150 Years of Philanthropy
In 1871, Professor DeVolson Wood, a master's graduate of the engineering program and a Michigan Engineering professor since 1857, became one of the first to recognize that education would have to rely on more than tuition and fees. He believed that, in great part, the future of engineering at the University of Michigan would depend on the dedicated interests of those who understood the value of excellence in education and had the motivation to underwrite their convictions. Wood suggested that the administration reach out -- first to the citizenry, then to the state of Michigan -- to raise endowment funds that would help establish Engineering as a unit separate from Literature, Science, and the Arts. (In 1895, the Department of Engineering became independent from LS&A, and in 1915 its status changed to "College.") Wood's attempt was the first at obtaining support from outside sources.
Many educational institutions realized that investment of this sort would be necessary for survival. In the years from 1870 to 1920, money streamed from businesses into Harvard and other private universities, including a multitude of new institutions -- Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and the University of Chicago. Public institutions -- notably the universities of Michigan, Wisconsin and California -- followed the model established by private universities. However, acquiring funds from outside sources wouldn't have much impact until after World War II, when the federal government started to provide significant financial transfers to higher education.
In 1947, a committee of University regents, faculty and students proposed the development of a laboratory dedicated to peaceful uses of atomic energy as a memorial to the University's war dead. Fundraising for the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project began the following year and concluded in 1953. The project elicited a number of gifts and exceeded its $6.5-million goal. One of them was the largest single gift the University received to that time -- $1 million from the Ford Motor Company for the construction of a two-megawatt nuclear reactor. Since the Phoenix project was interdisciplinary, the College shared this gift with other schools and colleges within the University.
The University's first large-scale capital campaign began in the 1960s. The single largest gift during that period was $10 million to establish the Highway Safety Research Institute, now called the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), a unit the College collaborates with to conduct specialized research. Throughout the next three decades, the size and number of campaigns increased significantly. However, the cost of education and research multiplied as well.
