Love of Sports and UConn Leads to a Lifetime of Giving
A lifelong appreciation of athletics has taught Colleen Gruner ’82 the value of teamwork and leadership. Her strong ongoing support of UConn, particularly the women’s basketball program, is giving others the chance to learn those same lessons and many more.
Gruner, a business unit finance director at Aetna, recently made a major gift to support the UConn women’s basketball program. More than twenty years of major giving has now positioned her in the Charles and Augustus Storrs Circle of The Founders Society at the UConn Foundation.
While Gruner didn’t participate in UConn athletics personally, she was an accomplished high school athlete and sees the importance of sports to her success.
“Particularly when you play team sports, you learn traits like leadership, communication skills, collaboration, and how to work toward common goals. These are skills that you can use throughout your life,” she says.
“Basketball brought national prominence to an already good school. The entire University has benefited from its athletic success. It has helped UConn to recruit better students and student-athletes, attract donors, and build up the entire university,” she says. Gruner credits the UConn women’s basketball team with energizing alumni and fans, including her whole family, from an out-of-state niece who listens to UConn games on the Internet, to her 89-year-old father who faithfully follows the Huskies.
“The women who play for UConn have become role models,” she says. “They’re succeeding on and off the court, and not only while they are at UConn, but also after graduation. By donating, hopefully I’m giving these great young women a chance to succeed and grow even more.”
UConn Director of Athletics Jeffrey Hathaway says that the support of fans and alumni like Gruner has helped to transform the Division of Athletics and the university.
“We deeply appreciate Colleen’s dedication to our women’s basketball program,” Hathaway says. “Her generosity is allowing our student-athletes to succeed in the classroom and on the court, and helping to prepare them for whatever their future brings.”
Along with her support for the Division of Athletics, Gruner has also contributed to support the School of Business and speaks highly of the education she received as an undergraduate.
“I had a very positive experience at UConn, both academically and personally,” she says. “My experience in the School of Business—particularly with accounting Professors Gramling, Hussein and Kochanek—has given me the foundation for a successful career.”