CU President Elizabeth Hoffman will publicly accept the gift from an as yet unidentified businessman in the high-tech field and his wife at a news conference in Denver today, said a CU statement released Monday.

The money will be spread throughout CU's campuses and will fund research into technology that will assist people with cognitive disabilities such as mental retardation.

University officials on Monday were tight-lipped about the donation's exact amount and the identity of the donors.

CU Regent Jim Martin said he wasn't sure of the exact amount being given, though he said he had heard a few figures. "I do know this far exceeds any private gift to a public university. This will put the University of Colorado in the national news," he said. "It comes as no surprise that somebody would want to earmark these kinds of dollars to CU for research. The big surprise is the amount."

According to The Chronicle of CU Higher Education, the largest donation ever pledged to a public university is $240 million given to the University of California at San Francisco in 1998.

The donor giving CU an even larger amount today has a niece who is disabled, CU's statement said. The donor saw the potential for new technology to aid people with cognitive disabilities, the statement said. The gift has apparently been in the works for more than a year.

"It took 14 months for it to get to level it's reached, and a lot of that's due to President Hoffman,"; said Michelle Trammell of Johnston Wells Public Relations, which was hired by CU to handle today's announcement.