UCI Science Program Gets $6 Million
A Newport Beach executive has donated $6 million to UC Irvine’s School of Physical Sciences, the largest gift in the school’s 35-year history, the university announced Friday.
The donation by John V. Croul, chairman of a Santa Ana-based paint manufacturer, represents nearly one-third of the $19.6 million the university hopes to raise for a new state-of-the-art research facility on campus.
The new building, to be named after Croul, will house the School of Physical Sciences’ Department of Earth System Science, which studies the effects of pollution on the Earth’s atmosphere.
“This gift provides a major boost,†said Ronald J. Stern, the school’s dean. “Croul Hall will be an epicenter of important Earth science activity.â€
The 54,000-square-foot construction project is slated to begin in the fall of 2001, university officials said, and at a cost of about $25 million.
It will house laboratories, a conference center and office space for faculty and staff, postdoctoral researchers, graduate students and visiting scholars.
Croul, described by university officials as a reserved man with a history of philanthropic activity in Orange County, called the department’s research “vital to ensure that we take care of our planet,†in a statement issued by UCI.
Founded in 1989 by current Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone, the Department of Earth System Science conducts atmospheric research and helps in the drafting of environmental policy. In 1995, one of the department’s preeminent scientists, F. Sherwood Rowland, won the Nobel Prize for chemistry for his groundbreaking research on the Earth’s ozone layer.
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