UPEI receives $6M donation from Saint Dunstan's alumnus from New York

The University of Prince Edward Island has received a gift of $6 million to spend on its library and new medical school, thanks to a donation this week from alumnus Allan Curran.

UPEI said it's the largest private lump-sum donation ever made to the school.

Curran, of Long Island, N.Y., graduated from Saint Dunstan's University in 1962 and received an honorary degree from UPEIin 2017. Saint Dunstan'smerged with Prince of Wales College in 1969 to become UPEI.

Curran recently retired as president of Royal Products, a manufacturer of precision metalworking performance accessories based in Hauppauge, N.Y.

At Curran's request, $4 million of the donation will be spent on Robertson Library, which is almost 50 years old and in need of renovations, said UPEI president and vice-chancellor Wendy Rodgers.

"Libraries are so essential to the equipping of scholars and students for completing their work and being successful in their studies and in their research," she said.

"They're taken for granted sometimes."

Rodgers said the university hasn'tdecided which of the many projects underway at the library to put the money toward.

A space, however, will be dedicatedwithin the library to Curran's friend and classmate, Roger Labonte, who was killed in the Vietnam War in 1966.

The faculty of medicine will receive the remaining $2 million.

Curran's donation will be recognized by the naming of the fifth-floor networking space in the new medical building in memory of his mother, Catherine Bernadette MacDonald, who was originally from P.E.I.