PHILADELPHIA -- Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania , and Alan Kelly, dean of Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine, have announced a $10 million gift from Vernon and Shirley Hill to the School of Veterinary Medicine.

The gift will be used toward the completion of a new teaching and research center, currently under construction, to be called The Vernon and Shirley Hill Pavilion. The building will open in the fall of 2006 and is the first new Penn Veterinary Medicine building in Philadelphia in 25 years.

Vernon W. Hill II is the founder and chairman of Commerce Bancorp, Inc. Shirley Hill is the founder and president of InterArch, an architecture and design firm in Mt. Laurel , N.J. The Hills are residents of Moorestown , N.J. Vernon Hill is a graduate of the Wharton School at Penn.

The Hill Pavilion will be the new academic center of the Penn School of Veterinary Medicine. It will contain five floors, including surgery centers, teaching and library space, research laboratories and a vivarium. It will be the state-of-the-art veterinary teaching and research facility in the world.

"The gift from the Hills," said Amy Gutmann, president of Penn, “is the largest gift the Veterinary School has ever received from a living donor. It allows us to continue and expand the world-class teaching and research mission of the School.”