This week, The Catholic University of America announced gifts unprecedented in the school’s history: $47 million to expand the university’s School of Business and Economics and launch a separate Institute for Human Ecology.

A record $15 million donation to Catholic from the Busch Family Foundation will renovate an academic building, Maloney Hall, to house the university’s business school, which will be renamed the Tim and Steph Busch School of Business and Economics.

“We are committed to supporting Catholic University’s vision for business education which integrates principled entrepreneurship and Catholic social teaching in a distinctive way,” Tim Busch said in a statement. “Students at the school of business and economics learn how businesses can be highly profitable and innovative, while also meeting the needs of communities and promoting human flourishing.”

Catholic President John Garvey said the Busch gift showed “unparalleled support for the unique approach of our business school.”

“The end goal of business, if it’s properly understood, is not to amass wealth for personal consumption. The businessperson is called to participate in God’s creativity and to move the poor out of poverty,” explained Garvey in a recent interview. “The entrepreneur creates jobs for people who don’t have them and makes products that improve people’s lives.”

Catholic University’s faculty and staff see the gifts as an affirmation of their mission.

“Every business school talks vaguely about ‘business ethics,” but it’s not clear what that means,” said Jay Richards, Catholic University professor and executive editor at The Stream. “What makes Catholic’s School of Business and Economics different is our commitment to integrate sound principles of business and economics with the principles of Catholic social teaching, such as the dignity of the person and the family, solidarity, subsidiarity, private property and the common good.”

“With ever-increasing stresses on the culture, and a greater need for God in our society, it’s important that the business school and The Catholic University of America unapologetically speak the truth,” said Bill Bowman, newly appointed dean of business and economics, whose tenure will start in August.

The new Maloney building will feature a chapel, classrooms, faculty offices and an information commons, where students and professors can meet informally. “With the help of these gifts, I look forward to working with the faculty and our student body as we explore together what it means to have a vocation to business,” said Bowman.

Another $32 million in gifts, from five donors, will support several related initiatives on human flourishing, including The Arthur and Carlyse Ciocca Center for Principled Entrepreneurship and the Institute for Human Ecology, which will take up Pope Francis’ call in Laudato Si to systematically study the relationships of human beings to one another and the world around them.

The Institute for Human Ecology is an interdisciplinary research institute and will report to the Provost. Its first Executive Director is theology professor Joseph Capizzi, who teaches in the areas of social and political theology at Catholic University and has written, with CUA Provost Andrew Abela, A Catechism for Business: Tough Ethical Questions & Insights from Catholic Teaching.

“It’s fitting that an academic year that started with Pope Francis’ historic visit to our campus should end with the wonderful news of these gifts,” said Bowman.