Planned gifts & gifts-in-kind

When Joseph Pataki, BEng 74, talks about the arc of his life, the engineer and entrepreneur keeps coming back to two things: his late wife, Gabriella, and his alma mater.

Talking about Gabriella, who died at age 74 in October 2021, is still difficult for Pataki. But it is thanks in large measure to her that the graduate of Sir George Williams University — one of Concordia’s founding institutions — has pledged $75,000 to create an endowment in support of the Joseph and Gabriella Pataki Scholarship for International Female Students in Engineering.

He has also included a $125,000 bequest in his will to continue his support for the endowment — a legacy that he and Gabriella will leave at the university.

Although they didn’t meet at Sir George, he and Gabriella dated while he was a student there, attending night courses in the late 1960s. By 1971, when Pataki enrolled to earn his degree in mechanical engineering, they were married and had a daughter, Erika.

His late wife — who was born Gabriella Muranyi in Hungary and emigrated with her parents in the late 1950s following the Hungarian Revolution — “was very much part of me and supplemented my vision,” Pataki says. She supported him, working full-time at Bell Canada while Pataki balanced his studies with a job as a draughtsman at Canadair.

“She played a very big part in our success,” he adds, alluding to the recent 40th-anniversary of the firm he co-founded, Quad Engineering.

The experience of the women in his life — his wife, his daughter and now his granddaughter — led Pataki to support engineering education for women.

Directing that philanthropy specifically toward international students arises from his own roots as the son of Hungarian immigrants and his pride in Concordia’s growing international reputation.

“Concordia has had a big influence on me,” Pataki says. “It helped me to develop my independent thinking and risk-taking. I have been amazed at how the faculties and graduate-studies programs have grown over the last 50 years.”

Avrum Miller, BA 69, MBA 86, and Louise Singer, BA 77, pledged a bequest of $1.5 million to create an endowment in support of undergraduate and graduate scholarships across faculties.

The estate of John D. Jackson donated a total of $481,000 to support the Concordia Centre for Broadcasting and Journalism Studies (CCBJS). Jackson, the former chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology who co-founded the CCBJS more than four decades ago – which is now called the Centre for Journalism Experimentation (JEX) – passed away in November 2021 at age 89.

A three-time graduate of Concordia who resides in the United States made an anonymous bequest of $300,000 USD to the Faculty of Arts and Science.

Sandra L. Curtis, PhD 97, professor emerita in the Department of Creative Arts Therapies, made a planned gift of $245,000 to endow scholarships for graduate students in music therapy.

A planned gift of $122,000 will honour the memory of Elizabeth Merson Ostro, BA 44, who passed away in 2020 at age 98, through a named bursary for students in the Department of Studio Arts.

A donation of $50,000 from the estate of Gerald J. Wareham, BComm 50, will support Concordia’s Greatest Needs.

Les Lawton — Concordia Sports Hall of Famer and former Concordia Stingers women’s hockey coach — made a planned gift of $50,000 in support of women’s varsity hockey.

John De Vries, BA 65, and his spouse made a bequest of 25 per cent of their estate toward bursaries for students enrolled in the Department of Sociology.

Martin E. Hill, BComm 70, made a significant bequest to the Loyola College Alumni Endowment out of appreciation for the education he received at one of Concordia’s two founding institutions.

A retired faculty member made a substantial bequest to supplement an endowment for Faculty of Arts and Science scholarships.

The Altus Group provided the John Molson School with software licences worth more than $1.3 million. The gift will provide real-estate finance students with access to ARGUS, the company’s asset and portfolio management enterprise software.

Multidisciplinary artist Pnina C. Gagnon donated archival materials to the Concordia Library and Archives, a gift-in-kind valued at more than $47,500.

Leila Sujir, professor emeritus in the Department of Studio Arts, donated archival material related to her research and work to the Concordia Library and Record Management and Archives, a gift-in-kind valued at $28,000.

A work of art by prominent Quebec painter and retired faculty member Françoise Sullivan was donated to the Department of Studio Arts by staffer Tony Patricio, a gift-in-kind valued at $25,000.