Inventor gives $12 million to University of Portland

BYLINE: Bill Graves, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.

Mar. 19--A heart valve inventor and his wife are giving the University of Portland $12 million, the largest gift in the university's history.

The donation from Donald and Darlene Shiley of San Diego will be used to upgrade and expand the engineering building, built in 1949 for $452,000 after faculty and students dug out the basement.

"It is a gorgeous, stately, historical building, but it needs to expand," said Darlene Shiley, who recently returned from a trip to Africa. The gift will honor her husband, she said, "a great man, worthy of attention."

Donald Shiley, 87, graduated from the private Catholic university in 1951 with an engineering degree and went on to invent a heart valve that has saved thousands of lives. The blond-brick engineering building will bear the Shiley name.

"He is obviously an alum for whom we are very proud," said the Rev. E. William Beauchamp, university president. "A gift of this magnitude to a university is often an institution-changing event that can spur other things to happen."

Gov. Ted Kulongoski is expected to speak at the university at noon today when the gift is formally announced.

The university will apply the donation toward a $20 million project that will be phased in over the next two to three years to nearly double the size of the engineering building while upgrading its heating and air conditioning systems, its electrical wiring, classrooms and laboratories. The three-story building will grow from its current L-shape to a rectangle, with a major entrance on two sides and glass walls to highlight stairwells.

The engineering school will be able to expand its capacity from 400 students to more than 500, said Zia Yamayee, dean of engineering. He said the school has top-notch faculty, first-rate students, and a fine curriculum that is integrated well with the university's liberal arts studies. All it needs is a better building, he said.

"I'm just in awe this is happening."

Students also welcomed the gift, saying the engineering school's undergraduate programs in computer science and civil, electrical and mechanical engineering are high quality and deserve better space.

Ashlee Snodgrass, 24, a mechanical engineering major who will graduate next spring, said tar from roof repairs last year dripped down to the third floor carpet. The classrooms are cooled with air conditioners in the windows.

"This will be a big breath of life," she said. "For me, it will mean a lot of noise because I will graduate before it is finished."

The university has been discussing the gift since it awarded Donald Shiley an honorary doctorate of public service last May.

"You don't get these dropping out of the sky," said the Rev. Beauchamp of the donation. "This has been in conversation for quite some time."

Donald Shiley was in the first class to study in the engineering building. He grew up and worked among the orchards of Yakima, attended high school in Portland, and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He said he was drawn to the University of Portland by its then "brand-new gleaming engineering building."

"He entered a non-Catholic," said his wife, Darlene, "and exited a Catholic."

After graduating, he entered the bio-mechanical research field, started his own company in Southern California and teamed up with heart surgeons to invent breakthrough technology for the tilting-disk heart valve, the foundation for numerous subsequent heart valves.

His company employed more than a thousand people and earned millions of dollars before Shiley sold it to Pfizer. The Shileys also have made other donations in the arts, sciences and education.

Darlene Shiley, an actress and singer when she met her husband, said she hopes their gift to the University of Portland helps more students appreciate engineers and all they do to improve people's lives.

The reason we have computers, cars and heart valves, she said, "is because someone thought of a better mousetrap, and that was an engineer."

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