$1.5 million gift from Tom Bye and David Bohne establishes endowed chair in linguistics

Emma Horio | November 26, 2024

After his now-husband Tom Bye finished his master of arts degree in linguistics at UCLA, David Bohne gave him three years to complete his doctorate.

“We had a partnership, Tom and I, and I told him, ‘I’ll support you through your Ph.D., but this is not going to be one of these things that drag out forever.’ I wanted him to get done so he could get a job and start making some money,” Bohne said with a smile.

Although Bye never planned to pursue an academic career — nor had he taken a linguistics course before graduate school — he loved the field and was eager to make his own contributions to it. True to the agreement, Bye finished his doctorate in three years and realized how much becoming a Bruin meant to him.

“I had a lot of friends who were fellow students,” Bye said. “The graduate school experience for me was just fun.”

And so, years later, when they made the decision to give back — thanks in great part to Bohne’s thoughtful financial planning over the course of their 59-years-and-counting relationship — UCLA’s linguistics department held a special place in their hearts.

After making a $2 million pledge to the UCLA Division of Humanities in 2020 to establish the Thomas J. Bye Linguistics Laboratory Program, this year, the couple gave $1.5 million to establish the Thomas J. Bye and David Bohne Endowed Term Chair in Linguistics.

“Tom Bye and David Bohne are true friends and supporters of our division,” said Alexandra Minna Stern, dean of humanities. “Their forward-looking vision for the humanities, and their devotion to our students, faculty and mission are matched only by their devotion to each other. We are proud to see the ripple effect of their generous gift, and we thank them for their warmth and wisdom.”

Key to that ripple effect, the couple believes, is the power of exploring applied linguistics research questions.

“This endowed chair will be held by a scholar whose work aims to provide a bridge between theoretical linguistics and practical problems of language use in everyday life,” said Megha Sundara, professor and department chair of linguistics. “We are very grateful to Tom and David for enabling our department’s pursuit of innovative ideas to deepen our understanding of the world through language.”

For Bye and Bohne, seeing the impact of their generosity is what drives them to keep giving wherever there is a need for it, and that means getting and staying actively involved in a variety of Bruin activities.

“We try to become almost part of the community, in that sense of being visible,” Bye said. “I always visit the department a couple times a year and talk to faculty that are involved. It’s like they’re friends, in a way.”

At UCLA and beyond, Bye and Bohne consider their philanthropic legacy a fulfilling capstone to all they’ve built so beautifully as a couple.

“Giving back means so much to us both — we’ve been fortunate, the two of us, to have had a wonderful life together for such a long time, and we’ve loved each other deeply all these years,” Bohne said. “Although it’s a little hard sometimes to wrap our heads around the facts of being older, the memories of a lifetime together are wonderful.”