University of Texas President Larry Faulkner, General Motors Vice President for Corporate Responsibility and Diversity Rod Gillum, and President Mary Sue Coleman participate in a panel during a Business-Higher Education Forum. The June 10-12 event at Palmer Commons brought business executives together with higher education leaders to discuss mutual interests.

Coleman opened a session on promoting diversity by thanking businesses that supported the University's defense of affirmative action before the U.S. Supreme Court. She also called upon the business community to continue to help advance a national effort to promote diversity.

"We must set an agenda that will move us significantly forward in the next 20 years—making more progress than we have made in the past 50 years," she told participants.

"The opponents of affirmative action are not resting ... so we cannot afford to rest, either," she said. "We must do more with outreach, with financial aid and with our work in the K-12 sector to improve the quality and quantity of our minority applicant pool at all of our universities." (Photo by Paul Jaronski, U-M Photo Services)