The University of Montana’s School of Business Administration now has a permanent endowed position thanks to a gracious gift from Carol Jean Byrnes on behalf of her husband Donald.

"We were lucky enough to receive a gift from a donor who passed away recently. She, through a community foundation in Tampa Bay, Florida, gave us $1 million to endow a professorship of finance at the School of Business Administration," Kate Stober from the UM Foundation said. "Her husband was a UM alum and really gave back to UM in a lot of different ways."

The Donald and Carol Jean Byrnes Professorship in Finance has been filled by Professor Keith Jacobs since 2007, but this endowment ensures that he won’t be the last.

"She created this professorship, the Byrnes Professorship of Finance, in 2003 and we've had two wonderful professors here serving in that position since then," Stober said. "Now with this most recent $1 million gift, she's endowed the position. So we'll have funding for a perpetuity, which is amazing."

This endowment isn’t Carol Jean Byrnes’ only aid to UM either. In 1997 she started a merit-based scholarship for business undergraduate and graduate students from Montana that has helped fund 25 students so far.

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