The American Museum of Natural History in New York City has announced that the New York State Board of Regents has authorized it to grant master's and doctoral degrees in comparative biology, making it the first American museum with its own doctoral program, the New York Times reports.

The museum, which hosts about 400,000 schoolchildren a year, has raised more than $50 million for the program from the Gilder Foundation, the Hess Foundation, an anonymous museum trustee, and the city of New York. The school will be named the Richard Gilder Graduate School after Richard Gilder, an investment manager, museum trustee, and one of the school's major donors.

About thirty students a year already conduct doctoral research at the museum through partnerships with Columbia, Cornell, New York University, and the City University of New York. The museum's staff includes more than two hundred scientists, some of whom will become faculty at the school, which expects to recruit students next year and enroll its first class in 2008.

One of the museum's goals is to build on its evolutionary biology and field work. Michael J. Novacek, provost and a senior vice president at the museum, said that as disciplines like molecular biology and neuroscience have become more popular in recent decades, universities "have lost their connection with the natural world." With growing interest in the environment, Novacek added, "we are seeing a great need for people who know how to identify animals and plants and work in the field."