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Pushing YFU Program Young Milliken's Task

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Day
1
Month
April
Year
1974
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Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
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Wall-Hanging At YFU Headquarters In Back Of Milliken Illustrates Student Exchange With Mexico

Pushing YFU Program Young Milliken’s Task

By Glenn Gilbert
(News Staff Reporter)

Traveling is a big part of William G. Milliken Jr.’s job — but when he does stop long enough to hang his hat somewhere, it’s in Ann Arbor.

The governor’s 27-year-old son is assistant to the director of student affairs for the Ann Arbor-based Youth for Under-standing (YFU) international student exchange program.

A large part of Milliken’s job is traveling to parts of the country where the level of participation in the YFU program needs lifting. But Milliken himself has never been abroad.

Milliken joined the YFU last year, following graduation from Colorado College, a private coeducational four-year school in Colorado Springs, where he received a BA degree in political science. He gained the opportunity to work for 23-year-old YFU organization through a long-term friendship with Arthur Collingsworth, YFU's director of public affairs.

“I have made many friends from all parts of the world and gained a whole new awareness,” said Milliken of his association with YFU.

He is not the only Milliken associated with the organization. Mrs. Helen Milliken, wife of the governor, is a member of the board of trustees.

And while Milliken went West for his college education, his sister, Elaine, headed East.

“Who would have guessed we would both end up in Ann Arbor?" said Milliken. Elaine is a second year law student at the U-M. She attended Smith College in Northampton, Mass.

At YFU, Milliken works under Frederick L. Luddy in placing exchange students abroad and in the U.S., and strengthening the program here. He helped with the selection of foreign students for the World Youth Forum, a two-week program held in New York City.,

“I also helped tool up all of our publications for our recruiting efforts, and while they were being printed in Chicago, I drove the truck from Chicago to Ann Arbor to rush the materials here,” Milliken said in an interview.

But a major part of his job has involved traveling — to Ohio, Texas, Colorado, Florida and other states.

“I try to give an injection of enthusiasm to those people in other parts of the country who have supported the program," he said. “I contact school superintendents, language teachers and area YFU representatives, and also try to make community-wide appeals through the media for our placement program."

He noted that in Florida, for example, the Naval base at Pensacola “has taken YFU under its wings." There are currently 28 students living with military families there.

Some 40,000 teen-agers have participated in the YFU program since it was founded in Michigan in 1951. That includes both foreign students who have been placed in American homes and American students who have traveled abroad.

Milliken’s effort to strengthen the program in other slates is part of a campaign launched by YFU last summer to broaden its appeal. Michigan has provided a major part of the support for the program in the past.

Milliken’s involvement with YFU began last winter in Colorado as he sought to strengthen YFU there.

“I called over 70 schools and approached many school administrators about supporting the YFU program. It was a campaign in its own sort of way. This year, 16 foreign students have been placed in Colorado . . .  I liked the YFU program and the things it stood for.”

Milliken, who is single, first attended Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, before going to Colorado College. He also spent two years in the Army where he helped publish the post newspaper at Fort Knox, Ky.

He says he is interested in urban affairs and wouldn't discount the possibility of one day entering politics, like his father.

“I have liked the association I’ve had with politics. I would enjoy working into some kind of political situation some day."

He helped his father in his successful gubernatorial campaign in 1970 and plans to help the governor in his re-election drive this fall.

His interest in urban affairs found an outlet for a period in Chicago where he did part-time volunteer work for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and also worked with an “advocate-planner” on a door-to-door survey of an urban neighborhood in which residents were asked what public facilities and other things they needed for better lives.

“This offered a unique perspective,” said Milliken. “I not only got the see the HUD effort to improve cities through its bureaucracy, but I was also involved in face-to-face work the residents of a ghetto area.”

In his spare time, Milliken tinkers with a 1953-TD British sports car which has has disassembled, refinished, repaired with parts from another car reassembled.