Yvonne S. Sor

Yvonne S. Sor Memorial Endowed Scholarship

This scholarship is named in honor of my dear wife, Yvonne. The photo was taken on her birthday, May 21, 2010. I believe the student recipient of this scholarship should know who she was and why this scholarship is such an essential part of her lasting legacy.

Yvonne was born into a loving Jewish family of strong values, spirituality, and heritage in Bucharest, Romania, on May 21, 1953. She was raised in an educated, upper-class household that valued education, kindness, and compassion for others and imbued in her a strong-willed determination to achieve and overcome. Yvonne was recognized as uniquely gifted and very bright from a very early age.

She emigrated with her mother from Romania soon after her father passed away. After receiving political asylum in Italy, they arrived in the U.S. in 1966 when Yvonne was 13 years old.

Before emigrating, Yvonne had graduated from high school in Romania in an academically accelerated program. Upon resettling in Chicago, she enrolled in Mundelein College on a full scholarship, graduating in 1970 at the top of her class with a double major: a Bachelor of Arts degree in French and a Bachelor of Science degree in physics. She was 17 years old. She spoke six languages, including French, Romanian, English, Italian, Russian and Spanish. She also knew Yiddish and read German.

As a student at Mundelein, she worked at various jobs on campus and off to help support her mother and herself. After graduation, she lectured in physics at her alma mater from 1971 to 1973.

Her talent in the natural sciences prompted her to enroll in the graduate engineering program at McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University, where she became one of its first female graduates with a Master of Science degree in biomedical engineering in 1972. She was just 19 years old. Her thesis is entitled: “Epidemiological Study on the Effects of Mercury and Lead Upon Congenital Malformations of the Nervous System, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Deficiency, and Fetal Death Rates.”

In 1973 she accepted a job as a technical researcher for Rust-Oleum, a paint company in the Chicago area. Rising through the ranks, she became Group Leader in 1976 and then Manager of Technical Information System at Rust-Oleum from 1977 to 1983. She was in charge of the company’s computer systems that ran most company operations. As one of the few women working in the paint industry, she had been subjected to sex discrimination and decided to attend law school at night to help her advance in the executive ranks of private industry.

She entered DePaul University College of Law in 1979 at a time when few women attended law school. Working full time during the day and attending law classes at night, she excelled in her law studies, finishing near the top of her law class and earning a Juris Doctor degree in 1983.

Ever since her days at Mundelein College, Yvonne reveled in academia, enjoyed her classes, and especially enjoyed teaching. She accepted a Teaching Fellowship position at DePaul College of Law in 1983 and remained an instructor there until 1985. As a law student and law school instructor, she published various law review articles in law journals from universities across the country and articles in other professional publications. It was at DePaul College of Law in 1984 when I first met Yvonne and accepted a Teaching Fellowship position alongside her.

In 1985 Yvonne entered private law practice and litigated patents and other intellectual property cases for a well-known intellectual property law firm in Chicago. Over subsequent years her practice focused on technology law and management consulting, first as a corporate vice president in charge of strategic planning for a technology consulting venture and later in her own firm providing management and legal consulting services to women-owned technology ventures. Yvonne was a firm believer in women’s empowerment, advocating for and supporting women’s leadership roles in the natural science and technology fields.

She never lost her love for teaching. And in subsequent years, from 1985 until her passing, she continued to teach classes to computer students on cybercrime, cyberterrorism, and technology at DePaul University in what is now known as the College of Computing and Digital Media. Yvonne passed away on January 27, 2020.

She assumed many roles in her professional life and attained notable achievements in private industry, her law practice, consulting work, and academia, all with grace and humility. Notwithstanding her professional accomplishments and recognitions, she treated everyone whom she met with kindness and respect, regardless of their station in life. That was just who she always was.

In her personal life, she was a woman of great warmth and kindness, full of compassion, and someone who freely shared her wisdom, intelligence, and love with others. Yvonne was very charitable with her time, talent and treasure. I believe this is rooted in her deep Judaic spirituality and the Jewish religious tradition of Tikkun Olam, which states that our responsibility is to fix a broken world. Her charity work focused principally on supporting organizations dedicated to finding cures for health-related issues or helping the disadvantaged and marginalized—those in need and the vulnerable—especially school children and newly arrived immigrants— as she once was. Her pet cause was hunger, and she supported the work of food banks because she firmly believed that no one in our great country should needlessly suffer hunger amidst abundance.

With her father’s passing, she understood the very fragility and sacredness of life at an early age. Therefore, she vowed to always live life to the fullest and, most importantly, on her terms. She loved to travel and cook and was a lover of the arts. She understood and appreciated the spirituality and majesty that underlies all of nature. To her, nature was a reflection of God’s love for us. She had an indomitable spirit to live a life full of zest, greeting each day with her unique brand of warmth and humor that was firmly rooted in her playful sarcasm.

Her intellect and natural curiosity fed her need to explore all that life offers, making life itself such an adventure. Her wish would be for you never to lose your zest or appreciation for life and to approach each day as one that can provide you with an opportunity to enrich your life and someone else’s. And for you to do this with a deep sense of humility, wonder, grace, spirituality, and charity in your heart. To always believe in yourself and your ability to achieve your dreams. In this way, you will know what is important in life and what isn’t—what is worth your time and what isn’t. And above all, she would want you to take any opportunity to express your gratitude for what you received by simply paying it forward so that someone else may also achieve their dreams.

—Daniel N. Janich