Yoh Family Endows Professorship

Two generations of Yohs, one of Duke’s most prominent families, will endow a professorial chair in the social sciences.

The chair, the second Yoh Family Professorship at Duke, will be endowed at $1.5 million, with $1.125 million of it coming from the Yoh family. It is established by four members of the family in appreciation of their Trinity College education, with support from four other Yohs.

Harold L. “Spike” Yoh B.S.M.E. ’58 chairs Duke’s board of trustees and serves on the $2-billion Campaign for Duke steering committee. He is the former chairman of Day & Zimmermann Inc., a Philadelphia-based, international professional-services firm. His wife is Mary Milus Yoh ’59. Their children are William Courtland Yoh ’93; Jeffrey Milus Yoh B.S.E. ’88, M.B.A. ’94; Karen B. Yoh ’87; Michael H. Yoh B.S.E. ’85; and Harold L. Yoh III B.S.E. ’83, who is married to Sharon Crutcher Yoh ’82.

The initial Yoh Family Professorship is held by Tod Laursen, associate professor of civil engineering in the Pratt School. Funding for both chairs is augmented by matching grants from Duke’s Bass Program for Excellence in Undergraduate Education.

The matching funds that bring the chair’s endowment to $1.5 million are provided by a 1996 gift of Robert and Anne Bass. It was designed to endow positions for faculty members who excel at both undergraduate teaching and research at Duke. Anne Bass is a member of The Campaign for Duke steering committee. More than thirty chairs have been established with Bass program grants.