University of Michigan (place)

Popularly considered to be one of the best public universities in the nation. It is without a doubt the most expensive public university in the nation as far as Non-Michigan residents are concerned. Tuition for 1 term full time in the college of Literature, Science and Arts (according to http://www.umich.edu/~regoff/ at the time this node was added):

• Michigan resident: $3,375
• Non-Michigan resident: $10,730

Some history and facts about the university:

The full name is the University of Michigan, but most people associated with the university refer to it as U-M, which is pronounced "U of M". It's main campus is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but there are also campuses in Dearborn and Flint. Most students at the Ann Arbor location refer to the city as A². It's hard to separate the city and the university. The best-known annual activities are the Naked Mile, Hash Bash, and the Art Fair.

U-M was founded in Detroit in 1817, and moved to Ann Arbor in 1837. Women were admitted beginning in 1870. In 1841 students paid an initial admittance fee of $10, but no tuition.

Some notable U-M alumni are:
James Earl Jones
Madonna (never graduated, surprise)
John Holland (invented genetic algorithms)
John Laird (one of the creators of the AI language Soar)

Kanji Cap:

Since around 1999, "kanji caps", baseball hats that have Kanji on them, have been quite popular at colleges and universities around the nation. The character on the kanji cap for the University of Michigan looks like this:

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As a sole character, it's meaning is victory. And it's recognized readings are ショウ SHOU, か(つ) katsu, and まさ(る) masaru. The primary radical is 力 chikara, the part in the lower right hand quadrant.

This character is used because the fight song for U-M is "The Victors" (not "Hail to the Victors" as even some students seem to think).

In Japanese, this character would not be written alone, but the two most common words written with this character involve the character and an inflectional ending written in hiragana called okurigana. Those two words are 勝つ katsu (to win), and 勝ち kachi ([a] victory). Some other common compounds with this character are:

• 必勝 hisshou (certain victory)
  This is often seen on 団扇 uchiwa (hand fans) and headbands of spectators at Japanese sporting events.
• 決勝 kesshou (final match or game of a tornament)
• 勝利者 shourisha (victor)
• 勝負 shoubu (match, bout)
  The other character in this compound means defeat
• 楽勝 rakushou (easy victory)
  This is also commonly applied to anything that is easily accomplished, or a convenient situation.
• 勝る masaru (to be superior)