Alumni Gift Brings Esteemed Minds to Miami

By Sara LaJeunesse

In the 1980’s, students and faculty of the University of Miami’s Department of Mathematics were treated to annual seminars that provided them with the opportunity to learn about new topics from some of the world’s best mathematicians and to exchange ideas with them. Known as the McKnight Lecture Series, it was created and sustained by donations from alumnus Jeffry B. Fuqua.

A holder of undergraduate and PhD degrees in mathematics from the University of Miami, Fuqua knows the value of having outstanding guest lecturers on campus. “When I was a student, I benefited from attending seminars; they really helped me focus my thinking,” he said. “That’s why I decided to help the math department by re-establishing the McKnight Lecture Series.”

The series, which was named after Fuqua’s PhD advisor James D. McKnight Jr., has been renamed to include Alan Zame, the long-time chair of the Department of Mathematics. “Jeff was such a bright student,” said Zame, who was a professor and friend of Fuqua’s during graduate school at UM. “He really was a gifted mathematician and a good paddleball player.”

But although Fuqua had great promise and the desire to pursue a job in the field, circumstances at the time prompted a change of plans. “When I graduated in 1972, it was very difficult to find academic jobs,” he said. “It was the end of a 10-year build-up in space research and the government had cut its support of math and science. I was forced to pursue other avenues.”

So with the same kind of determination that carried him through the highest level of education, Fuqua built a successful business in Orlando, Florida. The company, called Amick Construction, Inc., builds highways, underground utilities, commercial structures, and single-family homes.

While he is happy with the direction his career took, he still wonders what life would have been like as a mathematician. He decided to help today’s students prepare for academic jobs in mathematics because, while opportunities are now greater than they were when he graduated, students still face certain constraints during their period of training. Extra cash for things such as lecture series, for example, remains in short supply, which is why Fuqua’s donations to the math department are so important.

“Without Jeff’s support, we wouldn’t have a lecture series,” said Zame. “And without a lecture series, our students and faculty would have fewer interactions with great mathematicians from other universities and institutes.”

In addition to funding the McKnight-Zame Lecture Series for three years, Fuqua’s gift supports a longer-term visitor to the math department – Maxim Kontsevich, winner of the Fields Medal and Crafoord Prize. A professor of mathematics at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in France, Kontsevich began visiting the University of Miami in 2002 in order to teach and is now a distinguished professor in the Department of Mathematics.

“Dr. Kontsevich is a real luminary,” said Fuqua. “It is so important for the department to have people like him around.”