BOSTON — Boston College is betting big on the sciences.

The Jesuit school unveiled plans Friday for a $150 million science facility that will bring a new engineering major to campus.

School officials are calling it an ambitious step forward that combines the college’s longstanding strength in the liberal arts with its newer expansion into the sciences.

The crowning jewel of the 150,000-square-foot facility will be a new integrated science institute named after Apple executive Phil Schiller and his wife, Kim Gassett-Schiller, who donated $25 million for the project.

Schiller, a 1982 graduate of the school, said the institute aims to give scholars from the humanities and the sciences a place to team up on global problems.

“This is where the best work comes from, as diverse minds with different experiences try to understand a problem together and solve things as a team,” said Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing. “That is where big leaps forward happen.”

Construction is scheduled to begin in spring 2019 at the school’s campus west of Boston.

Last year, Boston College became one of 115 universities in the U.S. designated as a top research institution by the Carnegie Foundation.

The shift follows in the steps of other private schools that have pursued aggressive expansions into science and research fields, which can add prestige as well as a source of revenue.

Nearby Harvard University is continuing work on a $1 billion science/engineering complex.

North Carolina’s Wake Forest University also introduced a new engineering program this year.

At Boston College, officials say the new Schiller institute aims to tackle projects ranging from the development of clean energy to technology that can diagnose and treat humans in poor areas around the world.

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