![Andrew Siebengartner
'03 excelled in the John Dewey Honors program and hopes to share his love of classical languages with the next generation of students and scholars.
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President Danel Mark Fogel and Rachel Kahn-Fogel, Jim and Judy Keller, Dean Rocki-Lee DeWitt, and Professor Jim Gatti.
07.12.04 KELLER FAMILY'S $2.3 MILLION GIFT SUPPORTS HONORS SEMINAR IN FINANCE
When Professor Jim Gatti began thinking about an honors experience for the top students in the School of Business Administration, he wanted to create something unique. Gatti set out to build an honors experience distinguished by its academic rigor. The result was the Honors Seminar in Finance, which puts students in front of UVM alumni working in the major investment banking markets for a penetrating examination of their analysis of real-world investment decisions.
Now, with a major gift to The Campaign for the University of Vermont, alumnus James R. Keller, Sr. '72 and his wife Judith have established the Keller Family Fund for Honors Preparation in Finance, a $2.3 million commitment that will endow Professor Gatti's honors seminar and provide additional funding for summer internships and for the student Finance and Investment Club.
"This is remarkable generosity," said Professor Gatti. "An endowment like this ensures that we'll be able to offer our best students a first-rate honors experience in perpetuity."
James Keller is senior vice president of Weyerhaeuser, a company he's been with for some 30 years. "I've always looked at UVM as a kind of launching point for my career," he says. His son, James, Jr., graduated from UVM in 2003 and was a student in Jim Gatti's first honors seminar. "Absolutely first class" is how Keller
describes the UVM experience. "We're very impressed by the quality of the curriculum and facilities and excited at the direction UVM is taking. We wanted to be able to contribute to its future success with something that will make the student experience even richer."
James Keller, Jr., is currently working as a financial analyst with investment bankers Houlihan, Lokey, Howard & Zukin in New York City. He says he was excited to learn that his family's name will be permanently associated with the Honors Seminar in Finance, which he describes as a high point of his experience at UVM. "We spent three intense months analyzing companies, learning about debt markets and risk assessment, and then putting it all together in our presentation," he says. "It was an amazing experience."