University Times

A memorial service will be held at 1:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 16, in Heinz Chapel for economics professor emeritus Shun-hsin (S.H.) Chou. He died Oct. 8, 2001, one day before his 86th birthday.

Chou joined Pitt's economics faculty in 1957 and served as department chair from 1970 to 1975. He retired from the University in 1985.

Born in Shanghai, China, Chou earned his B.A. in 1935 from Yenching University in Beijing, where he taught introductory economics. In 1940, he earned his M.A. at the University of California at Berkeley, followed in 1945 by a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University.

Prior to joining the Pitt faculty, Chou worked at the Central Bank of China in Shanghai, the Hong Kong School of Economics and Commerce, and the Overseas Banking Corporation. He also was a Rockefeller Foundation research fellow in economics at Columbia, and an associate professor of business administration at the College of William and Mary.

While on the faculty here, Chou played a major role in establishing relationships between Pitt and several academic institutions in China. These "sister institutions" provided important links to East Asian studies here. Chou also worked with Semester at Sea to forge links between the SAS students and Chinese academic institutions and to ship books, especially those in economics and medicine, to university libraries there.

Chou played an important role in ensuring that Pitt's economics department offered a strong program in the economics of China. He also was instrumental in encouraging many Chinese graduate students to continue their studies at Pitt.

Chou and his wife, Julia, endowed a graduate fellowship for students in Pitt's economics department. Preference will be given to graduates of the newly formed Yenching Graduate Institute in Beijing. Memorial contributions, made payable to the University of Pittsburgh, can be sent to the Chou Fellowship, attention Jim Sismour, 910 Cathedral of Learning.