Students Encouraged to Expand Horizons through Business Scholarship

Max Anderson wanted it all.

He liked finance and statistics and business analytics. He was interested in computer science. He loved biology. He envisioned himself traveling and volunteering, maybe even joining the Peace Corps. He hoped to learn more about sustainability and business ethics.

A new scholarship program at the Daniels College of Business doesn’t just allow the first-year student to pursue all of the above. It encourages it.

“I think a lot of people who go into business want to do it for the money without really understanding the nitty gritty of the process behind it,” such as the coding on a website or equity issues in the workplace, Anderson says. “I really like that this scholarship emphasizes breaking that mold. I think at the core, it’s about more completeness.”

The inaugural Tomé Scholarship is a gift made possible by alumna Carol Tomé (MBA ’81, Hon. PhD ’18), the CEO of UPS and her husband Ramon. It provides a cohort of six female and/or minority students with $15,000 a year to branch out from their business education in meaningful ways.

Tomé Scholars are expected to follow one of two wide, customizable paths. They can major in finance, accounting or business analytics and earn a minor outside of Daniels. Or they can combine any business discipline with a double major in a science, technology, engineering, arts or math (STEAM) field.

Additionally, scholars are required to complete a leadership experience after their first year, complete an internship after their second or third year and travel with their cohort internationally on an expenses-paid trip.

“I think the entire experience from the get-go emphasizes a more complete outlook both on your education and your career afterwards,” says Anderson, a first-generation student of Hispanic heritage from Golden. “At its core, this scholarship emphasizes trying to balance the scientific part of education with the business dynamic of it. I think how those work together creates interesting results.”

That blend has long been a priority at Daniels, says Greg Grauberger, executive director of undergraduate programs. The Tomé Scholarship gives these students—selected based on a holistic evaluation including academics, extracurricular involvement and financial need—a foundation built on a set of mutual goals, shared by Tomé and her alma mater.

“In today’s ever-changing, fluid kind of world, we really want practitioners to have some of these hands-on skills that are very, very important,” Grauberger says. “As our dean [Vivek Choudhury] says, ‘We want to prepare you for jobs that aren’t even in existence yet.’ We don’t know what those jobs are, but we do know some of the tools that are required to have those jobs.”

For Tomé, it’s also about community. DU’s program is one of three she established at universities across the country. She hopes the scholars from Daniels can build relationships with students at the University of Wyoming and Atlanta’s Morehouse College of Medicine, forming a network of support as they progress through their careers.

While the three programs are tailored to their respective institutions and vary in focus, each emphasizes working for the public good—an ideal Tomé says took on new meaning during her time at DU.

“Daniels is internationally recognized for integrating social, environmental and ethical issues into its curricula,” she says. “Throughout our careers, we have led with integrity and a sense of purpose and credit DU for helping establish our north star.”

Grauberger is quick to push the gratitude back at Tomé.

“It really is furthering the way business is going to be done in the future,” he says of the scholarship she made possible. “Students can benefit and will benefit from this opportunity, because of someone who has decided to say: ‘That’s my school. I’m going to give back.’”