Massachusetts Institute of Technology became the recipient of the largest single gift ever given to a college or university this week when an alumnus pledged $350 million to fund a new institute on brain research.
MIT President Charles M. Vest said in a press release that the gift will launch "one of the most profound and important scientific ventures of the next century" and will be "a cornerstone of MIT's scientific contributions in the decade ahead."
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the previous record for the largest gift to a university was held by Vanderbilt University, which received $300 million in 1998.
The largest single gift in Dartmouth's history was John Berry's 1992 contribution of $25 million to help fund the Berry library.
Berry, a member of the Class of 1944, who died in 1998 and was the former chief executive of L.M. Berry corporation, a telephone advertising company best known for inventing The Yellow Pages, was also responsible for the John W. Berry Sports Center.
MIT's donation was pledged jointly by Patrick J. McGovern Jr. a 1959 graduate, and his wife Lore Harp McGovern. The gift will be paid to the institution over the next 20 years.
It will endow the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and its founding director will be MIT professor Phillip A. Sharp, former chair of the MIT biology department and a 1993 Nobel laureate in medicine.
The institute will study neuroscience, molecular biology, bioengineering, cognitive sciences, computation and genetics.
McGovern is the founder and chair of International Data Group, a technology media conglomerate. His wife is a technology entrepreneur.
