Boeing Gift Lifts UI To Funding Record

A $700,000 donation from The Boeing Co. has pushed the University of Idaho to a record in private donations.

With the donation, the college has received more private gifts from businesses and individuals than in any year in college history.

Boeing’s gift is part of $1.5 million the aircraft maker pledged to the Cornerstone for Innovation campaign for engineering and physics facilities. The Boeing gift leads a $24.4 million campaign for renovation to existing engineering buildings and construction of the new engineering and physics building.

In an earlier campaign, Boeing contributed $500,000 to Idaho’s program for advanced technology in teaching and research within the College of Engineering.

University of Idaho officials said the Boeing gift pushes to $2.17 million private donations this year, breaking the record of $1.94 million in fiscal year 1991. In the past six years, the Moscow school has received an average of $1.6 million in donations.

At The Boeing Co. Educational Center in the new building, students will take courses in seven technology classrooms that can be interactively linked to other classrooms around the state.

Boeing Company Chairman Emeritus Frank Shrontz graduated from Idaho in 1954. He said the Idaho program deserves support because it is a good program.