The University of New Haven has received a $10 million gift from an alumnus to help launch a new business college at its branch campus in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the school announced Monday.
The donation from Douglas D. Schumann, a 1969 graduate, ranks among the largest in the university’s history and will underwrite the College of Business and Digital Innovation at University of New Haven – Riyadh, known as NHU-Riyadh.
Schumann founded the Bristol-based manufacturing company P-Q Controls Inc. in 1972 and still owns it.
The campus is the first independently licensed U.S. international branch campus in Saudi Arabia, according to the university. It was approved by the Saudi Council of Ministers in 2025 and cleared by the West Haven school’s U.S. accreditor earlier this year.
NHU-Riyadh will open in Misk City, a nonprofit innovation district in the Saudi capital, and welcome its first students this fall.
The new college will pair an American business curriculum with training in digital skills, entrepreneurship and innovation tied to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, the government’s plan to broaden the kingdom’s economy beyond oil. Schumann’s gift will cover the college’s facilities, technology, programs and faculty in its early years, the university said.
The college will occupy a 62,000-square-foot campus built for students from Saudi Arabia and the surrounding region. The university said the facility will feature classrooms, collaborative work spaces, entrepreneurship hubs and technology labs supporting coursework in business, analytics, artificial intelligence and digital transformation.
Schumann earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the university in 1969 and received an honorary doctorate in engineering in 2003.
He described the gift as a tribute to his parents.
“They believed that opportunity should never be limited by where a person happens to be born, and that education is the surest way to open doors,” Schumann said. “Helping to launch a college that will do exactly that, for students half a world away, honors their legacy in the truest sense.”
Founded in 1920, the University of New Haven is a private university with more than 150 undergraduate and graduate programs. Along with its main West Haven campus and the new one in Riyadh, the university has a campus in Tuscany, Italy.
