The Eberly family of Uniontown, Pa., continues its generous support of West Virginia University and the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences through its latest gift of $2 million from the Eberly Family Charitable Trust for the new Life Sciences Building.

“The Eberly Family Charitable Trust is committed to ensuring that higher education, culture and economic development in the region have the foundation to succeed in the 21st century,”said Robert Eberly, president of the Eberly Foundation and Eberly Family Charitable Trust.”Our support of West Virginia University is integral to that mission.”

The gift will be used to equip and enhance a new teaching facility for the departments of biology and psychology, the two academic units that will occupy the building. The contribution was made in conjunction with the $250 million Building Greatness Campaign: West Virginia University being conducted by the WVU Foundation on behalf of the University.

“The generous and consistent financial commitment of the Eberly family has been essential to the success and visibility of the Eberly College, within West Virginia and on an international scale,”said WVU President David C. Hardesty Jr.”The Life Sciences Building is an innovative instructional facility that will enhance the student-centered experience and WVU s basic research mission. This gift will impact nearly 70 percent of the student body.”

The 192,000-square-foot building is currently being constructed at an estimated cost of $50 million. Scheduled for completion in June, the Life Sciences Building will be open and operational at the beginning of the fall semester, Aug. 19. A formal dedication is tentatively planned for October.

“The Eberly family has once again demonstrated its strong commitment to higher education and the liberal arts and sciences at West Virginia University,”said Eberly College Dean M. Duane Nellis.”This generous and important gift will benefit students enrolled in the colleges two largest majors.”

The departments of biology and psychology boast the largest number of majors within the College and provide a number of the core courses taken by many non-major undergraduates. Their faculty teach more than 15,000 students each year, accounting for 12 percent of all freshmen and sophomore student credit hours of instruction at WVU .

This gift is the latest among many that the Eberly family has contributed during more than a decade of significant support to the University. The family has created major endowments to support the College of Creative Arts, WVU Libraries, faculty development, scholarships and academic programming.

Since 1987, the Eberly Family Charitable Trust has established nine prestigious Eberly Family Distinguished Professorships in the College of Arts and Sciences. In 1993, as part of The Campaign for West Virginia University, the Eberly Family Charitable Trust and the Eberly Foundation committed substantial financial resources to the College, to provide wide-ranging support for professorships and scholarships.

On July 1, 1993, the University formally changed the name of the college to the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences to recognize the enormous generosity of the Eberly family to ensure the financial viability and the intellectual strength of the college in perpetuity.

Carolyn Eberly Blaney is a trustee of the Eberly Foundation and the Eberly Family Charitable Trust. A WVU graduate, she has been instrumental in directing the Eberly familys attention toward WVU and the Eberly College. She serves on the Eberly College Advisory Board, the West Virginia University Foundation Board and is a member of the Building Greatness National Campaign Committee.

The WVU Foundation is a private non-profit corporation that generates, receives and administers private gifts for the benefit of West Virginia University.