Order of Angell

The Order of Angell is a senior honor society at the University of Michigan. Known for a brief period as the Hot Air Club and subsequently known throughout the remainder of the twentieth century as Michigamua, the organization officially renamed itself the Order of Angell in 2007 in an effort to move beyond its controversial past. The organization was created in 1902 by a group of seniors in coordination with University president James Burrill Angell.

Some factions on campus identify the Order of Angell as a secret society, but many dispute that characterization. For most of the organization's history, its membership was publicly identified in the campus newspaper and yearbook; in the 1970s, however, when the group started performing its rituals in private, it effectively became a secret society for some years. Since then, the group's degree of secrecy has fluctuated year-to-year, with some classes appearing in the yearbook and others remaining unknown. Since the 2006 reforms, the Order of Angell has made a policy of keeping the roster public each year.

The group purports to be a service organization, whose goal is to "fight like hell for Michigan," although members have declined to specify exactly how they serve the University, citing a tradition of "humble service."

The group played an instrumental role in building the Michigan Union. It is also known to have had a hand in forming several prominent campus charity and service organizations, such as K-grams and Dance Marathon. In 1932 it was granted a permanent lease for space in the tower of the Michigan Union, although the group left the tower in 2000. The tower remains empty today because it does not meet Americans with Disabilities Act regulations.

Other similar societies currently in existence at the University of Michigan include a co-ed group called Phoenix, and the engineering-only group known as the Vulcans.