ching Band performed a slow-tempo variation on the fight song at his funeral.[161] The fight song is also sung during graduation commencement ceremonies. The university's alma mater song is "The Yellow and Blue." A common rally cry is "Let's Go Blue!," had a complementary short musical arrangement written by former students Joseph Carl, a sousaphonist, and Albert Ahronheim, a drum major.[162]
Before "The Victors" was officially the University's fight song, the song "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" was considered to be the school song.[163] After Michigan temporarily withdrew from the Western Conference in 1907, a new Michigan fight song "Varsity" was written in 1911 because the line "champions of the West" was no longer appropriate.[164] In 2011, the Band Pop Evil wrote and recorded a rock and roll anthem for the Wolverines called "In the Big House."[165]
Alumni[edit]
Main article: List of University of Michigan alumni
In addition to the late U.S. president Gerald Ford, the university has produced twenty-six Rhodes Scholars. As of 2012, the university has almost 500,000 living alumni.[166]
More than 250 Michigan graduates have served as legislators as either United States Senator (40 graduates) or as a Congressional representative (over 200 graduates), including former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt[167] and U.S. Representative Justin Amash, who represents Michigan's Third Congressional District.[168] Mike Duggan, Mayor-elect of Detroit, earned his bachelor and law degree at Michigan, while Michigan Governor Rick Snyder earned his bachelor, M.B.A., and J.D. degrees from Michigan. U-M's contributions to aeronautics include aircraft designer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson of Lockheed Skunk Works fame,[169] Lockheed president Willis Hawkins, and several astronauts including the all-U-M crew of Gemini 4[170] and the all-Michigan crew of Apollo 15.[171] U-M counts among its matriculants nineteen billionaires and prominent company founders and co-founders including Google co-founder Larry Page[172] and Dr. J. Robert Beyster who founded Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in 1969.[173] Several U-M graduates contributed greatly to the field of computer science, including Claude Shannon (who made major contributions to the mathematics of information theory),[174] and Turing Award winners Edgar Codd, Stephen Cook, and Frances E. Allen. Marjorie Lee Browne received her M.S. in 1939 and her doctoral degree in 1950, becoming the third African American woman to earn a PhD in mathematics.[175][176]
Notable writers who attended U-M include playwright Arthur Miller,[167] essayists Susan Orlean[167] and Sven Birkerts, journalists and editors Mike Wallace,[167] Jonathan Chait of The New Republic, Daniel Okrent,[167] and Sandra Steingraber, food critics Ruth Reichl and Gael Greene, novelists Brett Ellen Block, Elizabeth Kostova, Marge Piercy,[167] Brad Meltzer,[167] Betty Smith,[167] and Charles Major, screenwriter Judith Guest,[167] Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Theodore Roethke, National Book Award winners Keith Waldrop and Jesmyn Ward, composer/author/puppeteer Forman Brown, and Alireza Jafarzadeh (a Middle East analyst, author, and TV commentator).
In Hollywood, famous alumni include actors James Earl Jones,[167] David Alan Grier,[167] actresses Lucy Liu[167] and Selma Blair,[167] and filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan.[167] Many Broadway and musical theatre actors, including Gavin Creel,[167] Andrew Keenan-Bolger, and his sister Celia Keenan-Bolger attended U-M for musical theatre. The creators of A Very Potter Musical, known as StarKid
