Miami University in Oxford has received the largest donation in its 217-year history, a commitment of up to $100 million from the Farmer Family Foundation for the Farmer School of Business, President Gregory Crawford announced Thursday, Nov. 5, during his annual State of the University address. The foundation was established by the late Richard T. “Dick” Farmer, a Miami alumnus who founded Cintas, and the gift will be paid over the next decade, starting with $55 million over the next three years, according to a university release reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The university says the commitment is also one of the three largest ever made to a public undergraduate business school in the United States, Poets&Quants reported. The announcement carried Miami past the $1 billion goal of its campaign, “For love. For honor. For those who will.” The Farmer School serves more than 5,000 students in Butler County.
“We are incredibly grateful to the Farmer family and the foundation for their unwavering dedication to our university,” Crawford said in the university release. “Generations of Miami students will benefit from their remarkable generosity.” Part of the commitment is structured to draw in other donors: a $25 million matching fund will match new gifts of $25,000 or more dollar for dollar, up to $2.5 million from any single donor, Poets&Quants reported. The full $100 million is not all guaranteed — Miami must earn the match, and later funding depends in part on the school meeting performance measures.
Dean Jenny Darroch said in the release that the money will speed career preparation at a moment when artificial intelligence is changing the starting point of nearly every career. The funds could help students earn industry certifications, join global experiential learning, and build data and emerging-technology skills, she said.
The gift continues more than three decades of Farmer family giving at Miami. Dick Farmer graduated in 1956 and founded what became Cintas in 1968; his wife, Joyce Farmer, earned an elementary education degree from Miami in 1957. The couple made the cornerstone gift to the business school in 1992, their foundation was the lead donor for the Farmer School building in 2005, and a $40 million gift in 2016 stood as the university’s largest until now.
Scott Farmer, the couple’s son and executive chairman of Cintas, said in the release that his family “has a long and treasured relationship with Miami University,” and that his parents were shaped by their time at Miami and passed a love of the university to their three children.
For Oxford and Butler County, the commitment means a decade of investment in one of the region’s largest institutions, with the first $55 million arriving over the next three years. What happens next is the matching challenge: Miami will work to bring in the new gifts that unlock the foundation’s $25 million match, while the terms of the remaining $45 million are still to be determined, according to Poets&Quants.