Film star Jane Fonda has given $12.5 million to endow a Graduate School of Education (GSE) center to study how gender affects children's development and learning, GSE officials announced Friday.

Fonda's gift--by far the largest donation GSE has received in its 80-year history--gives $2.5 million to endow a new chair named after famed gender studies expert and Harvard professor Carol Gilligan, who announced Friday that she will leave the University in June 2002.

Gilligan said she decided to leave as soon as Fonda gave money to found the gender and education center.

"I felt for many years, I was so committed to this work and bringing it to this point," Gilligan said. "My realization that [the research] will broaden and expand--it frees me to leave."

Gilligan, the Graham professor of gender studies, said becoming a university professor at New York University would offer her "the breadth I need" to continue teaching and writing.

Fonda, who led an anti-pregnancy campaign in Georgia and ran a children's camp in California, has been known for her activism but only recently has turned to gender issues.

"Through my work with nonprofits, I've been frustrated by how the best intentioned programs have been stymied because they don't take gender into account," she said in an interview.

She called her donation a "thank-you" gift to Gilligan, who has taught at Harvard for more than 30 years and whom Fonda said made her realize the "toxic" effect of gender roles.