CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Each of five University of Illinois graduate students - including four from the Urbana campus - has been awarded a $9,000 FMC Graduate Fellowship for the 2003-2004 academic year.
The fellowship program, established in 1971 as part of The FMC Technologies Inc. Scholarships (formerly called the FMC Educational Fund), awards the honors annually to outstanding graduate students in business administration, economics, engineering, finance or related fields. FMC is a Chicago-based corporation that produces chemicals and machines for agriculture and industry.
The 2003-2004 recipients:
Marinell Davis of Chicago, who is pursuing a degree in veterinary medicine at the Urbana campus.
Michele Gribbins of Sullivan, Ill., who is pursuing a doctorate in business administration at the Urbana campus.
Ashok Lalwani of Jaipur, India, who is pursuing a doctorate in business administration at the Urbana campus.
Kevin Rock of Downers Grove, Ill., who is pursuing a doctorate in organizational behavior at the Urbana campus.
Brian Scott of Chicago, who is pursuing a doctorate in economics at the Chicago campus.
The winners were chosen by a three-person committee representing FMC Technologies Inc., the University of Illinois and the University of Illinois Foundation.
The FMC Technologies Inc. Scholarships were was established as the Link-Belt Educational Fund in 1963 by a donation by University of Illinois alumnus Bert A. Gayman, a Link-Belt executive. A few years later, Link-Belt merged into FMC Corp.
Gayman, a Champaign native who earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois in 1897, spent his entire career with the Link-Belt Co. in Chicago and chose to remain an anonymous donor to the educational fund until 1973, a year before his death.