Giving Opportunities

The Vision

American Culture (AC) at Michigan promotes publicly engaged and socially committed scholarship and teaching aimed at understanding the struggles and creativity that have produced the cultural fabric of America. In particular, we seek to illuminate the significance, the lived experience, and the relation among race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, and religion, both within and beyond the borders of the United States. Interdisciplinary connection sits at the heart of an excellent liberal arts college, and American studies — which has historically negotiated between history, literature, and the social sciences — epitomizes the creative crossing of disciplines. Most of our faculty members have joint appointments in units ranging from History and English to Romance Languages and Film & Video Studies. The National Research Council (NRC) will begin conducting national rankings in 2006, and our goal is to achieve an initial NRC ranking within the top five and to then raise that ranking to a place within the top three by the time of the next survey.

The Value

AC makes a significant difference to the life of the University, the profession, and the non-academic world. We offer our undergraduates a culturally sophisticated, multiworld education, emphasizing a new brand of ethnic studies, one rooted in global migration and movement, transnational identities, and unexpected juxtapositions. We place such interests in dialogue with the world of cultural production and consumption-new media, music, technology, film, advertising. And we underpin the entire enterprise with a deep appreciation for the history, literature, and art that has been and continues to be produced from American centers and margins. Our undergraduate students frequently turn to civic careers — in public arts and history, education, politics, and law — while others enter into publishing, journalism, television, or film. Graduates of the AC doctoral program are found in every kind of higher educational institution, from community colleges to the Ivy League. American Culture is a center for diversity within the University of Michigan, with 53 percent female faculty, 58 percent faculty of color, and a creative and integrative approach to Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies, Latina/o Studies, and Native American Studies, all of which call the Department home. And our mix of senior, mid-career, and young faculty creates a Department poised for greatness. The nurturing of our junior faculty and the cultivation of opportunities for our students will allow us to achieve our goals.

To Make a Gift

To make a cash gift to the Department of American Culture by check or credit card or for additional information on giving to the University of Michigan or American Culture in the form of securities, matching gifts, or gifts in kind, or for information on estate or planned gifts, please visit Giving to the University of Michigan.

The Chair of the Department of American Culture or the staff of LSA Development would be happy to discuss any of these options with you. The liaison officer for the Department of American Culture in LSA Development is Robin Colgan. Her contact information is as follows:

Robin Colgan
LSA Development, Marketing & Communications
ph: 734.615.6317

LSA Development, Marketing & Communications
LSA Building, Suite 5000
500 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1382
ph: 734.615.6333
fx: 734.647-3061