Nike cofounder Phil Knight, and his wife, Penny, have donated $1bn to the University of Oregon in what the university described as the “largest gift ever made to a comprehensive public university”. The donation is intended to be used to establish a new engineering school in Eugene. In a news release, seen by the Guardian, the university said the new school “will educate engineers and applied scientists in bioengineering and other high-demand disciplines, attract faculty and researchers to a growing campus, and accelerate the university’s ability to move discoveries out of the laboratory and into products, therapies, technologies and companies”.
The University of Oregon’s president, Karl Scholz, said in a statement Wednesday morning that the Knights have “a long history of believing in things before they exist” and that “they did it in 2016, and they are doing it again now, at a scale that is genuinely hard to take in. I am grateful to them, and I am grateful to be here for it.” Knight, 88, is a graduate of the university. The latest donation brings the Knight family’s known total giving to the University of Oregon to more than $2bn, according to the New York Times.
The school said in the news release on Wednesday that the gift is the third commitment the Knights have made at this scale in 10 years, following $500m in 2016 and $500m in 2021 that created and expanded the Knight Campus. The school also said the new engineering school will be located at the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact. In the announcement, Knight also shared a statement noting that “to make an audacious dream a reality requires more than a vivid imagination”.
Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said in a statement that “this groundbreaking gift from Phil and Penny Knight stands out for its extraordinary generosity and monumental impact at a public university”. The news on Wednesday comes as earlier this month it was announced that the Knights were committing $1.1bn to Providence St Vincent Medical Center and to Providence Heart Institute to create Oregon’s first hospital dedicated exclusively to women’s health. We’re proud to invest in teams that will change what’s possible for communities across Oregon and beyond.” Last year, Oregon Health & Science University announced that it had received a $2bn commitment from the Knights to its cancer institute, which the university said would “transform the future of cancer care and set a new standard globally”.
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