CANTON, Mo. -- Culver-Stockton College announced this morning that a St. Louis businessman has anonymously donated $2 million to create an experiential learning and travel fund to help finance students' travel abroad.

The donation is the largest single gift from an individual donor in the college's 156-year history.

"We are extremely grateful to this good friend of the college for supporting our study abroad programs, which we believe are among the most important features of the Culver-Stockton curriculum," C-SC President Richard Valentine said in a news release.

"We believe that study abroad enriches our students' educational experience and gives them a much greater appreciation of the world in which we live, its many-cultured richness, and the complexity of today's global economy."

Valentine said the donation will "dramatically increase" travel abroad opportunities and help the college move much closer to its goal of having 50 percent of our students engage in international experiential learning.

The EXP@CSC curriculum builds in opportunities every semester for three-week courses that include travel abroad. Students prepare for the coursework during the early part of the semester, travel to the destination with faculty and other members of the class, and prepare reports on various topics that are either given on site or upon returning to campus.

In the year since EXP@CSC was launched, Culver-Stockton study abroad courses have traveled to Turkey and the British Isles. Students leave Dec. 2 for Egypt and will travel to the Netherlands in the spring.

Future study abroad courses are planned to Belize and Guatemala; Russia, Estonia, and Finland; and London, Paris and Rome.

Culver-Stockton students will only be eligible to receive one of the new grants, which will be awarded through a competitive application process that includes consideration of financial need. The grants will be paid from interest earned on the gift, which will be placed in the college's permanent endowment.