In fact, when he allows himself to reflect on his life and his impending retirement in February 2005, he seems somewhat bemused that it brought him to the president's mansion on Urbana's Florida Avenue. He sits at his executive desk in the second-floor home office, and while the phone rings frequently with important callers with pressing University business, he admits he once envisioned he'd spend his life playing and teaching music. After all, he used to front dance bands, snapping his fingers and doing the ol' "uh-one-and-uh-two" throughout the 1950s. Indeed, his used-but-renewed tenor saxophone helped pay his way through his undergraduate studies at Purdue University.
It turned out to be great training for a man who orchestrated a number of programs that raised the visibility and stature of the Chicago campus as chancellor, and later, as president, led the University through the harsh discords of a state money crisis and slashed budgets.
"I think he provided steady leadership through some extremely difficult times for the University," said former Gov. Jim Edgar, now a distinguished fellow at the UI Institute for Government and Public Affairs.
"It's the mark of a great leader to do well under duress," said Janice Bahr, MS '68 LAS, PHD '74 LAS, professor of physiology in animal sciences and chairwoman of the search committee that recommended Stukel for president.
"He'll be a hard act to follow," she said.
While Stukel enjoys positive reviews, it's evident he's not been driven by need for fame and glory. He's more of a work horse than a show horse, pushing himself to achieve goals, not accolades.
To understand who Jim Stukel is, you have to understand that his roots run deep to the mid-sized city of Joliet, where he was brought up in a working-class family that stressed Midwestern values like hard work, practicality and common sense.
Philip and Julia Stukel's only son was born when his mother was well into her 40s, and his only sibling, a sister, was 13 years old. His family lived in a small clapboard house; his father worked at a pulp mill, and his mother was a homemaker. Determined that their son would have more than their eighth-grade educations, Stukel's parents began saving for his college education soon after he was born.
"They were pretty stern regarding my grades and homework," Stukel said of his mom and dad. "And I always worked — starting in junior high I had a paper route."
In third grade his life took a significant turn when he was selected for Joliet's esteemed band program. Stukel thrived in the competitive and disciplined environment of the band, which required three to five hours of practice a day in addition to private lessons.
"Nothing was given; it was earned," he said of his band experience. The program shaped him, he said, to set goals and work till he achieved them.
"My whole life, really, is based around competition and goal setting," Stukel said. "It's always been that."
In high school, his extracurricular activities expanded to include leadership positions and sports. Even his competitors admired him.
"He was a class act," said Dick Dobbs of Joliet, a high school classmate who lost the race for junior class president to Stukel in 1953.
"Jim was a very outstanding student and a quiet leader — he led by example. But the best thing about Jim was he was just a genuinely nice person," Dobbs said. "He wasn't a guy to yell and scream. ... He was there to do whatever needed to be done; he didn't know it all or think he knew it all."
On the academic side, a high school chemistry teacher recognized Stukel's potential in engineering and drove him to visit Purdue University.
"University of Illinois wasn't in his vocabulary," Stukel joked, "but he took over the decision-making process — my parents couldn't be helpful there — and so that's where I went."
Stukel worked his way through Purdue with his dance band, The Spotlighters, playing the music of Woody Herman, Stan Goetz and other jazz artists. Over the summers he entertained at resorts.
Music proved interesting in other ways as well. One day a Phi Gamma Delta fraternity brother urged Stukel to telephone one of the majorettes with the Purdue marching band. Joan Helpling, MBA '82, didn't know the sax player, so she turned him down. But later, when she and Stukel toured Europe with a variety band, they got to know one another, and Jim and Joan Stukel had their first date in Germany.
The Stukels have been married 46 years, and he says it's their close relationship that provided the foundation for all that he accomplished.
In fact, Stukel gives his wife credit for everything. Asked how supportive she's been throughout his career, he shakes his head at the obvious question.
"Without Joan, it doesn't work," he said. "It just doesn't happen."
Marrying during their senior year, Stukel said they were so young they barely knew themselves yet, let alone each other. "But I've been very lucky," he said, "in that I have a very supportive wife who really influenced the way I developed after we were married — in very positive ways. She was able to soften the negative and kind of help me build on the positive."
Part of that softening involved learning to navigate the twists and turns of their life together.
"I'm amazed at people who tell me they have this plan, and they stick to it, and their whole life is planned, and it works out," Stukel said. "I just can't imagine that. Mine has not been that way. There have been a lot of bumps and a lot of junctures in the road."
The young couple lived hand-to-mouth the first years of their marriage, residing in a house owned by the paper mill he worked for in Virginia. After three years, the Stukels moved to Champaign-Urbana for Jim's graduate school. It was a
hectic time.
"By the time Joan was 28, we had four kids, and we were in graduate school, and Joan worked that entire time," Stukel said. "Joan's a pretty remarkable gal."
Upon earning his doctorate in mechanical engineering, Stukel joined the Urbana faculty in the College of Engineering.
"He was a very popular teacher," said colleague Jon Liebman, now professor emeritus. "He was always very interested in what the students were doing, and he cared."
Seventeen years later, the Stukels' life came to a "big fork in the road" when he was asked to interview to become the first vice chancellor of research and dean of the graduate college at the Chicago campus.
In five short years, he was appointed UIC's chancellor.
