From the terraced amphitheater that overlooks Loch Norse to Griffin Hall's naturally lit commons, you are likely to see at least one building, landmark or room named for Eva G. Farris from just about anywhere on Northern Kentucky University’s campus. Until her death on Sept. 6, 2022, at the age of 103, she, along with her husband Oakley, were staunch supporters of the university’s continued growth, putting more than $4 million toward construction efforts, scholarships and research.
Mrs. Farris was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1918. She obtained a master’s degree in commerce at the University of Havana before making the decision to study business in the U.S. at Columbia University in New York City. She met Oakley in Miami, Florida, when a flight back to Havana was canceled due to inclement weather. Oakley, a salesman from Kentucky also stuck in a holdover, met Eva and her sister at a hotel and invited the two to dinner. Even when they parted ways soon after, Oakley continued to send Eva cards every day. Two years later, the couple married in New York City and moved to Covington in 1950.
“She was so intelligent,” Oakley says. “I don’t know how it happened, but she had this way of transferring her own thought process into my head. I’ve never been able to explain it, but in a sense, she guided me all of these years.”
Starting with a rental property that Oakley obtained through the G.I. Bill, the Farrises built a successful real estate business, owning 40 buildings and more than 100 apartments at the height of their success. The couple dedicated much of their fortune to charities and organizations in the northern Kentucky region, investing in local institutions like the Carnegie, the Behringer-Crawford Museum and Edgewood’s St. Elizabeth Medical Center. NKU has been one of their biggest beneficiaries, receiving gifts in the form of scholarships, renovations of Loch Norse and the MEP auditorium, now named the Eva G. Farris Auditorium, and sculptures like the statue of young Abraham Lincoln in front of Nunn Hall. Oakley says that their contributions to secondary education stemmed from a desire to provide future generations an experience that he wasn’t able to have himself.
"Eva loved this university, and not just NKU students, but young people across this region."
“My mom and dad were wonderful parents, but they had a third- and fifth-grade education,” he says. “As a young man, I never dreamed or even thought about going to university.”
Eva and Oakley took a particular interest in supporting NKU’s Haile College of Business, establishing the Eva G. Farris Business Scholarship Endowment Fund in 2002, which has benefitted hundreds of students since its inception.
“The role of the scholarship is significant,” says Dr. Hassan Hassabelnaby, dean of the Haile College of Business. “When you think about the majority of our students, I would say that half of them are low-income, first-generation students. This scholarship is really helping them to stay the course, finish and get a job. Many of these students who have received a scholarship could not have continued their education without it.”
Shortly after Hassabelnaby was named dean in 2019, he began working with the Farrises to create the Eva G. and Oakley Farris Leadership Academy, which launched in 2021.
“The idea started when I was talking with Oakley about our students and what we need to better prepare for the future,” Hassabelnaby says. “He said he would love to establish a leadership academy for our undergraduate students to enhance leadership skills for our students and make them very distinctive within the job market. I said, ‘OK , how can I support it?’”
The academy supports a 20-to-25-student cohort each year, beginning in the fall semester and concluding in the spring. Working with local business leaders and instructors to solve real-world business problems, students participate in a day-long workshop, attend seven meetings on campus and work toward a final presentation.
“Last year, they did a fantastic project about how we can help minority students in Cincinnati Public Schools realize the importance of a college education,” Hassabelnaby says. “They studied what was going on within the schools and why they didn’t pursue higher education, and they made a great presentation last year. Eva and Oakley liked the results from the Academy, so they gave us another gift last year to make sure it would continue to be well-funded.”
Though Oakley and Eva did not graduate from NKU's Haile College of Business themselves, Hassabelnaby adds that their giving was inspired by an appreciation for what a business education could do, giving a mix between business reality and theory.
“Eva loved this university, and not just NKU students, but young people across this region,” he says. “They really felt that they had a role to positively influence young people, whether they were high schoolers or college students.”
The couple have also taken a keen interest in the College of Informatics since its founding in 2006, and in 2014, the Farrises began supporting a similar scholarship for students there. In addition to providing financial assistance to students, their philanthropy played a major role in funding the construction of Griffin Hall, which opened in 2011. The building’s main entrance, the Eva G. and Oakley Farris Commons, was named in their honor.
“Like a lot of donors in the early days of informatics, they were very courageous to give to such a unique and unusual college,” says Dr. Kevin Kirby, dean of the College of Informatics. “I have to say, they were true influencers. Oakley had known some people around town who were initially skeptical about NKU creating a College of Informatics, and he would actually sell them on it. We’d be at events like Martinis and Mistletoe, and he would bring people over and say, ‘Hey, Kevin, tell these folks about Informatics and how great it is.’ Clearly, he and Eva believed in it.”
Two significant areas in the Health Innovation Center, which opened in 2018, bear Eva's name: its second-floor conference room and fifth-floor patio. The Farrises were early supporters of the university’s efforts to increase education opportunities for students pursuing degrees in health. Though the building itself was constructed using government funding, St. Elizabeth Healthcare Executive Director of the Institute for Health Innovation and Vice President for Health Innovation Dr. Valerie Hardcastle says that the Farrises’ financial support helped fill these spaces with state-of-the-art equipment, furniture and other extras.
“The final thing that they did for the Institute is give us a fund that really doesn’t have any strings attached other than furthering the aims of the institute,” Hardcastle adds. “That’s been particularly wonderful because during COVID, it allowed us to create and fund a book club for grade-school kids to teach them about health-related topics, and also, frankly, to give their parents a break. The first summer we did it, we thought we'd be lucky if we got 30 kids who signed up for this, and we ended up with over 100. Last year, we had over 150.”
