Stanford’s Business School Wins $105-Million Gift

By Maria Di Mento

Philip H. Knight, a co-founder and the chairman of the Nike sportswear company, plans to give $105-million to the Stanford University Graduate School of Business for a new $275-million campus that will be called the Knight Management Center.

The bulk of Mr. Knight’s donation — $100-million — will finance the construction of eight buildings arranged around three quadrangles that will make up the new business-school campus. The remaining $5-million will match gifts from other donors to finance faculty salaries.

Stanford plans to raise the rest of the money for the new campus from private sources, and will start building the campus in 2008. It is scheduled for completion in 2011.

Mr. Knight, who earned an M.B.A. from the business school in 1962, has made several donations to Stanford in the past but had not disclosed the amount of his gifts. He has endowed a professorship in the business school, and in 1999 he paid for a new building. He has also given money to support the university’s athletics department.