U-M Professor of Political Science Christian Davenport was appointed by the Regents as the Mary Ann and Charles R. Walgreen Professor of the Study of Human Understanding.
This professorship sits at the college and has been held by faculty from a number of different departments over the years. The last person to hold this chair was Bob Axelrod, who held the chair from 2006 until he retired.
Here's what the donors hoped to achieve with this chair when it was established at U-M in the late 1960s:
In full recognition of the fact that the study of both political and sociological factors are relevant to the subject of human understanding, it is our further wish that emphasis shall be placed upon study of the underlying causes of lack of understanding between people.
