English alumnus Dick Shahan recently made a $75,000 gift commitment to CU-Boulder â $50,000 of which established an endowment to create the Dick Shahan CU-Boulder Undergraduate Writing Competition, expected to generate an annual prize of $2,000 for a prose piece that features Boulder. The additional $25,000 will fund the Shahan Graduate Fellowships in the CU-Boulder English Department, providing an annual $1,000 research grant for an English graduate student.