For better or for worse, Mark Schlissel's first year as president of the University of Michigan has been largely defined by the highs and lows of the athletics program.

Just four days into his tenure he declared that academics were his No. 1 priority, and that hasn't changed, but through no choice of his own, the goings on in Schembechler and Weidenbach halls became major priorities that commanded Schlissel's attention almost immediately after he began his job.

First was the issue of an unprecedented fireworks display at Michigan Stadium during two football games. It was proposed that pyrotechnics would be part of the game day festivities for matchups against Miami (Ohio) and Penn State, but the topic was passionately debated--and ultimately voted down--at his first Board of Regents meeting. It was the first agenda items the regents publicly dissented on in years, and Schlissel's first taste of how fervent the community is about U-M's athletics.

"Fortunately for me I didn't have to vote for fireworks.... Personally, I didn't have an opinion to be honest. Having never attended a game there I didn't have a sense of the cultural aspects," Schlissel said of the debate.

A short while later, just a few weeks into the football season, quarterback Shane Morris suffered a concussion on the field, and the gross mismanagement of how the injury was handled by former head football coach Brady Hoke and former athletic director Dave Brandon made national headlines for the next six weeks.

During the firestorm, and before Brandon's Oct. 31 resignation, nearly 1,000 students marched to the front lawn of Schlissel's South University President's House holding signs and chanting for him to fire Brandon.

Edward Mears, second year law student at UM, rallies to fire UM Athletic Director David Brandon on Tuesday, September 30, 2014 at the University of Michigan Diag in Ann Arbor. He wore an Ohio State sweatshirt to the rally, saying he wouldn't wear Michigan gear because of his disappointment in the administration.

He released a statement just moments before that rally, addressing his displeasure in the athletic department's handling of the situation.

"As the leader of our university community, I want to express my extreme disappointment in the events surrounding the handling of an on-field injury to one of our football players, Shane Morris," Schlissel wrote.

"Despite having one of the finest levels of team medical expertise in the country, our system failed on Saturday. We did not get this right and for this I apologize to Shane, his family, his teammates, and the entire Michigan family."

On the day of Brandon's resignation, it was Schlissel who announced the hiring of Jim Hackett as interim athletic director. The move would pay off substantially.

Hackett immediately went to work courting the much-sought-after U-M alum Jim Harbaugh to become the next head football coach. Although Hoke still held that title, by all accounts the school was biding its time before it fired him and made way for Harbaugh to step in. And while Schlissel may not have been directly responsible for bringing Harbaugh to Michigan, he's been praised for bringing in the man who brought in the man U-M fans have been clamoring over for the better part of a decade.

He's had a steep athletic learning curve going from Brown University--a school with a $15 million athletic budget in 2014--to U-M--which has an athletic budget 10 times greater this year than Brown's--but he adjusted quickly and one year later has a much better understanding of what athletic means to the millions of Maize and Blue supporters across the globe.

Outside of athletics

While football and athletic director drama have hogged the headlines, it didn't take up so much of Schlissel's time that he wasn't able to make other significant imprints on the university in his first year.

He inherited the presidency at a time when the school was dealing with the murder of medical student Paul DeWolf, an alleged sexual assault cover-up involving a former member of the football team and an impending federal probe into those allegations.

Additionally, there was racial unrest and protests by groups who believe minorities don't get fair access to the university. The university was also dealing with continued decline in financial support from the state, a teetering relationship with the city of Ann Arbor, and the departure of the school's chief financial officer and the head of the U-M Health System.

Over the past 12 months, under Schlissel's watch and with him leading the charge, 3,000 Michigan students participated in the school's first-ever widespread survey about sexual assault.

While an overwhelming majority of students reported feeling safe from sexual assault on the University of Michigan's campus, 22.5 percent of undergraduate women and 6.8 percent of undergraduate men reported having been victims of sexual assault in the past year, according to survey results.

The president said that the school would use the data to implement educational opportunities and other preventative measures to ensure that students are safe on campus.

BAMN shuts down a University of Michigan Board of Regents meeting with protest.

Following the demands of the Black Student Union and the impact of the viral #BBUM (Being Black at University of Michigan) social media movement, in which black students wrote about some of their negative experiences at U-M, Schlissel has been working with minorities on campus to help increase accessibility and affordability for all students qualified to attend the school.

"I said in my inaugural address that the University of Michigan could not achieve true excellence without leveraging the experiences and perspectives of the broadest possible diversity of students, faculty and staff. This remains a top priority for me and for the university community," Schlissel said in a December 2014 email to The Ann Arbor News.

"As we consider a number of fresh approaches, we continue to work closely with leaders of the Black Student Union and other students regarding the campus climate, the recruitment of under-represented minority students and planning for a more centrally located multicultural center. I have been very impressed by the BSU's leadership on this issue, their willingness to collaborate and their commitment to our university."

Protests by the pro-affirmative action group BAMN have made his task more difficult, having shut down one Board of Regents meeting and interrupting several others by chanting and making demands that interrupted university business.

In regards to addressing the school's often-strained relationship with the city of Ann Arbor, Schlissel reached out to new city mayor Christopher Taylor to help build and repair and Taylor was receptive.

"I'm eager to build on what has become a very positive relationship with him and the city council," Schlissel said during a November 2014 meeting.

Less than six months after he was on the job, Schlissel had to choose a replacement for the retiring CEO of the massive Health System, Ora Pescovitz. He appointed Marschall Runge to fill the position and he received overwhelming support from the Board of Regents in his appointment.

Having just wrapped up his first international trip as U-M president--a seven-day visit to China--Schlissel has crossed off several items from his to-do list, as he told The Ann Arbor News during his first week on the job.

"I'm here to promote academic excellence. This is a spectacular institution for teaching and research, yet there are always ways to make it better," he said last July.

"I want to look hard at our academic strengths and areas where we can improve and focus my energy on working with the provost and the deans and the faculty to make this the very best university from an academic perspective."

He also said that he wanted to begin to make his imprint as "a president who grew up as a scholar, and has a lifelong commitment to researching and teaching, and as a physician who recognizes the importance of the health care components of the university and how it touches this community, and someone who put the interest of students as something that's most important at the university, someone who was open and transparent in leadership style."

Despite the steps he's made, Schlissel himself said that six months or a year is too soon to determine the impact of a university president.

"A decade or five years from now we can talk about (my) legacy."

Jeremy Allen is the Higher Education reporter for The Ann Arbor News. Follow him on twitter at @JeremyAllenA2. Contact him at 810-247-4625 or jallen42@mlive.com.