Biedenharn family’s $900,000 in private donations have allowed the different departments of ULM to receive funds from Louisiana’s Board of Regents.

The board provided $600,000 in matching funds and resulted in $1.5 million in faculty endowments.

“Initially, the first generation of Biedenharns were very generous with their money and they gave money to the university which was put aside. So, the amount that they gave could not be touched. Only the earnings from the named endowments,” said Dr. Nick Bruno, ULM president.

Several years ago, the family allowed the university to take some of those funds and put it up to serve as a match with the board’s funds.

This allowed the original fund to grow, expanding the services and endowed professorships           and chairs.

The proposal written by Dr. Ron Berry, the dean of the college of business and social sciences, was able to impress the board which led to ULM being one of the few colleges to receive the funding.

The proposal is very competitive.

“When we compete for these things, we are competing with LSU who is doing medical school proposal and [Louisiana] Tech doing all engineering proposals,” Berry said.

Berry said the major impact of the funding is that it “helps us recruit and retain outstanding faculty members.”

The Biedenharn family legacy has created different faculty and chairs with a different principal amount. The chair in business has a principal of $1 million which is followed by the professorship in music, biotechnology, academic innovation center, communication and computer information systems with a principal of $100,000 each.

This fund will help each department and professor conduct more research and attend more conferences.