Southwestern University received a $1.15 million grant from The Brown Foundation Inc. of Houston that will help fund the construction of the university's new science center.

According to a news release from the university issued June 17, $1 million of the grant will go toward the center's construction and will allow the university to claim a $1 million challenge grant that was awarded in January from the J.E. and L.E. Mabee Foundation of Tulsa, Okla.

"We are very grateful that The Brown Foundation Inc. continues to believe in Southwestern's aspirations," Southwestern President Jake B. Schrum said in a statement. "It was their support that allowed Southwestern to envision itself as a national liberal arts college in the 1980s, and their very generous support of our new science facility encourages us to compete nationally in the sciences."

The foundation had previously given a $1 million grant for the science center in 2012, according to the news release.

The grant brings the total amount of money raised for the science center to $8 million and will allow Southwestern to begin the first phase of the project, which will add 23,700 square feet of space to the existing Fondren-Jones Science Building. Work on this phase began in December, and the expansion could be available for the 2015–16 school year, according to the release.

The project's second phase will remodel the original building.

Once completed, a new three-story entrance will be built on the northwest side of the building, and the building will have 103,000 square feet of classrooms, offices, seminar rooms and laboratories, according to the news release.

The remaining $150,000 of the grant will go to the Jake and Jane Schrum Paideia Fund to support student scholarships and Southwestern's Paideia program, which offers students an interdisciplinary approach to education, according to the release.