IT WAS NOV. 8, 1997. The Michigan football team had just beaten Penn State and the Wolverines were on the path to the Rose Bowl and a national championship. Thousands of cheering fans, unable to make it to State College for the game, filled the streets of Ann Arbor, crowding South University Avenue. As the peaceful mob came to a stop outside the President"s House, chants of "We want Lee!" rose up from the crowd.

The president, not even a year into his term, opened the doors and invited countless screaming students inside. The president was swarmed by adoring students.

This was Lee C. Bollinger"s crowning moment as the University"s 12th president. The new leader, loved by all, became a campus celebrity. He was on top of the world.

Fast forward to February 2000 Bollinger"s darkest hour.

The veteran administrator came under fire for the controversial forced resignation of Athletic Director Tom Goss. A group of students occupying the Michigan Union tower were demanding that Bollinger cut ties with the senior honorary society Michigamua while another, across the way in the LSA Building, occupied the dean"s office. Coupled with yet another men"s basketball scandal, it was obvious that the glory days of Lee C. Bollinger were over. The concurrent bursting of a pipe in his Vermont residence appeared to be the least of Bollinger"s concerns.

So as the University of Michigan"s 12th president heads off to Columbia University next year, what will Bollinger"s legacy here be? Will he be the most celebrated president in the University"s 184-year history, or will he go down as a mediocre administrator?

"IF YOU WERE CALLED UPON to invent a perfect university president, you couldn"t do better than Lee Bollinger, of the University of Michigan," the New Yorker magazine said of the University"s 12th president in a profile in December 2000. "A handsome, heartlandy blond man in his fifties one imagines Mickey Mantle in middle age if he wore a business suit and had never taken a drink."

After members of the University Board of Regents forced James J. Duderstadt to resign in September 1995 after years of political squabbling, many thought of Bollinger as someone who could unite the campus and bring the University to renewed glory. When Bollinger, former dean of the University of Michigan"s Law School and provost of Dartmouth College, started his term in February 1997, a new man was in control and a new era had commenced. Bollinger embodied everything a "Michigan man" was expected to be.

A graduate of the University of Oregon and Columbia Law School, Bollinger clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Judge Warren Burger. Bollinger later gained the national spotlight when his testimony during Robert Bork"s confirmation hearing cost the conservative judge a spot on the High Court.

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AS AN OUTSPOKEN ADVOCATE of affirmative action and diversity in higher education, Bollinger was well-suited to lead the University in 1997, when the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Individual Rights focused its attention on the University"s undergraduate and Law School admissions policies. Previously, CIR had targeted similar policies in Texas and Washington State.

With his experience as a former University Law School dean, Bollinger assembled a powerful and impressive legal team and solicited support from across the nation. Soon, former U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, Fortune 500 companies like GM and Intel and diversity advocates from all walks of life got behind the University"s admissions policies and the University president.

The current undergraduate admissions system has been upheld in federal district court while the Law School"s admissions system was declared unconstitutional by Judge Bernard Friedman. Now both cases are heading to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

If the admissions cases make it to the U.S. Supreme Court and the University"s defense prevails, affirmative action advocates won"t be the only victors so will Bollinger. The man who led the University of Michigan through these lawsuits may be recognized as the most important figure in higher education in recent history.

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BOLLINGER has elevated the stature of the University during his tenure as president. He not only personally raised millions of dollars and increased the size of the University"s endowment to become the largest of any public university he also put the money to good use.

If the defense of affirmative action doesn"t get Bollinger in the University history books, the Life Sciences Institute will. Recognizing how genetics and related fields of study will reshape science and research, Bollinger invested heavily in the proposed LSI, now taking shape along Washtenaw Avenue across from Palmer Field. Top researchers are now flocking to the University because of the LSI.