By RICHARD PREZ-PEA

New York Times Syndicate

September 8, 2014 10:19 AM

Harvard University on Monday will announce the largest gift in its history, $350 million to the School of Public Health, from a group controlled by a wealthy Hong Kong family, one member of which earned graduate degrees at the university.

Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvards president, said the gift by the Morningside Foundation, directed to a relatively small part of the university, would have a profound effect on the School of Public Health in Boston, giving it a stable financial base and the ability to give students more financial aid while expanding programs in several fields.

Its always been, as the whole field always is, under-resourced, Faust said. Its overwhelmingly dependent on money from federal grants that are under threat.

The foundation is led by two brothers, Ronnie and Gerald Chan, whose businesses include the Hang Lung Group, a major developer of real estate in Hong Kong and elsewhere in China, and the Morningside Group, a private equity and venture capital firm. The School of Public Health will be renamed for their father, T.H. Chan, who founded Hang Lung.

Only six larger donations have been made to an American institution of higher education, according to a list by The Chronicle of Higher Education. Those include a $400 million gift by Eli and Edythe Broad to the Broad Institute, a joint arm of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Chans gift is the largest to Harvard alone.

In keeping with university practice, Harvard did not disclose the timing or form of the gift. Large donations are often spread over several years, and can consist of securities or real estate, in addition to cash.

Harvard officials said the gift would be used to address four broad areas: pandemics, which they define to include threats like obesity and cancer; harmful environments, ranging from pollution to violence; poverty and humanitarian crises; and failing health systems. Faust cited the Ebola outbreak in West Africa as an example of the need for such resources, hitting on three of those four areas a rapidly spreading disease, abetted by poverty, that existing health systems cannot handle.

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Harvard Public Health School Gets Record $350 Million Gift