The University of Montana’s Phyllis J. Washington College of Education and Human Sciences received an enormous donation this past week. College spokesman Peter Knox, says it’s one of the biggest the school has ever received.

“We have very exciting news," Knox said. "We have recently received a very significant gift to our college here at the University of Montana. It’s actually a $5 million gift by the Alice Lee Lund Charitable Trust, going towards expanding our facilities here on campus and providing a new state of the art auditorium and classroom for all of the departments in our college, as well as others throughout campus.”

Knox says the new auditorium will sit around 500 students and is designed to be able to feature presentations like the ones on the web series Ted Talks. The new venue will be the largest classroom on campus.

“If you’re familiar with campus and where the College of Education and Human Sciences is now, there’s going to be kind of an addition on the other opposite end of the old wing of our building,” Knox said. “Our idea for this is that we want it to be as adaptable of a space as possible. There are still some details being worked out, but our vision right now is we want state of the art audio-visual equipment so you can have a 360 educational experience.”

The donation from the Alice Lee Lund charitable trust was born from Lund’s love of the University of Montana, where she graduated with a bachelors and a master’s degree in education. Lund went on to work as a teacher before passing away in 2001.

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