Physician Edison Miyawaki and dentist Lawrence Tseu already had much in common before their individual donations to Chaminade University's new nursing program this Thanksgiving Eve sent administrators scurrying to find suitable synonyms for "gratitude" and "appreciation."

Both Miyawaki and Tseu are prominent Honolulu medical professionals, both are members of Chaminade University's Board of Regents, and both understand what it is like to lose a spouse.

Chaminade will announce today that Miyawaki has pledged a gift of $5 million — the second-largest individual donation the university has ever received — for the Sallie Y. Miyawaki School of Nursing, named in honor of Miyawaki's late wife, a career nursing professional.

The university will also announce that Tseu has pledged $1 million toward a new center for nurse education within the school of nursing. The center will be named the Dr. Lawrence and BoHing Chan Tseu Center for Nurse Education to honor Tseu's late wife.

In an advance news release issued by Chaminade, Tseu said he was making the donation "to honor my wife and to show my appreciation for the nurses who cared for my wife in her final days."

After more than five years of planning and preparation, Chaminade is preparing to introduce a baccalaureate degree in nursing in fall 2010. With internal approval processes already completed, the school will seek final approval from the Hawai'i State Board of Nursing in February.

"This is a very good Thanksgiving," said Helen Turner, dean of Chaminade's Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

The combined $6 million in donations is significant, given the university's overall $35 million operating budget.

Turner said the donations will allow the nascent program to develop without constraint and in accordance with the original vision of its earliest proponents, including the late Chaminade president Sue Wesselkamper.

"It will allow us to do creative things with the curriculum, acquire cutting-edge instrumentation and realize the capability of the talented faculty we have," Turner said.

Turner said the donations — as well as federal grants that the program has received — demonstrate confidence in the program's potential to succeed.

Tseu's donation will be used to retrofit and enhance facilities, including nursing skills laboratories and a suite equipped with lifelike simulations of human patients.

Miyawaki's donation will establish an endowment for the program. In keeping with Miyawaki's interest in elder care, the new school will focus on aging, community care and public health — areas of critical importance, according to Turner.

"Hawai'i's population is aging faster than the national average," she said.

"And while there is a lull in the shortage of nurses in Hawai'i, it is expected that a large percentage of nurses will retire by 2020. There will be a desperate shortage of nurses and it will come mainly in areas like public health, community care and care of the aging. We're responding to what the community says it wants and needs."

Turner said she anticipates that most of the new nursing students will come from Hawai'i and the rest of the Pacific. "Our intent is to prepare these students to provide care in Hawai'i and the Pacific," she said. "We hope they will work in their own communities."

In July, the school hired Stephanie Genz to head the new program. Genz formerly served as associate professor and assistant dean for nursing at Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wis.