Richard I. Gouse

Gouse worked at the Massachusetts Trade Shop School as a laborer in the tool crib for the machine shop in the late 1950s and 1960s.[2] The Massachusetts Trade Shop School had been founded by Gouse’s grandfather, James Gouse, in the 1930s, and his father, Julian Gouse, succeeded his grandfather in running the school in the 1950s.

In 1968 Gouse started at the R.I. Trade Shop School and oversaw the initial accreditation of the school by the National Association of Trade and Technical Schools – an organization in which his father was a founding Director.

In 1971, Gouse became President[3] of the then New England Technical Institute, which had been founded by Ernest Earle in 1940. The school that Gouse inherited had four programs of study, seventy students and ten employees.

In 1976, Gouse led the effort to change the New England Technical Institute into a not-for-profit degree granting college and renamed it New England Institute of Technology. Today, over 70 years later, New England Institute of Technology has over 3,000 students, 35 degree-granting programs of study and 534 employees.

In 1963, Gouse earned a Certificate of Study from the University of Poitiers in France, and in 1968 he earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Brown University, majoring in Economics and minoring in Education.

• Member, Board of Incorporators, Kent County Memorial Hospital
• Member, Rhode Island Commodores
• Member, Executive Board, Brown Football Association
• Member, Executive Board, Brown Sports Foundation
• Past Member, Board of Incorporators, Eastland Bank
• Past Trustee, Providence Public Library

Gouse has served on numerous accreditation committees for the New England Association of Schools and Colleges' Commission on Vocational and Technical Career Institutions. He is a founding Director of the Rhode Island College Crusade, and is also a member and former Chair of the Rhode Island Association of Higher Education.

Gouse is a ‘Special Member’ of the Brown University Athletic Hall of Fame,[4] along with his wife Cheryl. He has been recognized by the Ivy League through the Gouse Trophy, presented annually to the Ivy League Women’s Tennis Champion. He is also a recipient of the prestigious Joslin Award, the Joukowsky Award, and the Jay Barry Service Award for his contributions to Brown University.

In 2019, Gouse was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame and recognized as the longest-serving U.S. college president at that time.[5]

Gouse resides in Barrington, Rhode Island[1] with his wife Cheryl (Connors) Gouse. They have one daughter, Carolyn. His interests include swimming, trapshooting and following his daughter’s equestrian career.