(CEDAR CITY)-Tuesday, Southern Utah University announced the $4 million donation it recently received is the largest endowment given to the Cedar City-based institution in its 115-year history.

The donation came from Alice and Walter Gibson, and is designated for the College of Science and Engineering and will fund an endowment for research and scholarships.

The school will be named in the honor of the late Walter Maxwell Gibson, who graduated in 1952, when it was known as Branch Agricultural College, and earned an associate’s degree in chemistry.

Gibson ensued in his studies at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City while later earning a doctorate in nuclear chemistry at the University of California-Berkeley.

Gibson was a researcher at Bell Laboratories of Madison, Wis. before serving as physics department chair, dean and vice president of the University of Albany.

Additionally, Gibson co-founded East Greenbush, N.Y.-based X-Ray Optical Systems in 1990 and served as CEO until his 2009 death.