Oct. 22, 2022 | Anna Flanagan
Three graduates who received this year’s alumni awards from AHS have amassed impressive accomplishments for themselves while keeping a professional eye on others.
A college president who thinks the best part of leadership is facilitating the achievements of colleagues. An attorney who makes sure companies that provide communications and media services are making them accessible to people with disabilities. A young entrepreneur who makes it his business to help other entrepreneurs succeed.
The three University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign graduates who received this year’s alumni awards from the College of Applied Health Sciences have amassed impressive accomplishments for themselves while keeping a professional eye on others.
AHS Distinguished Alumni Award
Dr. Trevor Bates is the president of Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio. While completing his master’s degree in kinesiology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, he served a pre-doctoral fellowship in athletic training (a program in the Department of Kinesiology at the time) and provided clinical athletic training to student-athletes in the wheelchair athletics program of the Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES). Of his time in DRES, he said, “It was exactly what I was looking for. I wanted to learn about new and different kinds of injuries, and that’s exactly what happened. I learned that the impact of an injury on the life of a person who uses a wheelchair is a lot different.”
Bates completed his PhD in health sciences through A.T. Still University, with a concentration in leadership and organizational behavior. He is a licensed athletic trainer in Ohio and is nationally certified in athletic training.
Under his leadership, Wilmington College has developed and implemented a five-year strategic plan; introduced its first fully online graduate program; and launched two new graduate programs in organizational leadership and occupational therapy. What he enjoys most about leadership, he said, is seeing other people win. “It is a lot of fun to see my former students become program directors or leaders in organizations, or the people around me experience success as a result of work that we’ve done together,” he said.
Prior to joining Wilmington College, Bates served as vice president of academic affairs, dean of faculty, and professor of health sciences at Mercy College of Ohio, founding associate dean of the Division of Health Sciences and chair of athletic training at Heidelberg University, assistant professor of exercise science and sport at Millikin University (where he earned his bachelor’s degree), and athletic trainer at Decatur, IL, Memorial Hospital.
Committed to promoting and ensuring the advancement of opportunities for underrepresented people, Bates is a strong advocate for the proactive recruitment, retention, and development of high-quality students, staff, and faculty who contribute diverse perspectives and backgrounds that represent the global community. His commitment to underrepresented students is partly selfish, he explained, saying, “I was that student.” He grew up in a neighborhood in Chicago where going to college was not an expectation or common occurrence.
He said, “My mother and father both pushed the value of education and how it can give you broader opportunities. Once I was exposed and began to see the benefits, I understood that there were a lot of people like me whom I wanted to expose to what was possible.”
Bates was honored by the Ohio Athletic Trainers Association with the 2017 Linda Weber Daniel Outstanding Mentor Award and the 2018 Professional Service Award. He also received the 2020 Great Lakes Athletic Trainers’ Association’s Dedicated Service Award in recognition of contributions to the athletic training profession at the state, regional, and national levels.
On receiving the AHS Distinguished Alumni Award, Bates said, “It is extremely humbling to be recognized by the College of Applied Health Sciences. When I received the notification, I was quickly reminded of my mother’s advice. She said, ‘Make a difference. Work hard when no one important is watching.’ Knowing there are countless alumni who have also done outstanding work in their fields, I feel truly blessed to be the 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient.”
Harold Scharper Award
Michal Nowicki is an associate attorney with Marashlian & Donahue, located in the metropolitan Washington DC area. He completed his law degree in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Law in 2018. During law school, he served as staff writer and notes editor for the Illinois Business Law Journal. He wrote two notes for the journal, both of which were published.
He recalls his law school days fondly, saying, “I was very fortunate to be part of a law school class that bonded closely, especially during the first year when there is no flexibility in choosing schedules. We were in it for the long haul. It was a difficult year. We stuck together and I developed several lifelong friendships as a result.” He enjoyed working with the college’s renowned faculty, who helped him understand the broad array of options available to someone with a law degree.
“DRES really topped things off very well,” he continued. “They consistently provided reliable accommodations so that I could focus on academics and not have to fight for what I needed, as too many people I have known, unfortunately, have had to do in their academic endeavors.”
Nowicki focuses his practice on helping clients comply with a wide range of telecommunications laws. His primary area of expertise centers on laws requiring access for people with physical, sensory, and other disabilities to telephone relay services and other forms of telecommunications, video content and equipment, and other digital products and services. Of his work, he said, “My focus on representing clients in accessibility-related matters is not just to help them comply with accessibility laws, but also to understand and take full advantage of the commercial benefits of incorporating accessibility into every state of product and service design, thereby tapping into a market of millions of people who have not allowed their disabilities to hold them back.”
Nowicki is keenly interested in the 21st-Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) and other accessibility laws. He helped the National Federation of the Blind convince the FCC to deny Amazon’s petition for a permanent exemption from CVAA accessibility requirements for e-book readers. He also worked closely with Comcast and DirecTV to ensure that both companies comply with FCC regulations requiring audio description for blind and low vision customers. Nowicki recently responded to the FCC’s request for public comments on how audio description rules have been implemented, hoping that the FCC will expand the requirements to cover video-on-demand programming and television broadcasts delivered over the Internet.
In 2020, he co-hosted a unique webinar highlighting the wide range of business opportunities arising from making digital products and services accessible to customers with disabilities, presenting alongside the Chief of the FCC Disability Rights Office and the top product designer at Poly, which makes various communication devices. He also provided a highly interactive, in-depth overview of audio description requirements under the CVAA, Americans with Disabilities Act, and Sections 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act at the 2021 Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law Symposium; shared his experiences with online conferencing platforms at an American Bar Association-sponsored webinar on disability access to virtual courts; and delivered an informative presentation on the current state of U.S. video accessibility laws.
Nowicki is a proud leader in the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois (NFBI), with which he has been involved for over a decade. Since November 2020, he has served as the organization’s elected treasurer, preparing its annual budget, strategically allocating grants to attract future donations, and managing tax obligations, among other responsibilities. Mr. Nowicki also co-chairs two important NFBI committees focused on helping blind Illinoisans live productive and independent lives and shaping official NFBI policies on a wide range of blindness issues.
AHS Young Alumni Award
Manu Edakara majored in community health as an undergraduate because his parents wanted him to be a doctor, and he thought it would be the best avenue for preparing for that role. He did not become a doctor, however. Instead, he founded the award-winning iVenture Accelerator, one of the top educational entrepreneurship programs in the country. Still, he thinks his education in AHS prepared him well for his entrepreneurial role.
“I credit my discipline, positive outlook, and holistic approach to leadership and management to my deep understanding of health and wellness and how much it matters,” he said. “I am a healthy leader, and I take pride in that, and often inspire others to live healthier lives.”
As an undergraduate, Edakara worked as a personal trainer for Campus Recreation and became an emergency medical technician. He worked in a hospital cardiac rehabilitation center, helped to train the wheelchair basketball team and Paralympians in the Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services, did research in the Exercise Psychology Lab, and worked with veterans with severe mental and physical disabilities at the Jefferson Center for Veterans Affairs.
As director of iVenture Accelerator, Edakara provides a startup ecosystem across the three University of Illinois campuses in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, and Springfield. Part of a statewide economic development initiative, iVenture Accelerator supports students’ innovative ideas for economic and educational transformation. Its portfolio companies have raised more than $100 million, created more than 600 full-time jobs around the world, and received prestigious international recognition. Edakara serves as the main strategic advisor for all teams on mission, vision, hiring, leadership, raising money, storytelling, operations, and marketing.
“I’m in the line of work I’m in because I believe that business that works is business that solves a problem,” he said. “Good business solves a problem, which helps people. I’m in the business of helping people.”
Edakara also is the co-instructor for the Topics in Entrepreneurship seminar offered by the Gies College of Business,. The seminar attracts students from all colleges, majors, and academic standings across the entire University of Illinois system and Illinois Innovation Network, and is consistently ranked in the top four percent of courses at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His young changemakers have been featured on Amazon Prime documentaries and received Thiel Fellowships from the Society of Women Engineers.
In 2020, Edakara was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. He is a certified personal trainer, emergency medical technician, and formerly competed in men’s bodybuilding. He has been training in kalaripayattu, believed to be the oldest surviving martial art in India, since he was a child.
“I’ve accomplished everything that I set out to do when I graduated college,” he said. “I’m very happy and fulfilled where I am. I’m very grateful for where I am and very humbled. I’m doing what I want and every day is really good.”
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