USF Muma College of Business receives $5 million donation

The USF Muma College of Business announced a $5 million donation Tuesday from philanthropist Lynn Pippenger to create an endowed deanship.

Moez Limayem, dean of the college and the first recipient of the deanship, said he was honored to change his email signature Tuesday morning to be the Lynn Pippenger dean of the Muma College of Business. He said the gift puts the business school in an elite group of named colleges with named deanships.

“For any business school there are some transformational moments that change its trajectory,” he said.

The funds will support the academic activities of the college’s dean, including faculty support and salaries, graduate fellowships and assistantships, faculty research awards, professional development support, conferences, publications, visiting lectures and speaker series.

Unlike state dollars, which are often tied to specific uses, private gifts allow colleges to invest in strategic priorities, Limayem said. Companies looking to come to Tampa often look to the talent in the city and USF’s ability to produce it, he said.

Pippenger donated $10 million in 2015 to name the Lynn Pippenger School of Accountancy housed in Tampa and $5 million the following year to name Lynn Pippenger Hall, which houses the Kate Tiedemann School of Business and Finance on the USF St. Petersburg campus.

“She taught us how to do consolidation before consolidation,” Limayem said, referring to the university’s just-completed effort to unite its three branches under a single accreditation, which resulted in some realignment.

Under consolidation, which took effect July 1, the Muma College of Business, based in Tampa, will house the Kate Tiedemann School of Business and Finance in St. Petersburg, which has its own endowed dean.

Pippenger is a USF alumna, who began working at Raymond James in the late 1960s as a payroll clerk and was later the company’s chief financial officer and treasurer. She helped in making the company public before retiring in 2012.

“We are extremely grateful to Lynn for her generosity and continued support of the University of South Florida,” USF President Steven Currall said in a statement. “By creating this endowment, she will generate new opportunities for USF students and faculty for generations to come, and enhance the impact of the Muma College of Business on the broader Tampa Bay region’s business community.”