The UI will be better able to support underrepresented graduate students as soon as next semester, thanks to Monday’s announcement that ACT Inc. is donating $5 million to the cause.

The Iowa City-based testing company announced the endowment gift to the UI’s ACT Scholars Program at its annual meeting in Coralville on Monday.

UI officials will use the funds to seek students underrepresented in the UI and Iowa City communities, especially blacks, Latinos, and American Indians, to become ACT Scholars, according to the program’s brochure.

Scott Gomer, a company spokesman, said promoting diversity on campuses is a key ACT mission.

“This is America — we look to gain attention and support for minority groups,” he said. “We [at ACT] help students across the country, and when we have the input from all those groups in America, it helps us all.”

The ACT Scholars Program allows qualified UI students to pursue graduate degrees in a wide range of fields while simultaneously acquiring real-world experience working at ACT in projects related to their area of study, said John Keller, the dean of the UI Graduate College.

“Its design will attract either new students or current students looking to work in ACT’s interests,” he said. “If a law student doesn’t want to become a trial lawyer, he or she could focus on the academic and education sides of law at ACT.”

The program’s endowment will also provide students with full tuition and a stipend.

The donation marks what Keller calls “the largest private donation to help graduate education in the UI’s history.”

“We are very, very grateful — $5 million is nothing to sneeze at,” he said.

The program will be implemented as soon as possible so the university can begin recruiting for the fall 2010 semester, he said. Annually, the program will enroll up to eight scholars, but four will likely start next fall, he said, which means the $5 million should begin accumulating funds immediately.

“We put the endowment resource into an interest-earning account, and the interest goes to support the students,” he said. “The $5 million itself won’t be touched.”

The UI Foundation serves as the university’s preferred channel for private contributions, said Susan Shullaw, the foundation’s senior vice president for strategic communications.

Endowments are used to create funds, she noted.

“A regular gift would have been an apple,” she said. “But this endowment is like giving us an apple tree. Hopefully, it will continue to regenerate forever.”

The recent gift is only the latest bounty yielded by the relationship between the UI and ACT.

Fifty years ago, UI education leaders E.F. Lindquist and Ted McCarrell launched ACT after envisioning a new way to run college-admissions testing that would ensure students are ready for postsecondary schooling.

“The ACT really started at the UI,” Shullaw said. “This is a way it can celebrate the partnership while also focusing on the next generation of professionals.”