Mary Sue Coleman
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, Retired Trustee
TERM AS TRUSTEE:
August 10, 2004 through June 2017
BIOGRAPHY:
Mary Sue Coleman began her tenure as president of the Association of American Universities on May 31, 2016. Prior to joining the AAU, Coleman was president of the University of Michigan from 2002 to July 2014 (where she is now president emerita and professor emerita) and president of the University of Iowa from 1995 to 2002.
Dr. Coleman has been a national leader in higher education. Time magazine named her one of the nation’s “10 best college presidents,” and the American Council on Education honored her with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.
At the University of Michigan, Dr. Coleman oversaw the groundbreaking partnership with Google to digitize the University’s 7 million volume library. Elected to the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine), Dr. Coleman is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
As a biochemist and faculty member at the University of Kentucky, Dr. Coleman built a distinguished academic career through her teaching and research on the immune system and malignancies. Prior to becoming a university president, Dr. Coleman was vice chancellor for research and graduate education at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and provost at the University of New Mexico.
Dr. Coleman earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry from Grinnell College and a PhD in biochemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the recipient of distinguished alumnus awards from the University of North Carolina and Grinnell College. The Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion honored her as Humanitarian of the Year, and the Michigan Women’s Foundation presented her with its Trillium Lifetime Achievement Award.
Currently, Dr. Coleman is also a member of the boards of trustees of the Kavli Foundation, the Mayo Clinic Foundation, the Gates-Cambridge Scholars Program, the Society for Science and the Public, and the University of Denver.
FOUNDATION REMARKS:
Remarks at Groundbreaking Ceremony of the Joan and Sanford Weill Hall at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
(remarks begin at 00:55 of video)
University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman (center) meets with President Gerald R. Ford’s family (L-R) Mike Ford, Gayle Ford, Steve Ford and Susan Ford Bales; on October 11, 2012 during a Legacy Tribute to First Lady Betty Ford at the University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. (Photo Courtesy of the University of Michigan)
