The University of Kentucky's Gatton College of Business and Economics will no longer have to create a reading room named after controversial free-market advocate and novelist Ayn Rand as a requirement of a $2.5 million donation from BB&T.
Under a new agreement, $2 million will go toward the college's $65 million renovation and $500,000 will establish the BB&T Program for the Study of Capitalism. The original agreement was signed in 2004 and included BB&T giving out free copies of Rand's novels "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead."
Gatton Dean David Blackwell negotiated the new deal that was signed in November. Blackwell said he is a fan of Rand but "there are lots of other philosophers to study for the moral foundations of capitalism."