Impact of the Brilliant Futures Campaign at UIS

Scholarships

Peggy and Micah Bartlett, Dr. Loretta Meeks, and Simon Wilson, scholarship recipient Since the beginning of the campaign, donors have given 22 endowed scholarships and 45 current-use scholarships. Particularly effective has been the newly initiated Capital Steps Scholarship Drive for UIS’ undergraduate students. This drive re that received support from the Ann Booth Estate and an estate gift from Margaret Wepner. One such scholarship is the Peggy and Micah Bartlett Scholarship. The donors are pictured at right with their recipient, Simon Wilson, and Dr. Loretta Meeks.

Academic Support

Professorships: In 2003, UIS had one chair and two professorships. UIS now has one chair and five professorships, including at least one in each of UIS’ four colleges. The following three professorships have been added through the Brilliant Futures Campaign.
1. James J. Stukel Distinguished Professor of Educational Leadership
2. Louise Hartman Schewe and Karl Schewe Professor in Liberal Arts and Sciences
3. Margaret L. Wepner Distinguished Professor in Political Science
Hanson Professional Services made a gift in support of the Hanson Professional Services Faculty Scholar.
The SBC Foundation (now AT&T) gave $136,000 to fund technology programs and an online mathematics teacher certification program, helping to address a critical shortage of secondary math teachers.
An American Sign Language concentration within the College of Education and Human Services has been initiated as the result of a gift from Joe and Lynn Gibbs to honor their daughter Kelly.
Global awareness has been a highlight of the campaign: A new fund for global business education helps students to learn about business in the new global business and financial environment; numerous new scholarships help students study abroad, complete internships, or do study-abroad service learning.
Through support from the Campaign, UIS is developing a greatly expanded arts program, possible in part because of gifts from Dr. Robert F. Reisch and Polly Roesch for scholarships, programming, and instruments.
Donors have given gifts in support the Lincoln Legacy Lecture Series.
Brookens Library has also benefited from the Campaign through gifts to the UIS Library Enhancement Fund.
UIS’ research and outreach has benefited from $60,000 from the Merck Foundation; also Dr. Bill Bloemer seeded a K Fund for scientific equipment and instrumentation with a gift; and the campaign has helped improve UIS’ newly named Therkildsen Field Station at Emiquon, the site of The Nature Conservancy’s wetland restoration project, through scientific equipment and cabinetry donated by The Prairie Education and Research Cooperative ($170,000) and $28,000 from the American Museum of Natural History.
Corporate giving during the campaign has enhanced the UIS Computer Science Department with $50,000 from State Farm, over $145,000 from Cisco CIAG.
The Downstate Illinois Innocence Project has also grown in reputation and in funding since the beginning of the campaign, with almost $95,000 in gifts since the beginning of the campaign, enabling students—graduate and undergraduate—to work for the release of inmates wrongly convicted.

Annual Giving

Annual giving income has seen a 72% increase over the past six fiscal years.
The Faculty and Staff Campaign, initiated in 2005 and continuing each year, has helped employee giving to go from 25-28% per year participation prior to 2005 to as high as 44% participation in 2008.
The number of annual giving gifts has increased 23% over that same amount of time even though our number of donors has stayed level. Our donors are giving more.
Alumni giving income by graduates of UIS has increased 29.4% over these years.

Online Education

Since the beginning of the campaign, Sloan Foundation has given $1,799,000 in support of online learning at UIS. During this time UIS online programs and enrollments have increased dramatically, from seven online degrees in 2003 to 17 today, and from 4,639 student enrollments in online classes in academic year 2003/4 to 10,095 enrollments in academic year 2008/9. Beginning prior to the beginning of the Brilliant Futures campaign in the fall of 1998 and continuing through this coming term, UIS has recorded increased enrollments in online classes every single semester and summer term—33 straight terms.

Burks Oakley II, co-director of the Office of Technology and Enhanced Learning at UIS, has provided for two endowed scholarships, and both he and co-director Ray Schroeder have provided current-use scholarships.

These corporate and personal investments have helped to make UIS’ online program award winning:

Three UIS professors who have been given the Sloan-C Award for Most Outstanding Achievement in Online learning by an Individual, Professor Emeritus Ray Schroeder, Dr. Burks Oakley II, and the new James J. Stukel Distinguished Professor of Educational Leadership, Dr. Karen Swan. No other institution of higher learning can claim this level of leadership excellence in online learning.
UIS has also won the 2008 Ralph E. Gomory Award for Quality Online Education and
A national award for Excellence in Institution-Wide Online Teaching & Learning Programming from the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C).

Student Affairs

Annual giving for Student Affairs has more than tripled over the course of the Campaign.
Volunteer and Civic Engagement Center
1. In addition to many excellent initiatives, including an AmeriCorps program and a Leadership for Life Service Wing, the Center has received two grants:
2. Girl2Girl Dreamspeakers mentoring program for athletes and local students, funded by the Sangamon County Community Foundation.
3. State Farm Safe Neighbors Grant for improving fire safety readiness on campus.
4. Awards: UIS placed on the 2008 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for exemplary service efforts to the local community by the Corporation for National and Community Service—the highest federal recognition a school can achieve for its commitment to service-learning and civic engagement.
Office of Disability Services received $30,000 for equipment, scholarships, and adaptive software and technology from an anonymous trust. The same trust will be giving $25,000 for a Journey2Jobs program, emphasizing employability preparation for disabled students.

Athletics

UIS’ Prairie Stars Athletics program has now moved from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics to NCAA Division II status playing in the Great Lakes Valley Conference, sparking additional support for UIS Athletics.

A sponsorship program for UIS Athletics that has grown from two sponsors in 2003 to 29 sponsors in 2009.
A brand new athletics booster club, The Shooting Stars, has been established. Membership has grown from 25 members in 2008 to 80 members in 2009.

Facilities

The Hoogland Atrium: Charles and Kathleen Hoogland and the Hoogland Family Foundation gave $1 million in support of The Recreation and Athletic Center at UIS.
The Alfred O. and Barbara Cordwell Therkildsen Field Station at Emiquon: Income from this endowment will be used to support student research, equipment, or laboratory facility needs at Emiquon.
The Michelle M. and Guerry L. Suggs WUIS Performing Arts Studio, made possible with a gift from the Suggs.
Two new gardens on campus: The Japanese Garden was given by Eileen Ensel as a living tribute to her late husband, Lee Ensel, and the John and Mary Rising Garden, given by a UIS employee in honor of her parents.
The Ringeisen Fountain, created with a gift from Chancellor Richard Ringeisen and his wife Caroline.
Sangamon Auditorium: Hand-rails given by Pam Reyhan and ushers’ seats given by Ed and Helen Brooks, both for the Sangamon Auditorium.
The UIS Henry R. Barber Observatory, supported by gifts from the Chicago Community Foundation and H. Rigel Barber.

Community and Public Service

Sangamon Auditorium’s ClassActs providing performing arts programming for local area schoolchildren has also benefited during the campaign from gifts totaling over $28,000.
Robert and Elizabeth Staley have given to the Auditorium Special Projects Fund and to the Auditorium’s endowment.
During the Campaign, the Joyce Foundation gave over $230,000 in support of the Sunshine Project directed by renowned UIS professor Kent Redfield.