In celebration of the University of Michigan’s Bicentennial, the U-M Library partnered with the national oral history organization StoryCorps to record and preserve stories from our community. During the Fall Festival Bicentennial Celebration, participants had conversations with friends, classmates, family members and colleagues about meaningful experiences at U-M. These stories, presented and curated by the U-M Library in collaboration with StoryCorps, capture the essence of the U-M’s past and present.

Interview No. 8: Dave DeVarti & Lisa Powers

Lisa Powers, development officer in the U-M Office of Student Publications, talks with her longtime friend Dave DeVarti about how the cosmopolitan effect of Ann Arbor and U-M formed his life as a community activist, including his part in the 1976 campaign to enact Michigan’s bottle bill.

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“People from all over the world would come to the U of M. We met people from Egypt, and Nigeria. They would come to the University and sit in the chairs at Dominick’s. It gave me a cosmopolitan education about the world, which I cherish.” —Dave DeVarti