“The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life.” So wrote Plato centuries ago, and it still holds true today.

At Michigan, we believe that part of that educational “direction” is an understanding of and appreciation for the arts. This applies to math and engineering majors as much as it does to students of literature or music.

The Hopwood Awards program is one example of the importance we place on the arts and humanities. As alum Arthur Miller wrote, “I’d heard [U-M] gave Hopwood Awards to student writers. For a 19-year-old who knew he wanted to write, even though I didn’t know what I’d write, the fact that the University gave a dollar prize meant they took writing seriously here.

Writing is but one of the things we take seriously here. This section describes more of the arts- and humanities-related activity going on at Michigan.