A $10 million donation to Bowdoin College from parents of a student in this year’s graduating class will allow the college to expand the Coastal Studies Center on Harpswell Sound.
The college announced the donation from Kim Gassett-Schiller and Apple executive Philip Schiller of Half Moon Bay, California, on Wednesday. The college will rename the center for the Schillers.
“Our unique location on the coast of Maine makes the study of the oceans and climate change a natural area of intense interest for us,” Bowdoin College President Clayton Rose said in a release. “This extraordinary act of generosity and vision by Phil and Kim Schiller will transform the Coastal Studies Center into a facility where students and faculty from Bowdoin and from other institutions can gather together for concentrated periods to learn from each other and to advance knowledge and understanding about the ocean, marine science and the impact of climate change on marine life.”
The donation will fund construction of a state-of-the-art dry laboratory connected to the center’s existing marine laboratory and a “convening center” with modernized classrooms, housing and dining facilities for students, faculty and visiting scholars.
Philip Schiller is senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple in Cupertino, California. He serves on the board of trustees at Boston College and the board of directors at Illumina, a worldwide DNA-sequencing firm headquartered in San Diego, Calif.
Kim Gassett-Schiller is a trustee at the Rhode Island School of Design, a member of the board of directors of the Salem State Foundation, and co-chairwoman of Salem State’s first comprehensive fundraising campaign.
“Like Bowdoin, we have a deep interest in science, discovery and exploration; challenging young minds and finding answers to long-term questions,” Phil Schiller said, in part, in the statement.
“We all hear the stories about fish species going extinct and the coral reefs being in trouble,” Kim Gassett-Schiller said. “We all have a role to play in preserving our natural habitats. We wanted to do our part in advancing ocean conservation in collaboration with Bowdoin, which has one of the world’s most prestigious environmental studies programs and a beautiful, rich coastline. The ocean is their lab.”
The center is located on property donated to the college in 1981, and has been expanded several times since including a 1995 donation of $2.1 million from Leon and Lisa Gorman that allowed the college to develop the land into a laboratory and research facility.