The $20 million gift from Rick McVey – a 1981 Miami graduate – will lead to the creation of the Richard M. McVey Data Science Building in his honor.
The 85,000-square foot building, which will begin construction next year, will be located along Tallawanda Road on the Oxford campus near Withrow Hall and Benton Hall.
Miami officials released a statement noting the new building “will house one of Miami’s newest departments, Emerging Technology in Business and Design, as well as the departments of statistics and mathematics, the Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies, and the Center for Analytics and Data Science.”
Miami President Greg Crawford said this gift – which school officials said is one of the five largest donations in Miami history – will be central to making Miami’s vision of creating an academic epicenter for data science a reality.
“An interdisciplinary team of faculty and staff have been working on a design for this building that will transform our academic programs related to data science and digital technology. This gift makes that vision a reality,” Crawford said. “We are so grateful to Rick for his leadership, extraordinary generosity and his dedicated service to his alma mater.”
As the founder, chairman and CEO of New York-based MarketAxess, a leading international financial technology company and now part of the S&P 500 Stock Index, McVey is passionate about ensuring that Miami continues to advance the field of data science.
“Data science and artificial intelligence are having a profound impact on all sectors of the economy, and especially here at MarketAxess,” McVey said. “The demand for data science skills is growing rapidly in every industry. It is gratifying to help Miami build a distinctive program with this gift, which will increase access to data science programs for Miami students for many decades to come.”
McVey, whose daughter Taylor is a 2011 Miami alumna, has been a longtime supporter of the university.
He earned a B.S. in finance at Miami and was co-captain of the MAC-champion Miami golf team in 1981. McVey has been a generous supporter of both areas, endowing scholarships for Miami’s golf program and for the Farmer School of Business. He also serves as a member of the Miami University Foundation Board of Directors, where he is chair of the investment committee for the Miami endowment.
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