Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

Tatyana McFadden to serve as grand marshal of 2016 Homecoming Parade

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Tatyana McFadden, a Paralympic medalist and a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will serve as the grand marshal of this year’s homecoming parade.

An accomplished student athlete in both wheelchair basketball and wheelchair track, McFadden graduated from the U. of I. in 2014 with a degree in human development and family studies.

Born with spina bifida, she spent the first years of her life in a Russian orphanage. Paralyzed from the waist down, she learned to walk on her hands simply to keep up with the other children. At age 6, she was adopted by Deborah McFadden, who brought her to the U.S. and gave her both a wheelchair and a new start on life. McFadden became involved in sports as a means to heal and gain strength.

McFadden made her Paralympic debut in Athens in 2004, at age 15. The youngest member of Team USA returned from Greece with two medals. McFadden has competed in every summer Paralympic Games since then and is a 17-time Paralympic medalist, including seven gold. She holds the world record in every track event and most recently set five Paralympic records in Rio.

In 2013, McFadden became the first athlete to win four major world marathons in a single year; she has accomplished this feat three years in a row.

McFadden also works as a national advocate for equal access for people with disabilities, and speaks to children and adults about healthy living.

The parade takes place Friday, Oct. 28 from 6 to 7 p.m. The route begins at Sixth Street and Taft Drive in Champaign, traveling through Campustown and turning south on Mathews Avenue in Urbana to end at the Quad.

Several campus-area streets and intersections will be closed between 5:30 and 7 p.m.  MTD routes through the parade area will be modified and delays may occur. Streets and intersections that are affected are listed below.


Parking lot E-3, next to the main library, will not be accessible between
5:30 and 7 p.m. No entrance to or exit from the facility will be allowed. Staging for the parade will take place around the Krannert Art Museum on Sixth Street. While Peabody Drive will be open to motorists, expect delays.


At 7 p.m., all streets and intersections will reopen and buses will return to regular routes.



Street closures:

  • Sixth Street from Peabody Drive to Armory Avenue;
  • Armory Avenue from Sixth Street to Wright Street;
  • Wright Street from Armory Avenue to Green Street;
  • Green Street from Wright Street to Mathews Avenue;
  • Mathews Avenue from Green Street to Nevada Street



Intersection closures:

  • Sixth Street and Laredo-Taft Drive

  • Sixth Street and Gregory Drive

  • Sixth Street and Armory Avenue

  • Armory Avenue and Wright Street

  • Wright Street and Chalmers Street

  • Wright Street and Daniel Street

  • Wright Street and John Street

  • Wright Street and Green Street

  • Green Street and Mathews Avenue

  • Mathews Avenue and Oregon Street

  • Mathews Avenue and Nevada Street

Read Next

Engineering Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Nishant Garg, center, is joined by fellow researchers, from left: Yujia Min, Hossein Kabir, Nishant Garg, center, Chirayu Kothari and M. Farjad Iqbal, front right. In front are examples of clay samples dissolved at different concentrations in a NaOH solution. The team invented a new test that can predict the performance of cementitious materials in mere 5 minutes. This is in contrast to the standard ASTM tests, which take up to 28 days. This new advance enables real-time quality control at production plants of emerging, sustainable materials. Photo taken at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (Photo by Fred Zwicky / University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Researchers develop a five-minute quality test for sustainable cement industry materials

A new test developed at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign can predict the performance of a new type of cementitious construction material in five minutes — a significant improvement over the current industry standard method, which takes seven or more days to complete. This development is poised to advance the use of next-generation resources called supplementary cementitious materials — or SCMs — by speeding up the quality-check process before leaving the production floor.

Library and information sciences Photo of a row of looms in a textile mill.

Illinois information sciences professor, students develop National Park Service Books to Parks websites

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new National Park Service website explores the children’s book “Lyddie” as part of the Books to Parks series that connects children’s books to park service sites. Sara Schwebel, the director of the Center for Children’s Books at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School of Information Sciences, worked with the National Park […]

Health and medicine Photo of Dr. Lowe standing in front of a cattle feed lot on the U. of I. campus.

What makes the bird flu virus so unusual?

The H5N1 virus attacks specific body systems in each species and behaves very differently in each depending on which body systems are involved, causing widespread death in some animals while barely affecting others, says University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign veterinary clinical medicine professor Dr. Jim Lowe. He spoke with News Bureau life sciences editor Diana Yates […]

Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

507 E. Green St
MC-426
Champaign, IL 61820

Email: stratcom@illinois.edu

Phone (217) 333-5010