First Allied Health Sciences professorship honors 50-year friendship
A friendship between Maynard and Carolyn Sauder of Archbold, Ohio, and David and Dee Yoder of Chapel Hill that began when they were students at a Midwestern college more than 50 years ago has produced the first endowed professorship in UNC’s Department of Allied Health Sciences.
The Sauders are establishing The David E. and Dolores J. (Dee) Yoder Distinguished Professorship as a perpetual tribute to the dedicated professionalism and skilled teaching and research of UNC Professor David E. Yoder and the steadfast support of his wife, Dee. The Sauders’ gift of $666,000 will be matched with $334,000 in matching funds from the state’s Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust Fund, bringing the value of the endowment to $1 million.
David and Dee Yoder (standing) and Maynard and Carolyn Sauder at dinner on one of numerous cruises the couples have taken together
Recipients of the Yoder professorship will have
distinguished themselves nationally and internationally
with respect to research, practice and knowledge related to
literacy for people with severe communication disabilities.
The Yoder professor will bring a special dynamic to
UNC’s Center for Literacy and Disability Studies,
which Yoder co-founded in 1988.
Yoder, formerly chair of the Depart-ment of Allied Health
Sciences and now a professor in the Division of Speech and
Hearing Sciences, was instrumental in initiating and
promoting the field of literacy for people with severe
communication disorders. During his career as a
speech-language pathologist, he became concerned that the
majority of people with significant communication disorders
lacked the one skill that would allow them to communicate
fully with others—literacy.
“I had many clients with cerebral palsy who wanted to
read and write but just didn’t know how. Basically,
because they had never been taught,” Yoder said.
“For too long teachers and clinicians believed that
if a person doesn’t have the ability to talk,
regardless of the cause, they aren’t capable of
learning to read or write. We had the technology for them
to be able to communicate through computers equipped with
synthesized speech. But if they couldn’t read or
write, then they couldn’t access the technology
necessary for communication.”
For the past couple of decades, Yoder has focused his
research on the literacy needs of people with severe speech
and physical impairments and has garnered much recognition
for his work. He is currently working to develop assistive
technology for adults with such disabilities.
Although the Sauders pursued a very different career path
and live states apart—they returned to Ohio after
college to work at Sauder Woodworking Company, started by
Maynard’s father more than 70 years ago—the
couples have stayed very close. “A month
doesn’t go by where we don’t at least phone
each other,” Yoder said.
So when the Sauders’ daughter, Debbie, showed an
interest in speech pathology as a high school student, they
knew just where to turn for advice.
“Similar to most young people, I knew I wanted to
make a difference in the lives of others, but I just
didn’t know what career path would best put to use my
skills and strengths,” said Debbie Sauder David.
“My parents and I visited Dr. Yoder at the University
of Wisconsin [where he was a professor at the time] to find
out more about his profession and his work with people with
communicative disorders.”
At Yoder’s recommendation, Debbie attended the
University of Redlands in California as an undergraduate in
1974 and later the University of Wisconsin at Madison as a
graduate student in 1978. After receiving her degrees,
Debbie launched a successful 20-year career as a
speech-language pathologist. Her area of expertise was
helping people with severe brain injuries caused by
automobile accidents and other closed head injuries to
recover their communication skills.
“Dr. Yoder cared about me. He encouraged me as a
teenager to pursue a career that would empower me to
actually improve the quality of people’s lives by
helping them to more effectively communicate and to share
their souls with others,” Debbie said. “My
parents’ gift to endow the Yoder professorship will
help others to continue this important work.”
The idea for the professorship actually came about on a
cruise to the Caribbean that the Sauders and Yoders took
together back in 2002. At dinner one night, the couples
were discussing a recent conference in Chapel Hill
sponsored by the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies
that Debbie had attended. Debbie was so excited about the
work being done at the center that she went back and told
her parents that it was definitely something worth
investing in.
“Maynard and Carolyn told us they wanted to do
something and asked me what the greatest need was,”
Yoder said. “I told them support for the center, in
particular for someone who could bring academic and
research expertise to advance the work of literacy for
persons with disabilities.”
Thus, the first professorship in the Department of Allied
Health Sciences was born.
The Sauders are pleased to be able to support the center
and their lifelong friends. “We hope our gift will
motivate others to make similar investments in David
Yoder’s work at the Center for Literacy and
Disability Studies and in the department’s important
mission to produce the nation’s leading allied health
professionals,” they said.
Kyle Gray*
* With contributions from Karen Erickson, Catherine House
and David Yoder.