IN THIS ISSUE:
Navy Pier to Here | 2005 UIC City & Corporate Award Recipient Profiles

FEATURE STORY (continued) — January/February 2005

From Navy Pier ...

Family Legacy

Not Dad's UIC

By Ashley Hamilton

Father and son Charles '71 CBA and Jason Waak '96 LAS, MA '98 ED have many shared experiences, including attending the same U of I campus. But when it comes to their college memories, their experiences are incredibly dissimilar‹demonstrating how much the East Campus experience has evolved since it opened 40 years ago.

When Charles came to UIC in 1969, he was 24-years-old, married and working full-time as an electrician. After going to class, work and home to his wife, he had little time for anything else.

By comparison, Jason came to UIC in 1991 straight out of high school. For him, classes and his part-time job were just footnotes—what really occupied his days was his involvement in several student organizations on campus.

"My father, like a lot of UIC people, commuted and worked," says Jason, who is now a student advisor and an associate in the UIC Historian's Office. "Circle was vastly different from UIC, so our experiences weren't too similar."

In the future, Charles will probably be returning back to UIC: In 2007, Jason's daughter Megan Blancas will join the university as a freshman—marking a third generation of UIC alumni in the family.