Founders Day Recipients
Founders Day celebrated with alumni awards
The Founders Day awards for Distinguished and Honorary alumni are among the highest honors from the University of Utah, alongside only honorary doctorates. On March 8 in Salt Lake City, the annual Founders Day gala celebrates outstanding U alumni and friends by recognizing their exceptional professional achievements and/ or public service, as well as their support of the university. The event will also recognize our inspiring 2018 Founders Day Scholar.
Distinguished Alumni
Kate Conyers BA’03 JD’08 MPA’08 excels in public service as a felony attorney at the Salt Lake Legal Defender Association, where since 2011 she has represented hundreds of indigent defendants. She also provides extensive pro bono work, including spearheading the Veterans Administration Legal Clinic at the VA Hospital on the U campus. Her public service also reaches into the “And Justice for All” program for Utah’s most vulnerable citizens, and the Wills for Heroes and Serving our Seniors programs with the Utah State Bar, where she is a commissioner. Conyers has been recognized for her service and contributions at both the local and national level, including with the prestigious American Inns of Court Sandra Day O’Connor Award for Professional Service.
Skip Daynes ex’66 left the U to take over his family’s Daynes Music Company in 1967, becoming its fourth-generation leader and taking it to new heights, allowing him to widely support performing arts companies, community music festivals, major arts competitions, music classes at Title I schools in underserved areas, and more. His generosity to the U’s School of Music includes numerous pianos, competition prizes, and graduate assistantships, and he was key to it receiving the prestigious All-Steinway School designation. He has served the music school’s advisory board and chaired the U’s College of Fine Arts Board. He has also donated grand pianos to the University Hospital, Huntsman Cancer Institute, and Primary Children’s Hospital and volunteers in hospitals with Intermountain Therapy Animals.
Marcia Madsen BA’72 (J.D., Washington College of Law, and LLM, Georgetown University), a partner in the international law firm of Mayer Brown LLP, has been named to the list of Washington (D.C.)’s Top Lawyers by
Washingtonian Magazine every year since 2009. A member of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims Advisory Council, she co-chairs the American Bar Association’s procurement fraud committee and has led numerous other committees and special task forces. With a high-level security clearance, her areas of concentration include aerospace and defense contracts, and she has litigated before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and other federal and state courts and administrative agencies. An Honors graduate of the U, she is a member of the U’s National Honors Advisory Board.
Charles Sorenson BA’73 (M.D. Cornell University) is president emeritus and former CEO of Intermountain Healthcare. With Intermountain since 1982, he helped create its integrated practice of some 1,500 doctors. He is now founding director of the Intermountain Healthcare Leadership Institute and continues a practice focused on urologic oncology. A board-certified urologic surgeon and Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, Sorenson has also served as an adjunct associate professor of surgery at the University of Utah School of Medicine and as educational director of LDS Hospital’s Urologic Residency (a joint program with the U). He is a member of the American Medical Association and has repeatedly been recognized by Modern Healthcare as among the top healthcare executives in the country.
Honorary Alumni
Sam and Diane Stewart widely support local and global education, the arts, and more. Sam (B.S., Northwestern; MBA and Ph.D., Stanford) is founder, chairman, and portfolio manager of Wasatch Advisors, a nationally and internationally respected financial and investment firm. He was previously a chief financial analyst with the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission and has taught finance at Columbia University and at the University of Utah. Diane (B.S., BYU) owns Modern West Fine Art Gallery and is a civic activist. She volunteers her time on boards including the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Intermountain Healthcare Foundation, and Utah Shakespeare Festival. Through their family foundation, the Stewarts have helped bring financing to arts institutions including the UMFA and Springville Museum of Art. They have also generously supported human rights and access to health care for the elderly.
Founders Day Scholar
Our 2018 Founders Day Scholar Brenda Ramirez is, and isn’t, your average student. She is a first-generation Latina undergrad, in her sophomore year—a certified phlebotomist who intends to major in nursing. And in 2017, her father was deported. “Experiencing my father’s deportation, and handling all the legalities and emotionally shaking [proceedings], was very difficult,” says Ramirez.
Ramirez’s responsibilities became heavier—and more dire—when her family was torn apart. Since her father was sent back to Guatemala, her mother has been keeping the family landscaping business afloat, leaving Ramirez in charge of her four-year-old sister a great deal of the time, as well as providing additional financial help to her family.
Yet besides her course load as a student, caring for her sister, and her job at the AAA Fair Credit Foundation (helping others manage debt), Ramirez still finds time to volunteer. With the U’s Beacon Scholars Program, she has served meals to homeless youth—earning Project of the Year in 2017—and she works with U Path to inspire area high school students to come to the U.
“Brenda has demonstrated great leadership and stability to support not only herself, but her mother and younger siblings,” notes Alonso Rivarola, program coordinator of the Dream Center. “It is unfair to see a young University of Utah student undergo such hardship.”
Currently a part-time student, Ramirez is on track to continue her education while supporting her family. “I want to make everything my parents sacrificed for myself and my siblings be worth it,” she says.
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