July 6, 2021

Dear University of Oregon community,

Thank you to everyone who was able to join the livestreamed event held earlier today from the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact, announcing another major milestone in the ascent of the University of Oregon.

Today we celebrate a second $500-million gift from Penny and Phil Knight, launching the next phase of the state-of-the-art research campus bearing their names.

With this gift, the Knight Campus, which opened its first building in December 2020, will be able to further expand its strengths in bioengineering and applied scientific research and training. Thanks to this generosity, we will create opportunities for more students, add additional faculty positions, and construct a second building.

There is no greater vote of confidence in our success than the Knight’s decision to double their investment in the Knight Campus. This gift will help provide opportunities for students, faculty, the university, and our state to reach new levels of discovery, innovation, and collaboration.

The Knight Campus will now shift into phase two, which includes a second building for research and innovation. In addition to funding design and construction, the gift will support faculty, academic and innovation programming, as well as support operations through an endowment. The next phase calls for 14 to 16 additional faculty members and their teams in bioengineering, regenerative medicine, biomedical data science, and other applied interdisciplinary sciences to lead research programs, doubling the total number of Knight Campus tenure-related faculty to 30. Over the coming decade, the Knight Campus will train hundreds of postdoctoral scholars and students to become the next generation of engineering and applied citizen-scientists.

To learn more about this exciting new development for the UO and the Knight Campus and watch a recording of today’s celebration visit the accelerate web page.

Please join us in thanking the Knights and the scores of individuals who helped make this University of Oregon’s moonshot of a dream into a stunning reality.

Sincerely,

Michael H. Schill
President and Professor of Law

Patrick Phillips
Provost and Senior Vice President

Bob Guldberg
Vice President and Robert and Leona DeArmond Executive Director of the
Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Impact