Boyko Donates $1 Million to VCU Adcenter

By Pamela DiSalvo Lepley and Tom Gresham

Rick Boyko, managing director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Adcenter, has announced that he and his wife Barbara will donate $1 million toward a development campaign for the nationally acclaimed graduate advertising school and set up a scholarship in their name.

While VCU will fund the initial $9 million construction bill for a new home for the VCU Adcenter, which was ranked the No. 1 advertising program in the United States by Creativity magazine in 2005; the $10 million development campaign will raise money to pay back the university and establish an endowment for future needs.

"Rick's donation to the VCU Adcenter is nothing short of remarkable," said Mike Hughes, president and creative director of The Martin Agency and chairman of the VCU Adcenter board. "It is an amazing display of leadership and devotion that should show the way for the entire advertising industry."

The VCU Adcenter's new home – a historic building in the shadow of The Jefferson Hotel, one of Richmond's and Virginia's finest hotels – will encompass 27,000 square feet. Clive Wilkinson, who's designed spaces for the likes of Google, the Fashion Institute of Design, TBWA/Chiat/Day and FCB Worldwide, is the project's lead architect along with Richmond-based Baskervill.

"The Adcenter has been in the same space since its inception in 1996," said Boyko, who was the chief creative officer and co-president of Ogilvy & Mather North America before taking over the VCU Adcenter in 2003.

"We've simply run out of space. Our new school will celebrate open architecture, knocking down the walls allowing for free thinking and collaborative idea generation. To ensure our core competency will always be creativity and collaboration, our students must be in a progressive environment, one that looks different, feels different and makes them wonder if their work deserves the shelter of this new space."