In the wake of the terrifying atomic bomb that ended World War II, University of Michigan students and alumni looked for ways to channel a destructive power into safe, beneficial uses.
Like many, alum and publishing executive Fred Smith worried that atomic power could destroy the world. “People are becoming calloused to the idea that the harnessing of atomic energy is the crucial achievement of mankind: it can eliminate civilization, or can provide the means of building a civilization that outstrips anything in any sane man’s imagination,” he told university leaders.
Smith proposed a research facility where faculty and students could pursue peaceful uses of atomic energy.
The Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project — a name suggested by Smith — was launched in 1948 to honor 579 U-M students, faculty and alumni who died in the war, by pursuing practical applications of atomic power. It was the university’s first broad fundraising campaign (three decades earlier, male graduates were asked to support constructing the Michigan Union), with a goal of $6.5 million. War veterans who were now students were particularly supportive.
A small nuclear reactor would be at the heart of the facility, built on the university’s fledgling North Campus.
The Alumni Association threw itself behind the campaign, stating, “It is better to commemorate the memory of those who have made the supreme sacrifice by attempting to develop a project that will aid all mankind in living in a war-free world rather than to attempt to build a mound of stone, the purpose of which might soon be forgotten.”
In 1953, Ford Motor Co. donated $1 million toward building a $2.5 million nuclear reactor, and construction began two years later. When the facility began operating in 1957, it became the largest nuclear reactor on a college campus.
The American Nuclear Society in 2001 recognized the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project for its uniqueness and as “a symbol of the University of Michigan’s commitment to the peaceful and socially responsible use of science and technology.”
The nuclear reactor was deactivated in 2003 as the university shifted its research focus to all forms of energy. The Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project continues today as part of the Department of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences.
