When the Eccles family initially proposed teaming with the Charles Koch Foundation to fund a new University of Utah business institute, Taylor Randall was hesitant.
“Like many of you, we said ‘gee we have heard a few things [about the Kochs],’ ” Randall, dean of the U.’s David Eccles School of Business, said Monday during a meeting of the U.’s academic senate.
But instead of declining the funding to start the Marriner S. Eccles Institute for Economics and Quantitative Analysis, Randall said he and his colleagues made sure there were safeguards built into the $10 million gift agreement to ensure academic freedom was preserved and the Kochs did not have undue influence.