CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Fifteen University of Illinois students from the Urbana-Champaign, Chicago and Springfield campuses have won Avery Brundage Scholarships for excellence in academics and athletics. Each student will receive $2,400 for the 2009-2010 academic year.
The three recipients from the Urbana campus are undergraduates Shawna Culp, of Wheaton, Ill., in the College of Applied Health Sciences, competing in wheelchair basketball; Samantha Polak, of Urbana, in the College of Engineering, competing in rowing; and Brett Mommer, of Dike, Iowa, a graduate student in the School of Integrative Biology, competing in water skiing.
The Avery Brundage Scholarship Fund Committee consists of nine representatives from the faculties and student bodies of the three U. of I. campuses. The committee selects students who engage in athletics for personal development rather than as preparation for professional sports. The students must be enrolled students in the upper 25 percent of their undergraduate class or in good academic standing in their graduate program.
The scholarship program was established in 1974 by an endowment from Avery Brundage, a 1909 U. of I. graduate and president of the International Olympic Committee from 1952 to 1972. Brundage, who participated in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm as a pentathlete and decathlete, died May 8, 1975. Since 1974, 791 scholarships totaling $992,200 have been awarded.