Jimmy Davis gives $100,000 toward Ole Miss accountancy building

A $100,000 gift from retired University of Mississippi accountancy professor James W. Jimmy Davis is adding another piece to the financing of Jones Hall, the planned new home for the Patterson School of Accountancy. The donation lands inside a much larger $125 million project at the corner of University Avenue and Grove Loop, where Ole Miss plans to build a 100,000-square-foot facility overlooking the Grove.

Davis’s gift carries weight beyond the dollar amount because of who is giving it. He taught and mentored students for 55 years and is widely regarded as one of the bedrock figures in the Patterson School’s rise, alongside the late H.E. Gene Peery. University leaders have framed his contribution as both financial support and a signal to other alumni that the campaign still needs private backing to bring the building forward.

Jones Hall is expected to do more than give accountancy students a new address. Ole Miss says the four-story building will include classrooms, study areas, conference rooms, administrative and faculty office suites, outdoor areas and tiered auditoriums. The school says the new home is also meant to support enrollment growth and program expansion, while freeing space in Conner Hall for the School of Business Administration to grow.

The scale of the Patterson School helps explain why the project matters. Ole Miss describes it as the nation’s only autonomous school of accountancy, with accountancy part of the university since 1848. The school has been nationally ranked every year since 2005 and has spent 13 straight years in the top 10. It is currently ranked No. 8 nationally and No. 1 in the Southeastern Conference.

The degree output is already substantial. Over the past five fiscal years, the Patterson School granted 1,379 bachelor of accountancy degrees and 990 master’s degrees, including data analytics and traditional master’s programs. Over its 55-year history, the school has produced about 130 Ph.D. graduates. That kind of pipeline is what makes the building more than a campus beautification project, since it is designed to strengthen recruiting for students, faculty and staff and give employers a clearer path to a larger, better-equipped talent base.

The fundraising campaign had already passed $15 million in private support by September 2024, and the school has used naming opportunities and even $500 personalized bricks to draw in donors at every level. Jonathan B. Jones gave $10 million toward the project in October 2024, and the building is slated to carry the Jones Hall name pending approval from the state Institutions of Higher Learning board of trustees. For Oxford and Lafayette County, the project is another visible sign of how private giving keeps reshaping the campus footprint and the long-term economic profile around it.