Alumni Magazine 2001-2002 UNIVERSITYOFMICHIGAN - Rackham ...

Service with a SmilePhoto
“The concept of
being a generalist
has been very good
for my community
involvement. I like
the human service
side, the social
service, as well
as the arts.”
by Bill Wood
A L U M N I P R O F I L E S
The words most often used to
describe former Ann Arbor
Mayor Ingrid Sheldon’s administration
include “moderate,” “conciliatory”
and “accessible.” A Republican,
she was elected four times to the highest
office in a city whose registration
is overwhelmingly Democratic. Her
peers were as fond of her as the electorate
was: she was also elected
President of the Michigan Municipal
League and served on the board of the
Michigan Association of Mayors.
But her academic training was in
education, a B.S. from Eastern
Michigan University and a master’s
from Michigan. “In that day and age,”
she says, “a woman who wanted a
career was either going to be a teacher
or a nurse, unless you were really
adventuresome and daring.”
One of her courses might have presaged
her career, however. “I really
was fascinated by a class from the
School of Natural Resources, a policy
class of some sort, where we would
play a type of simulated city game,
each of us taking different roles,”
Sheldon says. “I was assigned the role
of supervisor, and each of us would
then have a problem and from our perspectives
and roles would develop different
conclusions. They would be fed
into a giant computer, which took a
whole week, and then the results came
out and we would find out what our
decisions meant. That was my first
taste of government at the practical
municipal level.”
She considered a return to elementary
teaching once while she was, as
she puts it, “going through one of my
midlife crises.” Because she hadn’t
taught long enough in one system to
have tenure, she had to submit to the
hiring process in the Ann Arbor
school system. “The director of
human resources found my file, which
I thought was quite amazing,” Sheldon
recalls, “then she looked at it and said,
‘Nope, we just can’t hire you because
you’re too much of a generalist. You
have no specialty.’ ”
Service must not have been one of
the official categories. In addition to
her terms as mayor and her four years
as a member of Ann Arbor City
Council, Sheldon has given her time
and talents to the Ann Arbor Summer
Festival, the Michigan Theater, the
Ann Arbor Convention and Visitors
Bureau, Huron Valley Child Guidance
Clinic, Ann Arbor Ecology Center,
Ann Arbor Thrift Shop … well, it’s
quite a list. As Sheldon says, “The
concept of being a generalist has been
very good for my community involvement.
I like the human service side,
the social service, as well as the arts.”
She also served by performing
more than 600 weddings while she
was mayor, enriching the city’s coffers
by $25 each time. “It was a neat way
to be a part of somebody’s life in a
very positive manner, and maybe
influence some good patterns of living
for the future,” she says.
As for her own future, “I’m still in
the discovering mode,” she says. “I’ll
probably just end up being that community
whatever, fill in the blank. As
my son said, when you’ve been mayor
of Ann Arbor, is there anything
better” ■
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