Several ECE faculty took their love of running and used it as a way to help support and to help spread the word of the ECE building campaign. They used their participation in the Illinois Marathon held in Champaign on April 28 as a way to involve students in the ECE building campaign.
Written by Tom Moone, ECE ILLINOIS
Several ECE faculty participated in a student fundraiser to raise money for the new ECE building. From left: Dan Wasserman, Sanjay Patel, Bruce Hajek, Naresh Shanbhag, and Lippold Haken. Not pictured: Andrew Singer.
Several ECE faculty took their love of running and used it as a way to help support and to help spread the word of the ECE building campaign. They used their participation in the Illinois Marathon held in Champaign on April 28 as a way to involve students in the ECE building campaign.
The fundraiser stemmed from an idea from ECE Assistant Professor Dan Wasserman. “It occurred to me that with so many ECE faculty and staff participating in the marathon, we could use our participation to raise funds for, and awareness of, the new building.”
The goal “was to get the word out about the building,” said Mike Scholl, the senior CompE representative on the ECE Student Advancement Committee. “Students know we have a new building, but I don’t know how involved they’ve gotten.”
Andrew Singer (left) and Naresh Shanbhag await the start of the Marathon.
Scholl spearheaded the logistics of the fundraiser. It was relatively simple in its execution. Cans with the photos of participating faculty were placed in the IEEE/HKN office for a week prior to the race. Students dropped money into the can of their favorite faculty member. The person with the most money collected would wear an orange wig and a cape as he ran down Green Street during the early part of the race.
Wasserman said, “The students did a great job of coming up with an original fund-raising idea that achieved the objectives we originally envisioned.”
In the end, the students raised over $600 for the new ECE building. The winner of the fundraiser was ECE Professor Andrew Singer, who wore the wig and cape as he ran down Green Street. “I was happy to participate, and everyone had fun with it,” said Singer.
All faculty who participated in this fundraiser wore matching T-shirts as they ran. The T-shirts featured a rendering of the new ECE building under construction.