The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga received an $8 million gift from the Kennedy Foundation for the new home of the UTC School of Nursing.

The Dorothy and Jim Kennedy Health Sciences Building will help increase the number of students in UTC’s nursing program and meet the critical need for nurses in the community, UTC Chancellor Steve Angle said in a news release Friday.

The new building is named after the parents of the current Kennedy Foundation trustees and will become the first building on UTC’s campus to be named after an alumna. It is the largest single gift in UTC School of Nursing history.

When complete, UTC officials said they hope the estimated 92,192-square-foot facility will help grow the nursing program’s enrollment by 60%, they said last fall.