EUGENE, Ore.–MediaOne Group chairman Charles Lillis and his wife, Gwen, have given
$12 million to the University of Oregon’s Lundquist College of Business. It is the second largest private donation ever made to the UO.

The college will use the gift to help finance construction of the Lillis Business Complex at the current site of the Charles H. Lundquist College of Business. With this gift and other pledges, the college now has reached the halfway mark in funding the proposed $35 million—$40 million teaching facility.

"Gwen and I believe an outstanding business school requires an outstanding physical facility. We’re very pleased to be able to help the Lundquist College build a nationally competitive infrastructure," says Lillis, who earned a Ph.D. from the UO business college in 1972.

"Thanks to this and many other generous gifts, the Lundquist College will soon have a new way of doing business–one that suits its innovative curriculum that brings technology, team projects and real-world business experience together inside and outside the classroom," says college dean Philip Romero.

An additional $4.85 million in private gifts has been pledged to the project, and the State of Oregon will furnish 10 percent of the project cost through the sale of bonds.

The Lillis Business Complex will add 145,000 square feet of new construction to 55,000 square feet of renovated space in Gilbert Hall.

The building, designed by SRG Partnership of Portland, will feature seven learning centers that cluster faculty offices, student study areas and resource centers around particular disciplines. The new complex will enable the college to better deliver innovative education that is at its core student-centered.

In addition to the learning centers, there will be a 300-seat auditorium, a 200-seat lecture hall and a 120-seat lecture hall. Internet access will be available throughout the building, and a distance learning classroom with video teleconferencing capabilities will be included. The project will provide a net gain of 600 classroom seats.

Lillis is chairman and CEO of MediaOne Group, an international communications company with net revenues of more than $7 billion and 16,000 employees working in 10 countries. AT&T recently purchased the company for $58 billion.

A long-time member of the college’s Business Advisory Council, Lillis last spring received the college’s Visionaries Alumni Trailblazer Award.

He also has served as president and chief executive officer of US West Media Group, as dean of the University of Colorado at Boulder Business School from 1984—1985, as a general manager for General Electric and as a professor of business at Washington State University.

A native of Kansas, Lillis obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Washington.

Lillis and his wife Gwen live in Engelwood, Colo.

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