The Cal Turner Program was originally conceived by Joseph Hough, dean, emeritus, of the Vanderbilt University Divinity School and Cal Turner, Jr. They envisioned a trans-institutional program that would intellectually probe the dimensions of moral leadership to the end of producing better leaders who represent both high achievement in their own professional spheres and leadership through their professions for the common good. Cal Turner, Jr. endowed the program in 1994 in the name of his father, Cal Turner, co-founder of Dollar General Corporation.