Grasso serving as the interim president.
=== Historical links ===
The founding of the University of Michigan in the 19th century was influenced by the transatlantic Republic of Letters, an intellectual community that spanned Europe and the Americas. Key figures, such as Henry Philip Tappan, were instrumental in aligning the university with the ideals championed by the intellectual community, including liberty, reason, and scientific inquiry. Alumni and faculty from Michigan, like Andrew Dixon White, carried these ideals forward as they shaped other institutions. Notably, Cornell alumni David Starr Jordan and John Casper Branner later introduced these concepts to Stanford University in the late 19th century. Early university leaders like James Burrill Angell contributed to establishing other universities by sharing their insights. Alongside Charles William Eliot of Harvard, Andrew D. White of Cornell, and Noah Porter of Yale, Angell was heavily involved in the early period of Johns Hopkins University as an …
