Nike's co-founder just gave what may be the largest donation ever received by a public university

Phil Knight. Christian Petersen/Getty Images

The University of Oregon on Tuesday announced that it would receive a $500 million gift from Penny and Phil Knight, Nike's co-founder.

Oregon said the gift, which may be the largest ever received by a flagship public university, will be part of a $1 billion project to create a new science campus in Eugene. The largely donor-funded interdisciplinary campus will train scientists while also focusing on entrepreneurship and ties with business, said the university.

The new campus will consist of three new 70,000-square-foot buildings, a conceptual rendering of which appears above right.

“This is a seminal moment for the University of Oregon, an inflection point that will shape the trajectory of the university and this state for the next century and beyond,” Oregon's president, Michael Schill, said in a written statement.

“Thanks to this amazing and generous gift from Penny and Phil, we will aggressively recruit and hire talented new researchers to join our world-class faculty to amplify what we do best— interdisciplinary scientific research.”