Minneapolis-based Valspar Corporation plans to donate $1 million over the next five years for high-tech equipment in the University of Minnesota’s new undergraduate materials science lab.

The lab will be open in Amundson Hall’s Gore Annex next fall, and it’s set to be fully completed in early 2015. Student enrollment in materials science is growing and this new lab will help accommodate that, said Frank Bates, head of the University’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science.

“To say we we’re excited would be putting it extremely mildly,” he said.

Valspar’s donation will help purchase equipment like electron microscopes and devices that can measure magnetic, electrical and optical properties.

“[The new lab is] going to allow our students to have an even better experimental laboratory experience in their undergraduate education,” said Lorraine Francis, a CEMS professor.