The Bowen H. "Buzz" McCoy Family

In 2008, the Ethics Center received a gift of $5 million from longtime supporters Bowen H. “Buzz” McCoy, a graduate of Stanford [1958] and his wife Barbara. Along with funds previously donated to the university by the McCoys, including an earlier gift to promote business ethics from Buzz and his first wife Janice Arthur McCoy Miller, a graduate of Stanford [1960], the McCoy family has contributed over $10 million in support of ethics education at Stanford. In recognition, the Ethics Center was renamed the Bowen H. "Buzz" McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society. 

Funds from the McCoys’ generous gift will support the core activities of the Center, including: faculty and curriculum development, a new post-doctoral fellows program, public programming and outreach, student fellowships, and interdisciplinary ethics research.

Buzz McCoy's business career was with Morgan Stanley. He also has been a philanthropist with a deep commitment to ethics education. His three children, including a daughter Elizabeth who graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford [1989], sit on the board of the Bowen H. and Janice McCoy Family Charitable Foundation. McCoy has long supported integrating ethical considerations with the demands of professional practice. He has taught ethics at a number of graduate business and theological schools and lectured widely. He has received writing awards from Harvard Business Review and Real Estate Counselor. His book, Living Into Leadership: A Journey in Ethics, was published by Stanford University Press in 2007.

The faculty and staff of the Center wish to convey their sincere appreciation to the McCoy family for their extraordinarily generous support and encouragement of ethics teaching, research and engagement at Stanford.


Patrick Byrne

In 2005, the Ethics Center received a substantial gift from Patrick Byrne, the founder and CEO of Internet retailer Overstock.com, who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Stanford [1996]. Funds from Dr. Byrne’s gift support the core activities of the Center and endow the Arrow Lecture Series on Ethics and Leadership. The series is named in honor of Nobel Laureate Kenneth Arrow, the Joan Kenney Professor of Economics and Professor of Operations Research, Emeritus, at Stanford.  Byrne wanted to mark Arrow’s contributions to the normative as well as the scientific dimensions of economics.

Byrne is a dedicated philanthropist who has supported important projects aimed at combating global poverty, improving the educational opportunities of America’s most disadvantaged children, and reforming business practices such as naked short selling. In 2001, he founded Overstock.com’s Worldstock to support industries and crafts in developing countries. He has served on the Ethics Center’s external advisory board.

Olive and Lyle Cook

In 1991, Lyle and Olive Cook established a fund to support undergraduate research in Ethics in Society. Lyle was an alumnus of Stanford (1940) and served as Associate Dean of the Stanford Medical School from 1958-1966.

The fund was established in honor of Olive and Lyle’s 50th wedding anniversary. Each year, a student is awarded the Cook Prize for outstanding work on their senior honors essay. The prize has recognized work on the ethics of social security, the ethics of organ donation, and the status of children in medical decision-making among other topics. Lyle Cook died in 2002.


Robert Wesson

In 1991, The Ethics in Society Program received a bequest from the late Robert Wesson -- a political scientist and Hoover Institution Senior Research Fellow who studied Soviet society – to support a lecture that would address problems in democratic theory and practice. Wesson was the author of more than 30 books on political science and international affairs, including The Russian Dilemma [1974], Politics, Policies and Economic Development in Latin America [1984] and Beyond Natural Selection [1991].  He hoped that these endowed lectures on Problems of Democracy would help students, scholars and community members think through important public problems. The lectures have featured some of the world’s most pre-eminent scholars including Amartya Sen, Ronald Dworkin and Bernard Williams.