PC receives $500K gift for new business studies center

PROVIDENCE – A business administration professor emeritus at Providence College has pledged $500,000 to the new business studies center, expected to open in 2017.
Gustave C. Coté pledged the funds to the college for the Arthur and Patricia Ryan Center for Business Studies, which will house the college’s School of Business program.
The college plans to name the accounting and finance instructional laboratory off the building’s atrium for Coté, who is 92, and for his wife, Rita, who died in 2009.
President Rev. Brian J. Shanley expressed gratitude for the gift.
“Gus Cote was the face of PC’s Business Studies program for multiple generations of Providence College students,” Shanley said. “He brought both energy and passion to his teaching, and he was able to pass that on to the lion’s share of the students who sat in his classes. Gus is remembered fondly at PC.”
Cote said his gift is meant to acknowledge three loves: teaching, accountancy and the young people he taught along the way.
“My wife is no longer with me, but she was very, very much involved with me in helping out young people, primarily,” said Coté. “The idea is that we had no children, and so we pretty much steered our help toward what we love, like the college. I’ve been a pretty happy individual. I don’t have one reason for giving. I give because I enjoy it.”
For more than 35 years, Coté has supported every college fundraising campaign and made substantial gifts for construction of the Smith Center for the Arts and St. Dominic Chapel. He retired in 1989, but always maintained unflagging generosity to the college and ties to former students, Shanley said.
“Gus Coté was a masterful professor who set a standard — as an engaged, caring and knowledgeable teacher — that we endeavor to follow to this day,” said Sylvia Maxfield, School of Business dean. “His generous support carries extra meaning for us, because it reflects a lifetime of commitment to Providence College and its students.”
A native of Woonsocket, where he graduated from Mount Saint Charles Academy, Coté served in the U.S. Army in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He graduated from La Salle University in 1951 and earned an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1952, the same year he was hired to teach business administration at PC.
Coté was named assistant professor in 1955, associate professor in 1959, and professor in 1965. He served in various leadership roles throughout his tenure.

No posts to display