The University of Oregon is getting a $1 billion donation from Phil and Penny Knight to create the Knight College of Engineering, according to an early-morning press release from the university.

The donation is the largest “given to a comprehensive public university,” the release said.

“To make an audacious dream a reality requires more than a vivid imagination. It also requires the sort of opportunity that our great American universities, both public and private, have historically provided. This is no time to abandon them,” Phil Knight said in a statement included in the release. “Penny and I are grateful for the chance to invest in our most promising young people’s future in this important way.” 

Since 2016, the Knights have donated $2 billion to the university to create and expand the Knight Campus.

“Phil and Penny Knight have a long history of believing in things before they exist,” University of Oregon President Karl Scholz said in the release. “They did it in 2016, and they are doing it again now, at a scale that is genuinely hard to take in. I am grateful to them, and I am grateful to be here for it.”  

This story will be updated.