an economic downturn and, yet, we're able, through this partnership, to create a thriving enterprise that is attracting students, attracting faculty, attracting scientists."

About 30 of the school's third- and fourth-year medical students already are completing their studies at medical facilities in Grand Rapids.

Fifty first-year medical students will begin their studies in the city starting in fall 2008. By 2010, when the new building is to open, 100 first-year medical students are expected to enroll in both Grand Rapids and East Lansing.

About 400 medical students are expected in Grand Rapids by 2014, Rappley said.

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Ann Arbor is no island, Detroit Renaissance CEO says

Thursday, January 18, 2007
BY Nathan Bomey
nbomey@mbizreview.com

It's no secret the extensive research activity conducted by the University of Michigan is a significant catalyst in the success of the Ann Arbor economy.

Doug Rothwell, CEO of Detroit Renaissance

But Ann Arbor resident and Detroit Renaissance president Doug Rothwell believes the state needs to increase its commitment to its research universities because of the economic possibilities they present.
Rothwell recently unveiled Detroit Renaissance's "Road to Renaissance" initiative at the Ann Arbor Rotary Club on Jan. 10.

Before his speech, Rothwell addressed why Ann Arbor needs to remain connected to the southeastern Michigan region in an interview with Ann Arbor Business Review reporter Nathan Bomey.

Is Ann Arbor's economic success inevitably linked to the future of southeastern Michigan or can Ann Arbor stand out as an exception?

Rothwell: Well, I think that Ann Arbor can clearly be a leader in Michigan and be the bright spot of the Michigan economy, but I think that it is impossible for Ann Arbor to stand entirely by itself.

The economic forces that are going on in the world today - particular those that are affecting Michigan and southeast Michigan - are bound to affect Ann Arbor and I think already are.

We're seeing, for example, that some of the impacts of global competition are affecting Ann Arbor companies. We know that the auto industry - while not as intense, not as densely concentrated in Ann Arbor as some other communities - is still having impacts here. We're seeing it in the housing market as a result, so it can't stand entirely by itself.

But I do believe that Ann Arbor is probably Michigan greatest opportunity to really have a community that can be a leader for our economic transformation.

Are there any lessons that southeastern Michigan could learn from Ann Arbor's latest success, including news like landing Google?

I think that it clearly shows the importance of our universities in helping us make economic transformation a reality. Google is in Ann Arbor because of the relationship with the University of Michigan. And I think that too often in the past this state has not embraced its public universities, particularly its flagship universities - Michigan, Michigan State, Wayne State, the research universities - as really being absolutely vital to the future economic health of the state.

I think that certainly with what we're doing at Detroit Renaissance we recognize the role that universities play. We're honored to have Mary Sue Coleman serve on our board of directors and see the need to involve university-led economic development as a key component to our economic development strategies.

Now, my understanding is that you think the state should recognize the University of Michigan as its flagship asset?

I do. I think it should be a flagship asset, because it is. And therefore I think in terms of the way the appropriations process works in state government, that we should be looking at it not so much how we can basically nickel-and-dime what we give our universities - particularly the University of Michigan - but rather we should look at how we can invest in a university like Michigan to help grow the state.

Are you concerned at all that singling out the University of Michigan could be cause for enmity on the part of the state's other universities?

We just have to recognize that research universities play a special role in the economy today. All universities are important. All educational institutions are important and play important roles.

But research universities really play a special role because that's where the innovation and knowledge is coming for what the industries and jobs of the future will be and where the knowledge is that will help businesses grow into new market segments and develop new products.

And it's those research universities that we absolutely have to do everything we can to protect and to invest in.

So it's not a matter of taking from one to give to another. It's a matter of saying, research universities play a special role - what can we do to give them the investment they need to accomplish what the state needs right now?

So then you would support the continued fostering of programs like the tech transfer office at U-M that are spawning technology businesses in this area?

I would support not only that, but I think it's even broader than that. I think we have to look at making sure that universities like Michigan have the resources to invest in all the academic and research programs that are going to be critical for where our economy is going in the future.

And that involves not only the hard science areas like engineering and chemistry and biology, but it also involves some of the softer areas like management and analytical skills, because that whole area of being able to innovate and the ability to analyze problems is what's going to be our country's key to being able to be competitive in the future.

Those disciplines in universities are giving the workforce of the future the skills that we need to be able to compete in this global market. So it's beyond looking at what universities are commercializing, it's looking at what universities are developing in the way of knowledge for the workforce that is going through the school as well as the knowledge that they can share with business.

What's your reaction when people from Ann Arbor say that the city's economy is prospering in spite of the southeastern Michigan climate and that they need to do whatever they can to separate themselves rather than be integrated?

Again, I think it's a narrow view of what's actually happening. Ann Arbor will always do relatively better than some other southeastern Michigan communities because of the presence of the University of Michigan.

Again that gets to one of the points I'm going to make today, which is that the city of Ann Arbor ought to do everything it can to embrace the University of Michigan, support it, cultivate it and enhance the relationships with it and never have any division between town and university, because the university is what makes the town go.

But Ann Arbor, as I said previously, is still a relatively small town in a very large region. It is a town of a 100,000 people in a 5 million-person region. And its future growth will be dependent upon the success of that region.

The image of Detroit casts a shadow over all of southeast Michigan. The future growth of Ann Arbor will be tied to the ability to link to developments around Metro Airport, which is a potential growth engine for our future.

Also the ability to be able to attract people here will be based on their sense that Ann Arbor is part of a much larger community and therefore has much larger things to offer than a town Ann Arbor's size can.

And so it's inextricably linked to the region as a whole. It's just the economic reality.

So if the state were to recognize U-M as its flagship asset, what would they have to do to do that?

The key is the way the appropriations process works today, which is that we do look at university funding as an appropriation versus an investment. And I think that until we change the mindset that universities are an investment in our future and that we should therefore be looking at longer-range ways in which we can invest in those resources rather than that they're competing against other state departments and agencies for a fixed pot of money, we're not going to be able to achieve what I'm talking about. We have to think about it as an investment.

Are you worried at all that by considering it an investment and focusing more on the research side, it could take the focus off students?

Well no, because I think students are the beneficiaries of this investment and the students are the ones picking up the knowledge and the skills that are needed to be able to compete in the global marketplace.

So clearly good teaching has got to be part of what universities are all about, but what drives the ability to offer state-of-the-art knowledge is the investment in innovation and research.

The other thing I guess I'd say real quickly - I don't think I said this, but just to make sure - I think the University of Michigan needs to be considered a flagship asset, but not the only one. Clearly Michigan State and Wayne State would be - the three research universities are clearly the ones that need to be given special consideration.

There's a lot of talk about how Ann Arbor is, like you said before, leading the way economically in this region. But in what sense would you say Detroit and Ann Arbor are similar?

They're only about 40 miles apart, so geographically they're not that removed. Many people work in the Detroit area who live in Ann Arbor and vice versa, so the boundaries are not as hard as you might think.

Although I think again that the similarities are that as Detroit begins to offer more cultural and entertainment and reasons, from a quality of life standpoint, for people to go downtown to frequent things that frankly you can only get in Detroit, that enhances the attractiveness of Ann Arbor because it is so close.

And especially for young people who are attracted to urban environments.

The more Detroit can offer the restaurants, the bars, the nightlife, the urban experience - that makes Ann Arbor an attractive place to be.

Nathan Bomey can be contacted at (734) 302-1725 or nbomey@mbizreview.com.

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Supreme Court Won't Delay Michigan Ban on Race-Based Admissions

By Greg Stohr

Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court refused to give the University of Michigan and two other state-run institutions a reprieve from a new law that bars them from using race as a factor in making admissions decisions.

The justices today rejected a bid by affirmative action advocates to delay implementation of a ballot initiative, approved by Michigan voters in November, barring race-based admissions. The University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University supported the request, as did Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm.

The voter initiative reversed a 2003 Supreme Court victory for the University of Michigan, the state's flagship school, and made racial preferences in admissions illegal as a matter of state law. The 4-year-old Supreme Court ruling, Grutter v. Bollinger, still permits universities elsewhere to consider race as a means of ensuring a diverse campus.

The universities initially suggested they might challenge the new law in court. They instead reached an agreement with Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, who backed the initiative, to delay its implementation for six months.

A federal appeals court in Cincinnati overturned the delay in December, saying it was ``unable to identify any tenable basis under federal law for suspending the law's enforcement.'' The Supreme Court today refused to block the appeals court ruling.

The three universities said they had ``profound worries'' that abandoning their race-based policies in the middle of an admissions cycle ``would have dire consequences.'' The three universities said they nonetheless are now complying with the new law.

The universities and Granholm opted not to file their own requests for Supreme Court action, instead filing briefs in the bid by civil rights groups and student supporters of affirmative action.

Cox, a Republican, urged the court to reject the request for a delay, as did Eric Russell, a white man seeking admission to the University of Michigan Law School.

The case is Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action v. Cox, 06A678.

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: January 19, 2007 17:46 EST