Chesapeake Energy Corp. has pledged a $5 million gift for an interactive, high-tech auditorium that will anchor Kansas University’s new Energy and Environment Center.

The $28 million center will include a 40,000-square-foot expansion at Lindley Hall, which sits at the corner of Naismith Drive and Jayhawk Boulevard, and will be used to teach young geologists, engineers and environmentalists. The pledge from Chesapeake, which is based in Oklahoma City, will make the auditorium one of the most technologically sophisticated classrooms in the country. Steve Dixon, Chesapeake’s chief operating officer, is a KU alumnus.

The center will be funded through private donations raised by KU Endowment. In the past six months, $17 million has been committed toward the construction of the center.

The center will help KU meet one of its strategic initiatives of “sustaining the planet, powering the world.”