Nike's Phil Knight Gives $1B to University of Oregon to Launch Its First Undergraduate Engineering Programme

Nike co-founder and chairman emeritus Phil Knight, a 1959 University of Oregon graduate, has given the Knight Campus more than $2B (£1.48B) in three gifts. (Credit: Nike Website)

Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny, have committed $1B (£740M) to the University of Oregon to create a new engineering college, a sum the university says is the largest gift ever made to a comprehensive public university.

The money establishes the Knight College of Engineering at the couple's namesake campus in Eugene, an announcement Oregon made on 23 September. It also hands a major public university something it has never had. Oregon currently offers only engineering minors and graduate courses, and the gift will fund a full undergraduate engineering programme for the first time in its history.