UO Alumnus Gives $12 Million To Lundquist College Of Business
[Editors note, February 20, 2002: Continuing their generosity, Gwen and
Charles Lillis have pledged an additional $2 million to the Building
Excellence Campaign, bringing their total contribution to $14 million.]
November 29, 1999
Former MediaOne Group chairman and founding partner of LoneTree Capital 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
$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.
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 former 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.
The Lillis Business Complex will add 145,000 square feet of new
construction to 55,000 square feet of renovated space in Gilbert
Hall.