Daniels Fund

UNC has been selected to receive a five-year, $1.25 million grant from the Daniels Fund as part of a new Ethics Initiative to begin and help support principle-based ethics education. The Ethics Initiative will go beyond philosophy and theory to real-world utilization in the use of ethical principles as a foundation for personal and organizational decision-making and leadership.

Through the grant, UNC becomes part of an Ethics Consortium of eight universities to develop and further strengthen ethics education for students and training for existing businesspeople. The Daniels Fund is the largest private foundation in the Rocky Mountain region founded by the late cable giant, Bill Daniels. The Ethics Initiative is based on Daniels’ personal commitment to ethics and integrity that will expand ethics education throughout the business schools.

"We are honored and delighted to be among the universities selected for a grant that provides funding for an initiative that represents a core value of ours," said UNC President Kay Norton. "We’re committed to providing an education for our students that fosters ethical decision-making throughout their college lives and serves as the guiding force in their professional lives."

The grant will provide $250,000 annually to UNC, which a portion of the grant will create the Bill Daniels Distinguished Professor of Business Ethics within the Monfort College of Business. The professor hired for the new position will assess ethics instruction in the college, both develop and teach ethics curriculum that will be designed for new and existing business courses, and connect efforts to address ethics throughout the university, including incorporating an ethics module for use in introductory freshman college courses.

Portions of the grant will also go to providing ethics training to businesspeople through the community through continuing education, and share ethics curriculum for students throughout the university. In addition, the grant will provide $25,000 annually for student scholarships. The grant will also fund a computerized simulation tool that will help assess program effectiveness by testing graduating seniors’ ethical decision-making.

“While we think we'd like to make moral and ethical decisions, often it's not that clear. We'll provide framework in helping students with decision-making so they have something to utilize when they come across difficult and somewhat confusing gray areas we face in life,” stated Don Gudmundson, dean of the Monfort College of Business.

While the grant is only for five years, if it is successful among the colleges, the Daniels Fund may continue the program.

This initiative is highly anticipated to improve the campus environment and better prepare students to face real world dilemmas in the workplace and in daily life. All are looking forward to the positive additions and changes to come.

Joining UNC will be the University of Denver and University Wyoming, whose business schools have existing business ethics programs supported by the Daniels Fund, and fellow grant awardees Colorado State University, New Mexico State University, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, University of New Mexico and the University of Utah.

Additional Support to UNC from The Daniels Fund
Bill Daniels established the Daniels Fund to operate the Daniels Fund Scholarship Program and the Daniels Fund Grants Program in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. His estate transferred to the Daniels Fund when he died in March 2000. Shortly before his death in 2000 Bill Daniels contributed $4.1 million dollars to several endowments at UNC. Several of these contributions were made in the names of Joe Tennessen and Hank Brown. These accounts have funded dozens of generous scholarships in performing and visual arts, athletics and more. A portion of Daniels’ 2000 gift was also designated for campus construction and renovations projects.

The Daniels Fund has been a steadfast support of UNC since its board approved their first gift to Northern Colorado in 2001. To date their contributions to UNC surpass $3 million dollars (including their recent pledge of $1.25 million to MCB). Below is a list of the UNC programs outside of the Monfort College of Business that have received grants from the Fund.

Athletics - $350,000
Hank Brown Presidential Scholar-Athlete – Participate in football or wrestling; freshman must have a high school GPA of 3.0 or above; upper-classmen must maintain a minimum GPA of 3.0.

Harry W. Brown Wrestling Scholarship – Student athlete in the wrestling program; 2.5 GPA.

Audiology & Speech Language Sciences - $100,000
Audiology and Speech-Language Sciences offers educational programs in speech-language pathology and audiology, both with a clinical orientation. As part of the training program, the department also houses the Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology Clinic, which provide a variety of diagnostic and rehabilitative services to individuals of any age with speech, language, and/or hearing difficulties. The undergraduate program offers a pre-professional bachelor’s degree in speech-language pathology and audiology. At the graduate level, both the speech and audiology programs are designed to prepare students to become professional practitioners in their field. Training focuses on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of speech, language, hearing, and balance disorders in both children and adults.

Center for Urban Education - $525,000
The bachelor’s degree program prepares students to be elementary, special education or early childhood teachers in contemporary schools and provides the opportunity to immediately apply what they learn in their college courses. Throughout the four-year program, students spend weekday mornings in K-12 classrooms as part of apprenticeships that are supervised by veteran teachers.

Cumbres Program - $90,000
Cumbres is part of the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences. Cumbres, "Peaks" in Spanish, has a special focus - specifically, it is a teacher preparation program that seeks to recruit students who are committed to working with Hispanic school children, language minority students, and children of poverty in the public schools. UNC students in the Cumbres teacher preparation program are pursuing a specific endorsement in: Bilingual Education OR Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL), in addition to their intended endorsement(s).

Daniels Opportunity Scholarships - $300,000
The Daniels Opportunity Scholarship program seeks to provide scholarship funding for non-traditional students such as adults pursuing education later in life, GED recipients, returning military personnel, young people from the foster care system, students exiting juvenile justice programs, and those studying for their EMT or paramedic certificate.

National Center on Sensory and Severe Disabilities - $100,000
The National Center on Severe and Sensory Disabilities (NCSSD) is the nation’s premier resource center for information, training and technical assistance for families and educators of more than 1 million school children who are deaf and hard-of-hearing, visually impaired, or who have severe disabilities and is part of the University of Northern Colorado’s nationally recognized School of Special Education.

Teacher Training Ethics Pilot (collaboration across campus departments & w/ DU) - $560,000

If you wish to contribute to the ongoing ethics initiative at UNC, please contact Allie Steg Haskett '03, director of corporate and foundation relations, at (970) 351.3292 or allie.steghaskett@unco.edu.

For more information or to contribute to any programs please call the University of Northern Colorado Foundation at 970.351.2551 or visit us online at www.uncfoundation.org.

For additional information about the Daniels Fund visit www.danielsfund.org.