Support the Stevenson Center

We “…serve the citizens of Illinois and beyond” as a “partner fully engaged in outreach with business, industry, government, and education.”

-- Educating Illinois 2003-2010

As the quote above indicates, we serve. In doing so, we facilitate the graduate training of students as they become the community and economic development professionals of tomorrow.

To date, our programs have prepared more than 20 students for the Peace Corps. Five are currently working in East Timor, Ecuador, the Kyrgyz Republic, Senegal, and Ghana. After their term of service in countries as varied as Vanuatu, Kazakhstan, Lesotho, and Bulgaria, 40 other Returned Peace Corps Volunteers have come to campus as Peace Corps Fellows. Other students came to us as AmeriCops Volunteers, are now working in Sierra Leone, or building community capacity in Nebraska. As graduate assistants or as part of their professional practice work, these students have served communities in McLean County, across the state, and more broadly.

Some graduates of our program are now in the Foreign Service; others work for the U.S. Agency for International Development, as economic development coordinators for Illinois communities, as an English teacher in Japan, or as a program officer for a major foundation. Another is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota.

You can help the Stevenson Center reach the next level of excellence.

We want to serve more communities and more students. Thus, reducing the cost of these services so that more underserved inner-city and rural communities can benefit from the great work our students do is a primary goal. Donations reduce that cost.

Other initiatives in need of funding include:

• specialized training for our students through workshops on campus and conferences abroad.
• support for secondary projects undertaken by our students during their internship placement domestically or with Peace Corps.
• policy-oriented and applied research on the processes, policies, and outcomes of community and economic development (e.g., school funding reform and consolidation, theories of community development practice, persistent poverty, efficacy of local economic development policy, and community attachment).

For information on how to assist us in these goals and with our programs, please contact the Director of the Stevenson Center, Dr. Frank Beck ( fdbeck@ilstu.edu or 309-438-7090).