UToledo to Unveil Monuments for Named Colleges

May 3, 2022 | Events, News, UToday, Alumni, Business and Innovation, Judith Herb College of Education
By Meghan Cunningham



The University of Toledo will celebrate the generosity of the alumni donors behind its named colleges during Commencement celebrations this week.

New monuments made of UToledo’s signature lannon stone that will identify the John B. and Lillian E. Neff College of Business and Innovation and the Judith Herb College of Education will be unveiled during the celebrations with the Neff and Herb families.

The Neff College of Business and Innovation event will take place 4 p.m. Thursday, May 5, at the east entrance of Stranahan Hall and the Herb College of Education event will be 11 a.m. Friday, May 6, at the west entrance of Gillham Hall.

UToledo’s business college was named for John B. and Lillian E. Neff in 2020 in recognition of the mutual fund investor and his family for $18.7 million in gifts to UToledo.

Neff, who died June 4, 2019, at the age of 87, received his bachelor’s degree in industrial marketing in 1955 from UToledo, where he also met his wife, Lillian. She preceded him in death in 2017.

Neff started his career at National City Bank in Cleveland and later was offered a position in Philadelphia as manager of the Wellington Management Co.’s Windsor mutual fund, where he earned a reputation for outperforming the stock market for the next 30 years.

“We are proud to name the college in Mr. Neff’s honor and look forward to the impact that connecting his legacy more closely to our business programs will have on generations to come,” UToledo President Gregory Postel said.

UToledo had previously established the Neff Trading Room equipped with high-tech Bloomberg terminals, which students use to access real-time information from the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ and Chicago Board of Trade. The Neff family also established an endowed chair, student scholarships and faculty teaching and research awards.

UToledo named its education college for Judith Herb in 2006 in recognition of a $15 million gift, then the largest donation in the University’s history, to support student scholarships, educational research and an electronic assessment and development system for faculty.

A former elementary school teacher, Judith Herb received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from UToledo. Her husband, Marvin, a former manager of a Pepsi-Cola bottling plant who purchased Coca-Cola bottling operations in Chicago, Indianapolis, Rochester and Milwaukee, has a master of business administration degree from UToledo.

The Herb family’s gift was announced during the spring commencement ceremonies in 2006 in which they were invited speakers. The family had previously established an endowed professorship.

“Judy Herb is an enthusiastic supporter of UToledo and remains actively engaged to ensure we are improving and advancing the College of Education as we train teachers for the transformational impact they have on the lives of their students,” Postel said.

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