PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 26, No. 8, Oct. 19, 2006

Faculty members, academic professionals retire
Between Sept. 1, 2005, and Aug. 31, 2006, 84 faculty members and academic professionals retired from the UI, according to the Office of Academic Human Resources.
The retirees, their positions, units and years of service are posted on the Inside Illinois Web site.

Click photo to enlarge Photo byL. Brian Stauffer Still giving Despite retiring July 31, Debbie Day still has many projects on her to-do list, including community service, chairing a college reunion committee and becoming a master gardener. During her 32-year career, Day coordinated the Friends of WILL, a group of volunteers and businesses that raises about half of the funds in WILL’s annual operating budget.

Ex-WILL fundraiser has full to-do list, including work for stations

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor
217-244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu

On a warm October morning, Deborah Day, former director of development at WILL AM-FM-TV, answers the door of her Urbana home wearing a T-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts. Apologizing for her appearance, Day explains that she needs to spend hours in her yard preparing her garden for winter: transplanting lilies, planting peonies, repotting other flowers and bringing plants indoors to protect them from the chilly temperatures expected that night.

Not surprisingly, one of Day’s goals now that she’s retired is to become a master gardener through UI Extension. But that’s just one of many projects on Day’s lengthy to-do list, which also includes traveling, spending more time with her sons – Geoff, Scott and Bruce – and their families, as well as researching family genealogy, organizing thousands of family photos and slides, exploring art history, hiking and sampling wines with special interest groups from the UI Women’s Club and participating in an informal book club and an investment club.

“There’s just so much to learn, see and do,” said Day, who retired July 31. “I retired to pursue the things I’ve never had time to pursue because of work. I want to keep very active in the community. I’m used to doing things to contribute to the community, and it feels strange, in a way, to get up in the morning and think, ‘I can choose what I want to do today.’ ”

Day resigned from the board of Family Service of Champaign County in December 2005 after 27 years, saying she needed new challenges and the board needed new people and new ideas. One of the new challenges Day has taken on is joining the board of directors of the Eastern Illinois Foodbank in Urbana, which collects, stores and distributes food through a network of programs in 14 Eastern Illinois counties. The foodbank recently began its annual Food for Families food drive with the goal of collecting $60,000 in donations and 185,000 pounds of food.

Day also is co-chairing the 50th reunion for her graduating class at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology. In addition, she’s an honorary co-chair of the Urbana Park District’s Centennial Celebration, which began this month and will end with a Chautauqua – a gathering typically devoted to music and lectures – at Crystal Lake Park in Urbana during October 2007.

During her 32 years with WILL, Day coordinated the army of volunteers known as Friends of WILL, a group of more than 17,000 members who, in conjunction with businesses, raise about half of the funds for WILL’s annual operating budget. In 1974, Day’s first year with WILL, the group raised about $67,000, and by 2005, the annual figure had grown to $2.5 million. Day, who started out as a part-time employee and became director of development in 1979, said she worked with staff members in the Office of Campus Development and the UI Foundation “to build what I think is really a good relationship within the university,” an accord that some public media owned by universities have not experienced. “There are many situations where public stations and the universities they’re licensed to are in real conflict, where the universities see the stations solely as advertising arms for the universities,” Day said. “I think WILL has always maintained a very professional approach – that we are broadcasting entities and that our value is in our independence and editorial control of our own products. At WILL, it’s not just a job. The people really care about what they do and believe that public television and radio are really important elements of community and truly a valuable resource.”

During her career at WILL, Day was very involved with national public broadcasting associations. Day served as a member and past chair of the Public Broadcasting Services Development Advisory Committee, a group of public television development professionals who work with PBS on a variety of issues, projects and events; and of the PBS Development Exchange, a professional association for people working in public radio.

“I have been so lucky to have just fallen into something that developed into a career that I have had a wonderful experience with,” Day said. “It’s been a rewarding, fulfilling career. It was hard to decide to disconnect, but I looked at all the things I would like to do, and the job has always been practically all consuming. I wanted to retire before people began hoping I’d retire or before I felt I was losing my edge, enthusiasm or energy – because I wanted to give my all right up to the day I retired.”

And Day’s affiliation with WILL continues. She will volunteer both on- and off-air during WILL radio’s annual fund drive during October and is coordinating a docent program through which volunteers will give tours of Campbell Hall.

Paulsen considers himself ‘in transition rather than retired’

Click photo to enlarge Photo by L. Brian Stauffer Down-to-eart, but on his toes Marvin Paulsen, a professor of agricultural and biological engineering, retired July 15 after more than 30 years on the UI faculty. His professional life remains busy with teaching and research. Away from work, Paulsen enjoys ballroom dancing, gardening and traveling.

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor
217-244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu

Marvin Paulsen, who retired July 15 as a professor of agricultural and biological engineering, credits his wife of 36 years, Karen, with “keeping him down-to-earth, but on his toes.” In part, that has to do with their mutual interest in ballroom dancing, which began a few years ago when Paulsen gave Karen dance lessons as a Christmas gift.

The Paulsens have waltzed and fox-trotted their way through several years of lessons and are now learning the West Coast Swing, the Nightclub Two-step and advanced steps in the waltz, merengue and rumba. “We’ve enjoyed it a lot,” Paulsen said.

In addition to stepping out to Friday night dances, Paulsen is a regular visitor at the Fitness Center in Champaign, where he samples a variety of fitness activities: step aerobics classes, cycling, kickboxing, weight training and yoga, “which is harder than it looks,” Paulsen said.

At home, Paulsen enjoys gardening, and this summer’s bounty included blackberries, cilantro, leeks, raspberries, sweet potatoes and tomatoes.

Through the years, the Paulsens have enjoyed several Caribbean cruises, and in June 2007 are planning a cruise to the Greek islands with people from their ballroom dancing group. During spring break in March, the Paulsens took a cruise down the coast of Mexico, visiting Cabo San Lucas and Mazatlan.

“I consider myself more in transition than retirement,” Paulsen said. And he has weathered many transitions and changes during his 30-plus year career at the UI, having worked for five department heads and five deans in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. “Somehow the transition’s always been good,” Paulsen said.

Despite Paulsen’s retirement, his professional life remains busy, with a quarter-time appointment in his department for the next eight months. He leads a weekly seminar for graduate students and has discovered that offering pizza and soda ensures great attendance. In addition, Paulsen is developing a course on technologies for measurements in food processing to be offered jointly with the department of food science and human nutrition during the spring semester.

This academic year, Paulsen is the president of Gamma Sigma Delta, a faculty-governed honor society for students, faculty members, alumni and other people who have distinguished themselves in agriculture and related fields. Paulsen is busy organizing the society’s annual new student night (Oct. 24), and working on arranging a speaker for the group’s annual graduate fellowship recognition ceremony (Nov. 2), and arranging the society’s annual banquet in April, during which new members will be inducted.

Paulsen’s research has concentrated on grain quality and the effects of drying, handling and storage on corn and soybeans. In early September, he was invited to give a workshop about grain drying in China. The American Association of Cereal Chemists has asked him to write a chapter on soybean quality for a reference book that will be published in 2007. Additionally, Paulsen has funded research on near-infrared spectroscopy that continues, and he is advising a graduate student on its application to dry-grind ethanol processes.

Paulsen remains active with several professional societies, including the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, and continues to serve on several national committees, including the Regional Grain Quality Committee of Project NC-213, a team of engineers, scientists and economists from leading land-grant universities and government research centers that is working on issues related to food quality and biosecurity.

Named numerous times to the “Incomplete List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students,” Paulsen also has received several awards for his research, including the ASABE Outstanding Paper Award, the Anderson’s Research Award from the NC-213 Committee, the Paul A. Funk Recognition Award from the College of ACES, and he was elected a fellow in the ASABE. Past chair of the Food and Process Engineering Institute, Paulsen continues to serve as an associate editor for ASABE and on the ASABE finance committee.

“It’s been a great time at the university,” Paulsen said. “I can remember when I started working here in 1975, people were using calculators and mimeograph machines, and if you had computer access at all, you used punch cards.”

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