Dashboard - Spring 2018

Anne Carr made a $1 million estate commitment to support the Division of Medical Oncology. This gift fuels innovative research in pancreatic cancer, helping researchers develop new patient therapies.

Longtime CU supporter Stan Dempsey gave $200,000 to the Dempsey Neurology Fund. This gift supports the Neurology Supportive and Palliative Care Program, ensuring individuals with neurodegenerative diseases have access to the best care available.

Peter and Sandy Keller gave two gifts totaling more than $460,000 to the Waterman Family Endowed Chair and the Igal Kam, MD, Endowed Chair in Transplant Surgery. Their longstanding support for these endowments provides funds for lectureships and research in liver and digestive diseases as well as transplant surgery.

Ed and Susie Orr recently made a $2 million commitment to establish the Orr Family Endowed Chair. This endowment supports research at the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes, ensuring individuals with type 1 diabetes have access to world-class care.

The School of Medicine has launched an initiative that is designed to encourage giving to new or existing endowed funds. The School of Medicine Acceleration Program allows donors to make gifts to endowed funds and unlock resources today. To do that, the school will contribute the estimated endowment distribution during the first five years of a gift or pledge while the endowed fund grows in value. Endowment gifts from $100,000 to $2 million are eligible for the School of Medicine Acceleration Program. Those gifts must be dedicated to one of four campus goals: advancing discovery by bringing life-changing treatments into practice; transforming patient care by fostering person-centered health and well-being; driving innovation by building a hub of creativity and entrepreneurship; and training future leaders by educating tomorrow’s health care workforce.

With a gift of $210,000, Barry and Sue Baer have established an endowed scholarship for CU Boulder Army ROTC students along with Barry’s testamentary gift agreement that will support veteran scholarships through the Office of Veteran Services. Barry, a retired colonel, graduated from Army ROTC while an undergraduate student at the university. He is also involved with CU Boulder’s Golden Buffalo Battalion’s Alumni Board of Advisors and the A&S College Advisory Board. Sue is a member of the College of Music Advisory Board.

In support of a building expansion and enhanced collaboration between CU Boulder’s Leeds School of Business and College of Engineering and Applied Science, Foundation trustee Alan Olson (’62) and his wife Carol-Ann (’64) committed to a $1 million gift that will name the entrance space of the new collaborative building. Also in support of the expansion, Zayo founder and CEO Dan Caruso and his wife, Cindy, gave $2 million to support entrepreneurial activities and the future building connection, including a space named the “Caruso Connection.” The expansion will offer collaborative spaces to expand experiential learning opportunities for all business and engineering students at CU Boulder.

Emboldened by their own college experience, CU Boulder alumni and competitive runners Sara (’09) and Brent (’08) Vaughn have established the Vaughn Family Endowed Child Care Scholarship Fund to help fill the financial assistance gap that exists for student-parents. When the couple had their first child, both were full-time students and on athletic scholarships, which they managed to juggle with parenthood. Since graduating, the Vaughns have both competed professionally in running and now wish to help other student-parents realize their dreams. Their gift includes $10,000 in funding for the next five years, half for current-student use and half for an endowment. They hope that others will contribute to the fund and that it will raise much-needed awareness and financial support for college student-parents.       

Andrea Wagner stepped down from her position as Vice Chancellor of Advancement on May 18. Andrea joined CU Denver in 2010 as director of development for the Business School and was promoted to lead the Office of Advancement in 2015. Under Andrea’s direction, CU Denver’s Advancement team has grown in size, impact and success while setting annual fundraising records for the campus. Andrea was directly involved with the three largest gifts the campus has received, including the first to name a CU Denver building, and she was instrumental in initiating CU Denver’s first scholarship campaign, which is currently in progress. Melisa Baldwin has been selected as CU Denver's new Vice Chancellor of Advancement. She will start August 1. She comes to CU Denver from Kennesaw State University in Atlanta where she serves as the associate vice president for advancement, development and alumni affairs.

Steven Schuster, who earned his master’s degree in Design and Planning at CU, and his wife, Mary Anne Howard, recently established a bequest to support scholarships for students in the College of Architecture and Planning. Currently valued at $500,000, the bequest is intended to help the college recruit the best and brightest students in the field of architecture. Mr. Schuster lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he is founding principal of Clearscapes, an architectural design firm responsible for a number of public and private projects across North Caroline, including the Exploris Museum, Raleigh Convention Center and Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh.   

Through a planned gift, Barbara and Alan Steiner will add to an endowment to ultimately support two Chancellor’s Leadership Class scholars each year. The Steiners, who join CU’s Heritage Society with their gift, have been committed CLC donors and champions since the inception of the program. The CLC engages scholars with the members of the Colorado Springs community to nourish positive community impact through leadership and training. The Steiners have a passion for leadership; Alan’s former leadership role with Hewlett/Packard connected him to UCCS. Their gift follows many years of making annual gifts to the program.

The Norwood Foundation is a long-time supporter of the Bruce and Anne Shepard Reach Your Peak Scholarship Program at UCCS. Norwood recently made a $25,000 gift to support the scholarship program. This year, the community-funded program will graduate 33 scholars, and the graduation rate for the program is 93 percent. Currently, all gifts to the program are matched one to one by the Colorado Opportunity Scholarship Initiative.

Andy Cain, who recently joined the Penrose St. Francis Health Services Board of Trustees, made a $10,000 gift to UCCS’ Public Safety Initiative to support the McConkie Leadership Conference. The annual conference provides leaders in governments and nonprofits with leadership training and best practices. This year more than 150 attendees learned about leading under stress and preparing to lead at a higher level within their departments.