Thanks to a $2 million gift from an anonymous donor, Yale-NUS will now have a new professorship in the study of religion.

The Yap Kim Hao Professorship in Comparative Religious Studies is named after Reverend Yap Kim Hao, former vice-president of the Inter-Religious Organization of Singapore. The new program will focus on contemporary beliefs and practices worldwide, and will aim to enhance the academic study of religions at Yale-NUS.

In a press release, Yale-NUS Dean of Faculty Chales Baylin said that the college will look for a scholar to fill this new professorship who “can guide [the] students to an appreciation of the range of religious practices, and the importance of the modern age.”

This is the third named professorship at Yale-NUS. In April 2013, Professor Scott Cook and Professor Jay Garfield were named respectively as the inaugural Tan Chin Tuan Professor of Chinese Studies and Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Professor of Humanities.

LAVINIA BORZI