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Did  You Know?

 

Did  You Know?

Gifts to the department this year are important, but we also want to strive that every alum gives every year. Consecutive giving will help sustain and grow the department.

 

Alumni & Friends

Make a Gift : Current Named Funds

Alumni Award for General Engineering Students Fund
This fund currently provides one scholarship per year but was established with the goal of supporting ten awards. The award ($1,000 per year) is presented to an outstanding student in General Engineering in recognition of active citizenship and professional promise.

Jerry S. Dobrovolny Distinguished Professorship in Large-Scale Systems Design
This named professorship honors one of the most distinguished educators and leaders in the history of the Department of General Engineering, Jerry S. Dobrovolny. This professorship directly benefits our students and enhances the excellence of our departmental faculty. Professor Dave Goldberg is the current holder of the Dobrovolny Professorship, and the money from this fund helps to support Professor Goldberg and his students’ work in the Illinois Genetic Algorithms Laboratory.

Engineer in Residence Fund
This fund supports our "Engineer in Residence" program, thanks to an initial gift from Thomas A. Prickett, 1997—99 president of the General Engineering Alumni and Industry Advisory Board. During a visit to campus and informal meetings with students, alumni discuss work experiences and what it takes to become a successful practitioner, specifically addressing those topics not taught in standard engineering classes. Additionally, they speak to students in the senior seminar class. Having spoken to senior seminar students for several years, Prickett was committed to providing opportunities for students and alumni to interact and discuss issues on a personal level, especially questions that might be related to their aspirations and careers. By establishing this fund, his goal is that fellow alumni will join him in supporting this program.

Facilities Fund
The faculty and students of IESE deserve state-of-the-art space that reflects the caliber of work being done in the Transportation Building. As the fields of engineering and engineering education change and technological innovations come along, improvement of existing classrooms, laboratories, and equipment are needed to provide the optimum learning and teaching environments. We are working to renovate existing space and to create new facilities for the senior design capstone project course, to develop a tiered seminar room with teleconferencing capabilities, and to remodel the first floor hallways to include illuminated display cases, which will showcase the honors bestowed on our faculty and students. Our most ambitious undertaking at the moment is the renovation of the Senior Design Laboratory space. This is a project that touches the lives of every student in our program. The campus has given us seed money for the project and we have to raise an additional $400,000 from our alumni and friends to see it through to completion. Please consider a generous gift or pledge to the Facilities Fund in addition to your support of our other programs.

IESE Fellowship Fund
It is our goal to have the top-ranked graduate program in the country, and to achieve this it is crucial that we position ourselves to be competitive in recruiting the brightest students. The way to do that is to draw them to Illinois, not only with the strength of our faculty and programs (like the recently established Ph.D. in Systems and Entrepreneurial Engineering), but with fellowship money. We compete with both industry and other universities in terms of recruiting graduate students. Fellowship support is frequently a key decision factor, and the typical amount needed for a full fellowship on campus is in excess of $14,000 per year. By giving to the Fellowship Fund you can help offset some of the costs faculty incur in order to provide a research assistantship to their graduate students

GE Scholars Award Fund
Were you a GE Scholar? Are you interested in supporting academically outstanding students in General Engineering? These awards were started by the department to recruit and retain students. In recent years, $1,000 scholarships have been given to the top students in each class as identified by cumulative GPA. The department is committed to renewing existing GE Scholar Awards, but no new awards can be offered because there is no funding source for this annual expenditure. This toss may place the department at a significant disadvantage in recruiting and retaining the most academically talented students.

IESE Fund
Gifts to this fund give the department head the flexibility to respond to a variety of critical needs in the department. Whether it is used for start-up support for new faculty members, guest speakers for lectures, alumni programming, the department newsletters, or student activities, these funds are used to enrich many aspects of life in the department.

GE Women in General Engineering
Are you interested in supporting women in General Engineering? Each year, the college-based Women in Engineering Program offers merit-based scholarships to incoming freshman women. The department is asked to fund half of the cost for these scholarships and to continue to fund the full amount for those students whose academic achievements warrant renewal. At the present time, there is no designated funding source for this, and it is impossible for us to participate fully. Because 31% of the students in General Engineering are women (significantly above the college average of 19%), we would especially like to sustain these scholarships.

If you have questions about current or deferred gifts, gifts of stock, securities, or property, the power of endowed and named funds, or to request additional information about giving, please call Rita J. Bates (rjbates@uiuc.edu) at 217-333-1149 {or the U of I Foundation's Office of Trust Relations and Planned Giving at 217-333-0810}