May 22, 2024 | Ethan Simmons MedFest was set up to provide free medical screenings for Special Olympics athletes. The stage was set at Wintrust Sports Complex in the Village of Bedford Park—a suburb of Chicago—when nearly 600 Special Olympics athletes from across the state began to stream in. With the help of a substantial […]
Category: Recreation, Sport, and Tourism
Joe DeLuce: ‘You interview for your next job everyday’
May 21, 2023 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo Joe DeLuce, a Recreation, Sport and Tourism graduate [M.S., 2001] and former visiting instructor, retired in December 2022 after 43 years in the park management industry, including his final 25 at the Champaign Park District, where he was executive director at the time of his retirement. DeLuce is not […]
Message from Department Head Carla Santos
May 21, 2023 | Carla Santos Dear alumni and friends, It is difficult to believe that another academic year is coming to an end. It has been an eventful year in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism. I’m excited to share some of those events with you in this issue of RST E-News. Professor […]
Message from Interim Dept. Head Bill Stewart
May 21, 2024 | Greetings friends and alumni of the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism, Welcome to the 2024 spring edition of the RST newsletter. This publication features research endeavors from our faculty, notable student accomplishments and the ongoing engagement of our esteemed alumni. We were delighted this semester by a visit from Gov. […]
RST alumna Simmons discusses the importance of giving back
July 25, 2024 | Sam Rink Pivotal. That is how Julie Simmons, chief operating officer and co-founder of Paragon Marketing Group, described her experience earning a master’s degree in Recreation, Sport and Tourism at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The experience not only influenced her successful career in sports marketing, but also led her to where she is now, […]
Zou helps tourism industries build sustainable financing
March 06, 2023 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo In the final year of her doctoral studies, Zou took a class that connected marketing and the financing of park, recreation, and tourism services Growing up in Guangzhou, China, Suiwen “Sharon” Zou quickly learned the importance of marketing a business. Zou’s parents are entrepreneurs and they run their own […]
CHAD symposium returns with thanks for pilot grants
March 03, 2023 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo Pilot grants reignite Chad Symposium, fostering research collaboration and innovation The first Center for Health, Aging, and Disability (CHAD) symposium since 2017 was a celebration of the research accomplished with the help of the Pilot Grant Program. Three researchers from the College of Applied Health Sciences—Naiman Khan, an associate […]
Q&A with RST student Emily Jordan
Oct. 22, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo Vince Lara at the University of Illinois spoke with RST student Emily Jordan about her academic career, her Joan Braswell Scholarship, her work with the NJACC tournament and why she chose RST. VINCE LARA: All right, so Emily, the first question I wanted to ask you is what made […]
RST 180 ‘Once-in-a-lifetime’ trip for students
June 20, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo As much as the trip is about learning the logistics and operations of iconic RST sites, it is also an epic road trip RST 180 has a rather dry course title: Professional Applications. But for the students who take the class, it is anything but. RST 180, which returned […]
Alumni Spotlight—Kelsey Beccue
Alumni of the College of Applied Health Sciences have myriad career options thanks to the tremendous diversity of programs. We periodically will put the spotlight on an alum to find out what they’re doing now, what experiences they had and what AHS means to them. This week, we talk to Kelsey Beccue, an RST alum […]