NEWS

Photo note:  To download a photo of Coates, see bottom of  the release.

CHAPEL HILL -- Gladys Coates, one of the most influential women in the history of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, died at her Chapel Hill home Wednesday (Sept. 25). She was 100 years old.

UNC Chancellor James Moeser this morning informed the UNC Board of Trustees of her death and asked those attending the meeting to observe a moment of silence in her honor.

Moeser called her "unquestionably one of the most important figures, along with her beloved husband Albert, in Carolina’s history. Together, they founded the Institute of Government and made so many critical contributions to the life of Carolina over the years."

A native of Portsmouth, Va., Coates was born in 1902 and graduated from Randolph-Macon Women’s College in 1924 with a bachelor’s degree in history. A researcher and writer of UNC history and a dedicated editor, she and her late husband, Albert, published "The Story of Student Government in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill" in 1985. That partnership, begun in the early 1930s, produced dozens of books and monographs, some bearing only Albert’s name on the cover but all influenced by Gladys’s keen intellect and close attention.

She also was instrumental in the founding of UNC’s Institute of Government. Albert Coates established in the now world-renowned institute in 1931, using the couple’s own funds, even mortgaging their house, and help from friends to finance the institute’s activities. The first Institute of Government building was dedicated in 1939 but it was not until 1942 that the institute itself became an integral part of UNC. Today, the institute, part of the School of Government, serves as a model for other states as the oldest, largest and most influential university-based public service organization in the United States.

The building on Franklin Street that first housed the institute was named the Albert and Gladys Coates Building in 1997. Gladys and Albert Coates also are the first couple to have separate endowed professorships named in their honor at Carolina. They both received the General Alumni Association’s

Distinguished Service Medal and the Board of Trustees’ William Richardson Davie Award, and are only the second couple to both have received honorary degrees from Carolina (the first were President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor). The university honored Gladys Coates with an honorary doctor of laws degree in May 2001.

Gladys Coates won Chi Omega’s North Carolina Distinguished Service Award for Women in 1974 and was the first recipient of the Cornelia Philips Spencer Bell Award (1994). She was a member of the Order of the Valkyries, the Order of the Golden Fleece, the North Caroliniana Society, the Friends of the Library and the Chancellor’s Club.

Funeral will be held Wednesday, Oct. 2 at 2 p.m. at the Chapel of the Cross. Burial will follow in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. Walker’s Funeral Home is handling the arrangements.

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Photo URL: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/alum/coates_gladys.jpg

Contact: Mike McFarland, (919)962-8593