Reflections on Thirty Years of Leadership
William P. Leahy, SJ, is stepping down as Boston College’s longest-serving president.
An architectural rendering of a renovated Carney Hall, to be renamed Cadigan Hall in honor of the late Patrick F. Cadigan ’57, P’91.
Rendering: Suffolk Design
Reimagining Carney Hall
The largest commitment in BC history will transform middle campus.
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Boston College has received a $125 million philanthropic commitment, the largest in University history, from the Patrick F. Cadigan Family Foundation, funded by the estate of the late Patrick F. “Pat” Cadigan ’57, P’91.
Pending approval by the BC Board of Trustees, the commitment will help support the renovation of Carney Hall, including a fifty-thousand-square-foot addition that will create a central location for the social sciences—featuring the departments of economics, political science, psychology and neuroscience, and sociology—and the Office of Campus Ministry.
It is the latest contribution from the former high-tech leader and real estate investor, who died in 2020 at the age of eighty-five. It follows his $15 million gift that established the Cadigan Alumni Center on the Brighton Campus in 2012. Upon the building’s reopening, Carney Hall will be renamed Cadigan Hall.
Patrick F. Cadigan ’57, P’91 with BC President William P. Leahy, SJ, in 2012. Photo: Gretchen Ertl
Cadigan, who served as CEO and president of the Electronic Engineering Company of California (EECO) and became one of the largest private real estate holders in Orange County, cited his Jesuit education as a crucial influence in his personal development and professional success. “My education at Boston College was a great experience that taught me the importance of hard work and instilled in me values and discipline that stayed with me throughout my years,” Cadigan said in a 2012 interview with Boston College Chronicle.
University President William P. Leahy, SJ, said he was grateful to Cadigan for his generosity and unwavering commitment to Boston College. “Pat was a person who appreciated his Jesuit education and the role it played in shaping his life,” Fr. Leahy said. “He loved BC, and his philanthropy will have a lasting effect on the University.”
David Quigley, the Robert L. and Judith T. Winston Provost and Dean of Faculties, said the facility addresses key academic aspirations while providing a major upgrade to BC’s middle campus. “Cadigan Hall will bring beautiful collegiate Gothic architecture to the Beacon Street end of middle campus,” Quigley said, “and provide a state-of-the-art home for the social sciences, which will encourage deeper connections to campus neighbors in the humanities, management, and the sciences.”
The son of Irish immigrants, Cadigan worked nights in his family’s Irish pub in Cambridge while a student at BC to help defray the cost of his tuition. Upon graduating, he worked as a product manager at Sylvania Electronic Systems in Waltham before being recruited to the West Coast to oversee sales and marketing for EECO. He rose rapidly to become its president and CEO, running the company for twenty years and expanding it both nationally and internationally before retiring in 1986. “My parents were not able to obtain a formal education, so I felt a very personal responsibility to give back to the schools that educated and shaped me,” Cadigan said in the 2012 interview.
Maria Cadigan ’91, his youngest daughter, said she was proud to see that her father’s gift will have such an important impact on their alma mater. “My father had a close personal relationship with Fr. Leahy for more than twenty-five years and he felt very committed to make such an impactful gift during his presidency,” she said. “This gift will affect so many great minds that will be coming through the doors of Cadigan Hall. It is exactly what my father would have wanted.” ◽
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