For immediate useNov. 5, 1997 -- No. 820

UNC-CH building to be named after Albert and Gladys Coates

By KARYN MITCHELL and ERIC MAY
UNC-CH News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- A university building that originally housed the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was named today (Nov. 5) after the couple who founded the institute.

Chancellor Michael Hooker announced the designation of the Albert and Gladys Coates Building at private luncheon at the Carolina Club. The building, at 223 E. Franklin St. which currently houses the Center for International Studies, was the original home of the Institute of Government.

The late Albert Coates, a former law school professor, conceived of the Institute of Government in the late 1920s, but it wasn't until September 1932 that the first class of the “Statewide School of Governmental Officers for the Study of Governmental Institutions in the Cities, Counties, and State of North Carolina” was held in Chapel Hill.

Coates described the institute as “a voluntary organization of public officials and private citizens coming together for continuous study of the structure and workings of government, in books and in action, in the cities, the counties and the state of North Carolina.”

Throughout the Depression, the institute was a private entity and received no state funding. Donations from Greensboro businessmen Ben and Caesar Cone helped get the institute started and enabled Coates to hire his first staff member in 1933. But funding remained a problem, and Coates and his wife, Gladys, used their personal savings to pay for many of the institute's expenses until it became part of the university in 1942.

Work on the institute's first building was completed in 1939 and it remained there until moving to its current location in the Joseph Palmer Knapp Building in 1956. The Coates' helped raise money for the construction of each building and Gladys Coates oversaw the decoration of both the Knapp Building and its Franklin Street predecessor.

Albert Coates served as the institute's director from 1932 to 1962. Today, the institute is one of the foremost university-based governmental training and research organizations in the United States.

Both Albert and Gladys Coates have received multiple awards honoring their contributions to the university. Both have professorships at the Institute of Government named after them. Albert Coates was given the O. Max Gardner Award in 1952, which is awarded by the 16-campus UNC system to a faculty member who makes the greatest contribution to the welfare of the human race within a given year. He also received the William R. Davie award in 1984.

Gladys Coates was the first recipient of the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award, given to women who make significant contributions to the university.

Following the institute's move to the Knapp Building, the Franklin Street structure housed the offices of UNC presidents Gordon Gray and William Friday. The School of Social Work occupied the building after the university system offices were relocated to the General Administration building.

Albert Coates died in 1989. Gladys Coates, now 95, attended and spoke at today's luncheon.

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News Services print contact: Karen Stinneford

News Services broadcast contact: Karen Moon