We welcome the opportunity to talk with you about your interest in the Center.
Please contact Betsy Wilson at 734.764.7291, or email, ecwilson@umich.edu
CEW, 330 East Liberty
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104.2274
Marina Whitman brings both enthusiasm and expertise to the CEW Leadership Council. As part of a distinguished professional career, Whitman has served on the boards of several major corporations, including Alcoa, JP Morgan Chase, and Unocal. She’s now using the wisdom from those experiences to help create an effective and diverse Leadership Council that contributes to CEW in many ways. “I’m impressed by CEW’s mission to serve not only UM students, faculty, and staff but also people from Ann Arbor and surrounding communities.” She also admires, she says, the strong emphasis on various aspects of education: teaching, through workshops and other programs; service, through counseling and advocacy; research on a wide range of issues affecting academia; and advocacy to make education accessible.
The importance of education is a key theme for Whitman, who attributes her own career achievements to “a very strong educational background,” including an undergraduate degree in government from Radcliffe and a PhD in economics from Columbia. She currently has a joint professorial position at the University, serving in both the Stephen B. Ross School of Business and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Before joining the UM faculty, Whitman was an executive of General Motors Corporation – first as Vice President and Chief Economist and then as Vice President and Group Executive for Public Affairs. She began her academic career teaching economics at the University of Pittsburgh, taking time out in the early 1970’s to serve as a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers in Washington.
“My education prepared me very well to take advantage of a transitional time in this country when career opportunities were beginning to open up to women. One experience led naturally to another.” Her accomplishments include being the first woman to be tenured in economics at Pitt, the first woman on the Council of Economic Advisers, and the highest ranked woman in the auto industry at the time.
Whitman says that she’s now at a point in her life when she wants to give back to education and to help other women achieve their dreams. She contributes generously to the American Association of University Women, from whom she received a fellowship for her dissertation work. “But it’s important to support education locally too, and CEW is the obvious choice.”
Whitman was first introduced to CEW by her good friends and fellow CEW supporters Regent Rebecca McGowan and Dr. Beverley Geltner, who recommended her for the Leadership Council. CEW director Carol Hollenshead calls her “a wonderful ambassador and spokesperson for the causes we embrace.”
The Ann Arbor community also knows Whitman and her husband Bob, a professor of English emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, as avid supporters of the University Musical Society. In their spare time, they enjoy playing tennis and going to concerts and movies. When they are not in Ann Arbor, the Whitmans are likely to be spending time with their two children and two grandchildren at their summer home on the Massachusetts coast.
Within the next few years Whitman plans to reduce her academic appointment, to devote herself to “all the writing I’d like to do.” CEW is enriched by Whitman’s support, and we hope her affiliation with us carries forward into the next phase of her life.
If you would like to speak with Marina Whitman about some aspect of the Center’s
activities, including how you can become involved in CEW life, please contact Beth Halloran at 734.998.7698 or bethhall@umich.edu.
