Look at Janell Mathus (above), and you are looking at success.
When she graduated from UIS this year, May 2016, with a degree in Biology, she had been accepted by four medical schools.
Janell came to UIS as a freshman. She had excellent academic skills, and with such supportive professors, those skills became even better at UIS.
But the advantages Janell experienced outside the classroom at UIS also played an important role in making Janell so attractive to medical schools. Continue reading
Give her the same advantages you gave me…
Before Melanie Clark’s father died, this was the request he communicated to his mother, Julie Clark (at right 
with Melanie).
Melanie was only five at the time. In the coming years, her grandmother filled Melanie’s life with experiences that expanded Melanie’s world and gave her a much broader understanding of life—a cruise when Melanie was nine, the chance to take part in the People to People Ambassadorial Program in Australia during high school, other opportunities for learning and experience.
“She is always trying to push me to keep growing as an individual,” Melanie says, “to keep pushing myself forward and go after what I want to do.”
Possibly most important to Melanie’s future, Julie Clark introduced Melanie to UIS by bringing her to performances at the Sangamon Auditorium on the UIS campus. Continue reading
Eric Needham loves the outdoors. Walking through a forest, he can tell you the names of trees and identify the genus of a bark beetle.
So you would think a career in forestry would be perfect for him, and in fact Eric earned his undergraduate degree in Forestry. Soon after graduating, he took a job at the USDA Forest Service at the Forest Science Laboratory in Corvallis, Oregon.
However… Continue reading
Above: Caitlin Crane (’13 CBM, MS ’15 LIS Urbana) at work in Archives and Rare Books at the Bernard Becker Medical Library.
Sitting in a car one day with her mother, just before her first year at UIS, Caitlin Crane wondered aloud about a career.
“You should be a librarian,” her mother said.
“Ummm….” Caitlin took a moment to soften her response. “That doesn’t quite sound like me.” Continue reading
When Beverly Shannon graduated from high school, she could have chosen a simple, straightforward future: a degree from UCLA followed by a safe and satisfying career.
Instead, Beverly chose dancing, and as Robert Frost said in a famous poem about two roads diverging in a wood—choosing that less-traveled path made all the difference. Continue reading
When Mike Baracani of Oglesby, Illinois, began classes at UIS, he probably didn’t realize quite how much of a challenge it would be for him to juggle a fulltime job, commute two hours a day, be a good dad to his kids and husband to his wife, all while taking online business classes at UIS.
But he’s managed to do it all, and he’s done so with a great cause—to help people get where they want to be financially. Continue reading
LaNita Cox and her family (Photo credit: Hesed Family Photography, Kelsi Strawn)
LaNita Cox has a passion for helping others, a passion born not from joyful exploration or a compelling hobby, but born of grief and sustained by additional tragedy.
But first came raising a family and running her own business, and then a decision to enroll at UIS. Continue reading
One day, while Santiago Pedraza was attending high school in his native Spain, his father said, “Hey, have you thought about doing a year in the United States?
Santi’s father had earned his master’s degree at the University of Dallas back in 1994. He had loved his time in the States, and he wanted to share the experience with his son.
So after his sophomore year in high school, Santiago Pedraza came to the States to attend school.
But instead of one year, he has stayed for five years—his college years at UIS–and he plans to stay even longer. Continue reading
UIS student Sean Flamand (on the right in the picture above, second from top) is insatiably curious about life in other countries. Last summer, he traveled to Japan with a UIS group to study at the Ashikaga Institute of Technology.
This spring, thanks in part to the James L. Lundquist Memorial Scholarship, Sean will be able to study at the University of Valencia in Spain–this time on his own and for the whole semester.
Deeply grateful, Sean wrote the following letter to the Lundquist family. We reproduce it here with his permission (we added the headings). Continue reading
Ruth and Bill Hoffman
Only $50.
The year was 1982. Bill Hoffman and his wife, Ruth, had just finished doing their books for the previous year. A drought had cut crop yields as much as 50% on their grain farm, leading to a final income for the year of only $50.
“I think it’s time for me to get a job,” Bill told his wife.
The job Bill took as an electronic technician eventually led to an upper-level management position with Microsoft Corporation. At one point, Bill would be managing over a hundred people in a four-state district.
“I never could have imagined I would end up in management,” Bill says now. Continue reading
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