The gift comes from the estate of Arnold Jarboe, a 1954 graduate of the university who spent his career as an attorney for the Social Security Administration and died in 2016. It will be used to endow a new chair in the College of Business Administration who will lead the school's new Center for Practice & Research in Management & Ethics (PRIME), to be operational for the fall semester.

"PRIME is really going to give students an additional amount of time and opportunity to work with business executives and thinkers," said Antoine Garibaldi, president of Detroit Mercy. "It's going to have a great deal of impact and provide some support for students in a very key research area."

Out of the new student engagement center, the university plans to launch a speaker series composed of prominent business leaders, nonprofits, governments and other schools. There are also plans for a student-run journal, management and ethics research and a Behavioral Dynamics Lab, which will allow students to study collaboration and leadership via audio, video and remote conferencing during group interactions.

PRIME joins the college's other "centers of excellence," including the Center for Social Entrepreneurship, America's Business High School, the Financial Markets Lab and the Institute for North Korean Studies.

Evan Peterson, alumnus and business law lecturer at Detroit Mercy, was selected as the first Arnold Jarboe Chair in Business Administration. He will remain in the role and oversee PRIME for at least a few years, Garibaldi said. The university has not decided how often the chair position will be rotated.