October 17, 2016

To our University of Oregon family,

I have the immense pleasure of announcing that our dear friends Phil and Penny Knight have made an extraordinarily generous $500 million gift—the largest ever to a public flagship university—that will launch an initiative to rethink and reshape research at the University of Oregon. The Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact will fast-track scientific discoveries into innovations, products, and cures that solve problems and improve our quality of life. 

This is a defining moment for the University of Oregon that builds upon our rich history of interdisciplinary scientific research and the deep talents of our faculty members. I encourage you to learn about the new Knight Campus by visiting around.uoregon.edu/accelerate.

I will share more details about this exciting new initiative tomorrow morning on the University of Oregon campus at 8:45 a.m. I invite you to watch the event live on the UO Facebook page.

The Knight Campus will work to transform the state’s public higher-education landscape by training the next generation of scientists, forging tighter ties with industry and entrepreneurs, and creating new educational opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students.

Consisting of three new buildings at the northwest corner of Franklin Boulevard, across from the Lokey Science Complex, the campus will also generate tremendous economic benefit for our community, state, and region—driving nearly $80 million in annual economic activity statewide and supporting more than 750 family-wage jobs when the campus is fully operational.

This gift will allow us to strive for a level of excellence and national prominence that had previously been out of reach. The greatest beneficiaries of this monumental change will be the people of Oregon and our future students. Please join me in thanking Penny and Phil Knight for this incredible investment in our future.

Sincerely,

Michael H. Schill
President and Professor of Law