University of Michigan. Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Along with the president and provost, the Vice President and Chief Financial Officer shares responsibility for the general management of the University of Michigan by providing leadership for strategic initiatives and policy development. The Board of Regents has delegated to the Vice President and Chief Financial Officer broad authority to manage financial affairs. With a 2002/2003 budget of over $3.6 billion, the University of Michigan is not only an academic institution but also a major public corporation. This was not always the case.

Throughout most of the nineteenth century, business operations at the University of Michigan involved rather simple bookkeeping procedures. Expenses consisted of salaries for professors and the costs of books for the library and janitorial services. A university secretary and a treasurer handled most of these financial matters. At the turn of the century, as the physical plant increased in size and as university functions expanded with the addition of many new units, the need for more sophisticated and centralized control of university finances became obvious.

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