Four years later, several generous donors stepped forward to help the center expand as it continues to explore the role of entrepreneurship in advancing the well-being of society.

Donations announced at the end of 2019 totaling more than $5.7 million will allow the center to add two tenure-track faculty members in entrepreneurship and up to five doctoral fellows, plus staff for the center. The center will also partner with the Forcht Center for Entrepreneurship to examine ideas related to free enterprise through the lens of principled entrepreneurship.

The donors are:

• John Menard Jr., founder and owner of the chain of home improvement stores, $3 million
• Joseph W. Craft III Foundation, $2 million; 
• , a founding donor continuing its support, $737,000.

“Our students benefit from the rich experiences the Center for Free Enterprise provides,” said UofL President Neeli Bendapudi. “We are grateful for the opportunity to continue to inspire our community’s future business leaders through these generous gifts.” 

Since the center , it has hosted speakers on topics such as criminal justice reform, the transformation of China, crypto-currency and entrepreneurship in Senegal. Beginning in the Spring 2020 semester, the speaker series has been renamed the Menard Family Speaker Series.

“We will continue to reach a breadth of students, alumni and the public with our speaker series,” said Stephan Gohmann, director of the center. “Additionally, I’m excited the center is expanding into entrepreneurship, as many of our students are interested in starting businesses and innovating within their companies.”

The center also hosts reading groups that attract students from across the university.

Menards is a privately-owned and family-run home improvement business with 325 stores and 41 manufacturing facilities located in 14 Midwestern states.��Read an open letter from the Menard Family .��

Craft, a native of Hazard, Kentucky, and a graduate of the University of Kentucky, is president, CEO and chairman of Alliance Resource Partners LP, the second largest coal producer in the eastern United States.

The Charles Koch Foundation has funded over 400 programs at more than 250 U.S. colleges and universities. Its goal is to “break barriers that stand in the way of people realizing their potential through grant funding to scholars, students and partners developing creative solutions that empower individuals to transform their lives and to improve society.”

The Menard Family Speaker Series begins Jan. 30 with author James Otteson, Thomas W. Smith Presidential Chair in Business Ethics and economics professor at Wake Forest University. His talk will be, “Honorable Business: A Framework for Business in a Just and Humane Society.”

On Feb. 19, the center will present Clifton Taulbert, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated co-author of the book “Who Owns the Ice House? Eight Life Lessons from an Unlikely Entrepreneur.”

The series closes April 8 with a panel discussion and debate on school choice featuring Corey DeAngelis, Cato Institute Center for ����ֱ��al Freedom; Angela Dills, Western Carolina University; Peter Greene, The Progressive; and Helen Ladd, Duke University.

Check the Center’s for times, locations and more information.

The CEO Action Check Your Blind Spots interactive bus, sponsored by the College of Business, will be on Belknap Campus April 23, 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m. It will be parked in the circle near Gottschalk Hall, the Bingham Humanities Building and the Shumaker Research Building. Activities are free and open to the public.

Other stops on the tour are Humana (Monday), Bellarmine University (Wednesday, with the Lean Into Louisville citywide promotion), Yum! Brands (Thursday) and Papa John’s (Friday). Only the UofL and Bellarmine stops are open to the public.

The bus features virtual reality and gaming technology to teach about unconscious biases that can influence behaviors. It tours cities around the United States. Find out more about the tour .

Opening our campus to the tour is part of UofL’s public commitment to improving diversity and inclusion for students, faculty and staff. It is a direct result of UofL President Neeli Bendapudi’s signing the CEO Action for Diversity Inclusion Pledge Agreement last fall.

Created by CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion, the largest CEO-driven business commitment to improve diversity and inclusion within the workplace in the country, the Check Your Blind Spots tour last between 5 to 30 minutes. Among the activities are:

● Wake Up Call: A 100% audio experience, through a wall of ringing phones, participants pick up a receiver and overhear conversations between landlords, tenants and potential renters that reveal unintended bias.
● Look Through a Different Lens: Via gamification and digital viewfinder, participants watch an interaction between co-workers setting up a work-related event and then identify moments when unconscious biases are demonstrated.
● Face Yourself, Face Reality: In front of a mirror, participants watch as their reflection fades away to reveal a different person staring back at them. Through this touchscreen experience, each new reflection shares a series of biases they’ve experienced.

Follow the tour through Louisville on Instagram @CEO_Action and Twitter @CEOAction.

The letters installed Friday read LEAP. The acronym stands for Louisville, Entrepreneurial, Accelerating, Principled.

“We will be the example of building a business school that serves its constituents,” COB Dean Todd Mooradian said as the letters were unveiled. “These values define our intent and guide our activities as we LEAP forward as a college.”

The core values expressed by LEAP:

Louisville
We partner with the city of Louisville and the broader business community to develop programs and initiatives that support the growth of both a leading university and a thriving global city.

Entrepreneurial
We instill in all our students an entrepreneurial mindset, which enables them to recognize opportunities, drive creative change and pursue possibility.

Accelerating
We create access for all — regardless of differences, seen and unseen — to accelerate their lives and their successes in pursuit of personal and professional ambitions.

Principled
We develop principled citizens and business leaders who act ethically and with integrity, shaping sustainable and socially responsible organizations that change the world.

Mooradian said he hoped the sculpture will serve as a daily reminder to faculty, staff and students.

“I hope you walk by LEAP and say ‘I know why I am here. I know what I am contributing to. I know what to use as my North Star when I’m looking for direction and making decisions and making investments.’”

The partnership is part of the COB’s new Project on Ethical Leadership Excellence, which utilizes two decades of research to teach virtues-based leadership skills. With the help of faculty from the COB, the Athletics Department has already launched initiatives to develop and instill virtues such as integrity, service and learning into their policies and routines and has received training programs to empower leaders with the skills necessary to make these virtues a part of everyday experiences throughout the department.

“I have been fortunate to have had several good mentors throughout my business career who taught me how to be clear about expectations and make the right decisions, and I would like to help others,” said Vice President and Director of Athletics Vince Tyra, who personally donated $100,000 to start the project. The UofL Athletics Department and Adidas have each pledged to donate $100,000 a year for 10 years to continue and expand the program, for a total of $2.1 million that will be used for staff and program development.

“We expect this program to lay the groundwork to drive impactful leadership through clear expectations and a foundation of established values,” said Tyra. “We want UofL to be the standard-bearer of principled leadership in both athletics and business, and hope that this educational program under the direction of the College of Business can benefit others. It will strive to aid individuals in developing the leadership knowledge and skills necessary to develop a culture of ethical excellence.”

UofL athletics department staff members have already started the training. Additionally, UofL will offer the training to athletics departments at other ACC schools.

“We intend to develop a formal academic center in the College of Business to focus on these skills and the teaching of these skills,” said COB Dean Todd Mooradian. “This is a terrific opportunity to build high-impact programming that can help individuals, leaders and organizations excel within and outside UofL. We expect to provide our programming to other universities as well as organizations in the corporate and non-profit arenas. We are especially pleased to be developing focused and impactful offerings for athletics administrators and coaches.”

The training is based on research in moral psychology, positive psychology, positive organizational scholarship and leadership. The COB will develop materials for education and instruction that can be purchased by any organization.

“The long-term goal of this project is to promote scientific inquiry into how character and leadership work and how they can be improved,” said Ryan Quinn, associate professor of management, who is leading the training. “We want this project to be inclusive of the whole university community. Faculty from disciplines including philosophy, education, law, sociology and urban and public affairs are already joining in the conversation.”

“Y’all focus on winning,” Tyra told them. “Y’all focus on making great grades. I’ll take care of the rest.”

He told students at the College of Business in a talk Sept. 12 that he was confident he could transfer his business skills to the athletic department. All he had to do was use and teach the values he had developed throughout his career.

“We’ve needed change,” Tyra said. “These values will stick.”

Tyra was the first guest of the Center for Free Enterprise’s Fall Speaker Series. During his hour-long talk, “Business Values on the Field and in the Office,” he described how he has put the athletics department on a course for success by focusing on developing core values such as:

• Choose integrity first.
• Be accountable to the student-athletes.
• We win together: As decisions are made, consider the constituents.
• Treat customers so well that “they should feel guilty about not attending games and supporting us.”
• Always seek to improve.
• Share the “organizational playbook.” In other words, be transparent.

He also shared some tips that have worked for him throughout his career, such as the importance of being a good listener.

“Be quick to listen and slow to speak,” he said.

A former college baseball pitcher, Tyra said it is important to stay “focused on the batter” and to be a team player.

“I always say, ‘discuss, decide, support,’” he said.

Students said in surveys of the talk that they were inspired by Tyra’s words.

“My opinions were strengthened on how being ethical in everything you do can help you be successful,” one student wrote.