The Shuford family, which owns a large tape business based in Hickory, made an $18 million gift to UNC Chapel Hill’s College of Arts & Science to expand its undergraduate entrepreneurship program.
It’s the largest single one-time gift by a family or living individual in the college’s history. It is aimed at supporting students who want to enroll in entrepreneurship courses.
The gift will create three additional entrepreneurs-in-residence and up to four faculty fellows, and will create up to 70 student internships and a lecture series on innovation and entrepreneurship.
The Shufords are a fifth-generation UNC Chapel Hill family. Abel Alexander Shuford Jr. was a member of the class of 1900. His great-grandchildren, sibilings Jim Shuford and Stephen Shuford, of Charlotte, and Dorothy Shuford Lanier, of Bedford, N.Y., also UNC alumni, made the gift to Carolina. Jim, CEO of STM Industries, received his undergraduate degree from UNC in 1988 followed by his MBA in 1992; Stephen, CEO of Shurtape Technologies, earned his MBA from Kenan-Flagler Business School in 1997; and Dorothy earned her undergraduate degree in 1993.
Shurtape Technologies grew out of Shuford Mills, founded in 1880, a textile yarns manufacturer. In 1955, the company started a tape division to make basic crepe and paper tapes. Shurtape now has 12 plants and distribution centers around the world.