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(Top) Millianne and Michael Lehmann in 1977, the year they married. (Bottom) The Lehmanns today at their San Francisco home. The couple is retiring this month after nearly 40 years at USF.
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Organizers and Popular Teachers, the Lehmanns Retire
When Michael Lehmann, freshly graduated from Cornell University’s doctoral program in economics, was offered a job at the University of San Francisco, he accepted sight unseen. He threw a few belongings in his Volkswagen Beetle and drove across the country to join his new colleagues, including Millianne Granberg, a math professor and one of the campus’s few female faculty. The year was 1966 and the stage was set for what would become a nearly 40-year, somewhat contentious but always committed relationship between the two faculty and the university. USF would never be the same.
Dedicated teachers and founding members of USF’s faculty association, the Lehmanns are retiring this month. Passionate union organizers who met during campus negotiations and then married in 1977, the couple is as closely associated with faculty pay packages as they are with calculus or the consumer price index.
“Without them I feel quite confident that there wouldn’t have been a faculty association. Their leadership was essential. Mike was the point person, the lightning rod. Millie was supportive and behind the scenes but her calm and wisdom were vital in holding us together,” said Alan Heineman, English professor and current president of the USFFA. To honor the Lehmanns, the faculty association announced it is contributing $10,000 over two years to start the Lehmann Scholarship Fund.
Both the Lehmanns are popular teachers. Michael is known for his quirky sense of humor and adroit teaching style. His courses on data interpretation and anticipating economic trends have helped graduates successfully enter the workforce and inspired Lehmann’s bestselling economics book, The Irwin Guide to Using the Wall Street Journal.
“He gives us a lot of ways to do research and makes us think fiscally,” said senior Redé Shifferaw, who is double majoring in accounting and economics. “He’s always joking. He make the class more alive.”
Students say Millianne Lehmann is an interesting and animated teacher who makes math enjoyable. “She’s helped me understand everything,” said junior Molly Mason, who was a student of Millianne’s in Calculus I and II. Millianne also co-authored four books on teaching math. During the 1980s she directed the USF Middle School Math Institute, a summer seminar to train local middle school teachers in math and technology. Over the years, both the Lehmanns have served as chairs of their respective departments.
“I felt a passion for USF from the beginning,” Millianne Lehmann said. “I have been delighted with my colleagues and my students. I wanted to do my best for a job I liked.”
The Lehmanns’ campus participation began in the early 1970s when Michael joined the faculty welfare committee. At the time, faculty salaries were low enough to cause some nursing students to use Michael as a subject for a paper on how a lay professor and his family survived without food stamps. By 1975, the faculty was insisting on a standard of living increase and Michael and Millianne decided to help organize a union.
“I felt a sense of duty and responsibility,” Michael Lehmann said. “As the elected chair of the (faculty welfare) committee, it was the next logical step.”
At a collective bargaining session that fall, Michael and Millianne (still Granberg) sat down with the union’s representative to negotiate with the university. The result of the meeting was a temporary agreement with USF and a permanent one between the couple. Their relationship bloomed and the couple was married on Feb. 1, 1977.
Michael Lehmann continued as president of the faculty association and Millianne Lehmann as treasurer until 1988. In the meantime, the couple raised six children and completed their own five-year expansion of their San Francisco home. Michael Lehmann also published, in 1983, the first edition of The Irwin Guide. The book is now in its seventh edition and has sold a quarter of a million copies.
“That’s an all-time best-seller for a business book,” Michael Lehmann said. “I’m very proud.”
The two will use their retirement to travel and Michael Lehmann plans to revive his sideline seminar business, called Be Your Own Economist, for financial and business professionals. He also plans to do more research and writing about American economic history.
As for Millianne Lehmann, 40 years of hard work have made her want to be closer to home. “I think I’ll be a housewife,” she said. “I’ve never done that.”
To contribute to the Lehmann Scholarship Fund, please contact Ruby Wong, assistant director of advancement services, at (415) 422-2552 or email her at wongr@usfca.edu.
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