Tag: Recreation Sport and Tourism

Study: Access to parks linked with greater physical activity for some, but not all, residents

Jan. 15, 2026 |

Parks’ proximity has a small positive effect on residents’ physical activity levels, and the effect is greater in counties with higher household incomes and larger populations of white, non-Hispanic residents, according to a study led by recreation, sport and tourism professors Mikihiro Sato and Toni Liechty.

Photos by L.Brian Stauffer

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new two-year study found that U.S. residents who lived near parks and recreational facilities had small increases in their leisure-time physical activities, but the relationship was stronger in more affluent counties with largely white, non-Hispanic populations.

Mikihiro Sato, a professor of recreation, sport and tourism at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, used data from the University of Wisconsin County Health Rankings database for 2019 and 2020 to look at the percentages of counties’ populations that had adequate access to parks and recreational facilities. The study defined adequate access as living in a census tract that was within a half mile of a park or one square mile of recreational facilities in urban areas or within three miles of them in rural areas.

According to the study, published in the journal Leisure Sciences, more than 55% of each county’s population had such access. The final datasets represented more than 96% of U.S. counties, the team said.

“We found that the association between the prevalence of leisure-time physical activity and access to parks and recreational facilities was stronger in counties that had greater proportions of non-Hispanic white residents,” Sato said. “The relationship strengthened further as median household income increased, which suggests that residents of higher-income counties may be more likely to visit parks and facilities to engage in leisure-time physical activity.”

The co-authors of the paper were Toni Liechty, a professor in the department at Illinois; Lance Warwick, a sport management professor at Ithaca College and current doctoral candidate at Illinois; and Nicholas Pitas, a professor of public health and health education at the State University of New York at Brockport.

While the role of parks and recreation facilities in providing greater opportunities for engagement in physical activity has been highlighted in some recent public policies, the research findings have been mixed, the team wrote.

In a 2019 study published in the Journal of Leisure Research, Sato and his co-authors reported that counties with greater access to parks and recreational facilities had lower health care costs among older adults, most likely because living near these amenities encouraged residents to engage in physical activity. That paper was co-written with Yuhei Inoue, a current sport management professor at Illinois then at the University of Minnesota; James Du, a professor of sport management at Florida State University; and Daniel C. Funk, a professor and the Ed Rosen Senior Research Fellow at Temple University.

In addition to exploring the relationship between facility availability and adults’ physical activity levels in the current study, the team investigated whether it changed depending on county demographics such as income and racial composition. Sato said they used county-level data because most local parks and recreation agencies operate within a county-based structure. However, the team’s methodology also accounted for state-level policy differences that might affect residents’ physical activity, he said.

About 75% of each county’s population was non-Hispanic white. The median household income levels were $57,500 in the 2019 dataset and $55,700 the following year.

The study included adults age 20 or older. About 69% of those in the 2019 dataset said they exercised or engaged in some form of recreational physical activity during the prior 30 days, and that proportion increased to more than 74% the following year, the researchers found.

While some public health initiatives have highlighted the role of parks and recreation facilities in boosting communitywide physical activity levels and mitigating health care costs, the research findings have been inconsistent, suggesting that the impact is not universal and that there may be differing factors at play that affect community members’ abilities and willingness to use these amenities, the team wrote.

While providing adequate access is important, “Making facilities more welcoming and accessible is also essential,” Liechty said. “We recommend community-centered approaches and partnerships with local organizations to co-design programs that are inclusive and reflect local needs and cultural contexts. These initiatives could include providing family-oriented activities, creating subsidized fee structures that make programs more affordable for low-income residents, and improving the walkability of neighborhood parks.”      

The work was funded by the Campus Research Board at the U. of I.

Editor’s note:

To reach Mikihiro Sato, email mikisato@illinois.edu.

To reach Toni Liechty, email tliechty@illinois.edu.

The paper “Park and recreational facility availability, leisure-time physical activity, socioeconomic status and race” is available online or from the News Bureau.
DOI:10.1080/01490400.2025.2566939

The paper “Access to parks and recreational facilities, physical activity and health care costs for older adults: Evidence from U.S. counties” is available online or from the News Bureau.

DOI: 10.1080/00222216.2019.1583048

Social identification with a team boosts fans’ social well-being

Nov. 6, 2025 | Tia King

Sport teams and other organizations can boost their supporters’ social well-being through digital platforms and other initiatives that promote a strong group identity and feelings of trust that all members have their collective best interests at heart, according to a study led by recreation, sport and tourism professor Yuhei Inoue that included sport fans in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

Professor Yuhei Inoue most recent study with his team shows that consumers’ identification with service organizations, such as sports teams, has a real impact on their social wellbeing. Photo taken at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025. (Photo by Fred Zwicky / University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Sport fans all know that rosy feeling of happiness when we hang out with others who support our favorite team. A new study conducted with sport consumers in the U.S. and the United Kingdom suggests that organizations that want to enhance their supporters’ health and well-being can achieve that by bolstering their social identification with the group.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign recreation, sport and tourism professors Yuhei Inoue and Mikihiro Sato say that social identification with organizations boosts our social well-being — our ability to form and sustain meaningful relationships — by giving us access to three important social and psychological resources: in-group trust, a sense of purpose and meaning, and perceived progroup norms — which are the beliefs that all group members are prioritizing our collective best interests.

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Teaching the next ‘champions for change’ in sport

Oct. 24, 2025 | Ethan Simmons

A group photo from RST 199: IC-ChangeS first section in spring 2025, in Kenney Gym. The course had Recreation, Sport and Tourism undergrads teach local student-athletes about social justice through sport. (Provided)

This Recreation, Sport and Tourism course brought together undergrads and local high school student-athletes, to understand how sport can produce positive social change.

A new Recreation, Sport and Tourism course—Inclusive Champions for Change through Sport, or IC-ChangeS for short—is challenging Illinois students to understand how sports can provide a platform for positive social change.

And what better way to learn than leading their own classes with local high school athletes?

Lead instructor Yannick Kluch, an assistant professor in RST, piloted this course in the spring. His team found a willing partner in University Laboratory High School, the small high school on the Urbana campus.

“I’ve always thought about why people are not doing more to engage high school athletes in social justice work, because they do tend to have a platform in their community,” Kluch said. “The idea had been brewing in my head for years, but I never felt like I could turn it into reality. But here at Illinois, I felt supported right away to make it happen.”

The pilot of this course felt like a step outside the comfort zone to many of the undergrads who enrolled. They would have to don their professors’ caps while wading through potentially prickly topics with their peers. But students left feeling transformed by the experience.

“Being in that smaller group made me feel comfortable sharing my ideas and thoughts, knowing I was in a safe space,” said Lauren Ratajczak, a senior in RST. “I felt like I actually was making a difference in people’s lives. These students can go on to pursue social justice and change in their futures.”

The syllabus explored key social justice topics, mapped onto the sports world: What does systemic injustice mean and look like? What are social identities and unconscious biases? How do these concepts play out for modern-day sport icons?

Kluch researches how sport is used as a platform to advance equity and inclusion on a societal level. When he arrived at Illinois, he quickly connected with Mariela Fernandez, an associate professor in RST who researches environmental justice.

When they heard about the University of Illinois’ Call to Action grants, the project seemed like a perfect fit. The annual grant program from the Chancellor’s office funds research and community engagement projects that tackle social inequities head-on.

With $90,338 from the Chancellor’s grant, and a team of collaborators including RST doctoral student Solomon Siskind, RST master’s student Kevin Gillooly, and Anna Baeth from the national sports inclusivity nonprofit Athlete Ally, the IC-ChangeS team got to work. The group later added two staff members from Uni High as well as a local high school student from Champaign Central High School to the team.

Uni High offered up four sessions of their normal Physical Education class periods for RST to work with. The organizers quickly realized, to best deliver the material, the students would have to become the teachers.

“I wanted to leave the students with a new sense of agency when it comes to social justice topics,” Kluch said. “That was a key goal, to make students not shy away from this. Especially when these topics are under attack.” 

‘You can make a difference’

In one of the first IC-ChangeS sessions, Uni High student Aldo Zepeda Flores walked up to a large piece of paper hanging on the wall, with the question “What does social injustice look like to you?” written on the top.

One by one, students jotted down their answers on the sheet before discussing with the group.

“It was really nice because you got to see everyone else’s perspective and everyone else’s opinions, but it also gives a sense of privacy when you can express stuff a lot more than when you’re called on in class,” Zepeda Flores said.

The Uni High students participated in four sessions during their usual gym class period, with the support of their high school PE teachers.

An IC-ChangeS group activity in action. Each class period was designed to be as interactive as possible.

With only a handful of sessions, each IC-ChangeS session was designed to be as interactive as possible. In one activity, the high schoolers played a card game called “Buffalo: The Name Dropping Game.” Two cards were quickly flipped, one with a noun and the other with an adjective. If the words were “Muslim” and “athlete,” for example, whoever can first think of a person that combined the two terms won the round. Unbeknownst to the high schoolers at the time, the game had been developed to address unconscious biases at play.

“It was no thinking, no time for analyzing the question or what you were about to say,” Zepeda Flores said. “And then you start to realize, maybe I’m thinking in a different way than I should be. You acknowledge your own biases.”

For Flores, who has played soccer his entire life, what resonated most was the sense of belonging: “I’ve done club sports my entire life, a person’s sense of belonging can affect their style of play. I reflected on my own experience, on the times I wasn’t as welcoming, or the times I felt excluded.”

“It gave me perspective of how in every environment, not just sports, my class, and home, you want everyone to feel a sense of belonging, where they all feel welcome,” he said.

Each session was interactive and carefully planned, but the RST undergraduates were the main shapers of the instruction, Kluch said. They were free to figure out how to best deliver lessons to the group of young athletes.

“It’s not just us telling the undergrads, ‘teach that,’ it’s us asking the undergrads, ‘How would you teach that? What would you teach?’ and then they take agency and facilitate,” Kluch said. “They were super creative, and it resonated with the high schoolers because they found engaging ways to talk about these issues.”

The RST students began to make connections between their own lives and the class content – and used that to connect with the high schoolers. “We were teaching the high school athletes, no matter how small the community, you can make a difference,” Ratajczak said. These young athletes do have power and they do have a voice.”

Having supervised the pilot run of the course at Uni High, Uni Physical Education Teacher Luke Bronowski feels the innovative format would be appealing for other high schools. At Uni, the students looked forward to the interactive sessions.

“We have a diverse population at Uni High, some students who’ve experienced social injustice, and so I think it was eye-opening not only for the high school students to hear some of these stories, but I felt the college students were learning from our students, too,” Bronowski said. “Our students were getting tools to use their platform as athletes to be agents of change.” 

Lasting bonds

Lexie Breymeyer came to the University of Illinois in 2021 from Hoopeston, a town of 5,000 roughly an hour drive away from campus. Prior to enrolling in this course, concepts like microaggressions and cultural competence were relatively foreign to her, she said.

“This class has singlehandedly changed my mindset, my values, how I look at the world. I could not ask for more from a class—it’s truly changed me as an individual,” Breymeyer said. 

After graduating in the spring from the RST program, Breymeyer was accepted to the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She credits IC-ChangeS’ content for inspiring her to go into sports journalism.

“Sport is not just a game, it’s a tool, and learning how to use sport as a tool for change opens countless amounts of doors. For journalism, I want to do sports broadcasting, setting up a platform to have these uncomfortable conversations,” Breymeyer said. 

Even at Northwestern, she’s still in touch with her IC-Changes classmates: after the semester of IC-ChangeS concluded in May, their group chat is still active, updating each other on their lives and keeping up with the news, just like they did in class.

It’s not just us telling the undergrads, ‘teach that,’ it’s us asking the undergrads, ‘How would you teach that? What would you teach?’ and then they take agency and facilitate.

Yannick Kluch

Assistant Professor in Recreation, Sport and Tourism

“We would spend time processing what was going on in higher ed,” she said. “The world we live in is hectic right now, having a safe space to discuss those things and how it relates to what we were teaching students was one of my favorite things about the class overall. It was a community where we could talk about tough topics.”

The plan for this course is to “scale up,” Kluch said. He hopes the peer-to-peer class framework is replicable for other high schools and colleges in-state and throughout the country, which can be adapted for topics with a specific social justice focus, such as inclusion for people with disabilities or sexual violence prevention. He’s submitted for the course to become a permanent part of the Recreation, Sport and Tourism curriculum.

“The pilot run couldn’t have gone better, and I am so proud of our RST students, the IC-ChangeS athletes, and our partners at Uni High for keeping an open mind and making the course as impactful as it has been,” Kluch said. “This course represents the very fabric of what we do in RST; we use our passion for recreation, sport and tourism to make a difference in the world.”

Editor’s note:

To reach Yannick Kluch, email ykluch@illinois.edu

Interested in enrolling in an RST course this spring? Visit https://courses.illinois.edu/schedule/2026/spring/RST for the full offerings.

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Understanding the trauma coping of Ukrainian refugees

Oct. 21, 2025 | Ethan Simmons

‘This was by far the most difficult and I think impactful work that I have done’

Photos from Medyka, a Polish village near the Ukraine border, a few months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Millions of Ukrainian refugees have passed through Poland, with more than 990,000 settling there under temporary protected status. (Provided by Monika Stodolska)

Sitting face-to-face with Ukrainian refugees who had escaped to Poland after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Recreation, Sport and Tourism Professor Monika Stodolska asked a set of questions many of them hadn’t considered. Namely, what do you do in your leisure time?

She wanted to understand what they had done to cope with their psychological trauma from the conflict, and whether their participation in leisure activities had helped to relieve some of the stress they’d experienced. But Stodolska wasn’t prepared for how difficult it would be to even broach the subject, or how the refugees’ reactions would affect her personally.

“The look on their faces when I asked that really stuck with me. ‘How can you even be asking about leisure when everything else is going on, when my family lives on the front lines, when I’m separated from my children?’” Stodolska said. “I knew as a researcher how important leisure can be in helping people cope with those most difficult moments in their lives. But these people didn’t realize that.”

Stodolska, professor of RST at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, researches how leisure and recreation can improve health and well-being, especially among racially and ethnically minoritized populations. In 2025, she released the first paper in a series studying the human consequences of the Russian war on Ukraine, specifically in the neighboring country of Poland.

By Feb. 2024, more than 18.8 million Ukrainians had crossed the country’s border with Poland since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. By Sept. 2025, roughly 993,000 Ukrainian refugees remained in Poland under temporary protected status, with the majority resettling elsewhere or returning to Ukraine. (Germany is the only country with more Ukrainian refugees, at nearly 1.2 million).  

In the fall of 2022, Stodolska—who happened to be on sabbatical—traveled back to her home country of Poland and began conducting in-depth interviews with three groups of people who were thrust into action as the war intensified. 

She interviewed Ukrainian refugees who moved westward to Poland to escape the war, administrators of the aid effort such as Polish city mayors and organizers of mass refugee shelters, and “helpers,” Polish residents who housed refugees when the conflict escalated and volunteers who assisted the aid effort at home or on the frontlines.

Her first paper in the series, “The Roles of Leisure in Trauma Coping Among Ukrainian War Refugees in Poland,” was published in the journal Leisure Sciences this April. The paper contains firsthand narratives from her interviews with the Ukrainian refugees, which took place from Nov. 2022 to May 2023. 

Among the 21 refugees she interviewed for the study, 19 were women, matching the ratio of Ukrainians initially displaced by the war. Until this August, men of military age were not allowed to leave Ukraine while the fighting continued.

Stodolska conducted interviews in a mix of Polish, English and some Russian, while research assistant Tala Naumovska, from the Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures, conducted interviews with subjects who spoke only Ukrainian.

Polish and Ukrainian flags on the gates to the Warsaw University campus. Polish national attitudes toward Ukrainian refugees have shifted since the invasion began. (Monika Stodolska)

Using Lazarus and Folkman’s framework to explain how individuals cope with psychological stress, Stodolska divided their leisure activities into either emotion-focused or problem-focused coping. The emotion-focused coping, among others, included checking Ukrainian news or staying in touch with family and friends, while problem-focused coping included collecting materials that could be sent the war’s frontlines, using leisure to build a sense of belonging, and traveling across Poland to learn about their new environment.

“We knew that leisure is a good buffer against trauma,” she said. “But there was so much more that surfaced in this study.”

Many of the refugees she interviewed developed strong relationships with their Polish host families, and found purpose in joining the community’s volunteer activities for the war effort, such as weaving camouflage nets intended for the war’s trenches.

Stodolska was continually struck by the immense humanitarian response she witnessed in the wake of the second invasion of Ukraine.

“It was not only the Polish population—Czech, Slovaks, Germans, everyone wanted to help. The scale and magnitude of the assistance that was given to people was just extraordinary,” Stodolska said. “To me, it was not only extremely moving from a humanitarian perspective, but from a research perspective, I thought that this was unprecedented and needed to be studied.”

But the process of acclimation was painstaking for many of the refugees, who often struggled to find purpose in their free time. Eartha, a 38-year-old mother who escaped from Ukraine with her three children, compared leisure activities like visiting the local park or zoo to “doing time” in prison while awaiting her return.

 “Because it’s like you don’t live, you’re just there, you’re just passing the time. You’re ‘doing time’. I mean, you’re safe; everything is fine, but you are just like a piece of paper,” Eartha said in her interview. 

What has lingered with Stodolska are the traumatic memories of escape her interviewees recalled. Three years after beginning this study, she feels irrevocably changed.

“This was my first encounter with people who just crossed the border escaping death,” Stodolska said. “The gruesome stories that they were telling me, people whose families were murdered or who witnessed death during the escape … I was shell-shocked doing this study.”

“I’ve studied race and ethnicity and discrimination for decades now, but this was by far the most difficult and I think impactful work that I have done.”

The look on their faces really stuck with me. ‘How can you even be asking about leisure when everything else is going on, when my family lives on the front lines, when I’m separated from my children?

Monika Stodolska

Professor of Recreation, Sport and Tourism

While working on her second paper chronicling Polish “helpers” of Ukrainian refugees, Stodolska decided to pause and reevaluate. Polish citizens’ attitudes toward Ukrainian refugees who had settled in the country have deteriorated in the last year, Stodolska said, and she wants to return this fall to collect more data to trace the reasons for this shift.

“They were, at the beginning of the conflict, incredibly supportive and pro-Ukrainian, including here in the United States, but especially in Eastern Europe. The narrative was, ‘They’re fighting our war. Poland is next, right?’,” Stodolska said. “However, we have since seen a marked shift in the attitudes towards migrants—to the point where the majority of the Polish population says that they want the refugees to leave and go back home.”

Why the shift? New perceptions have emerged in Poland and in the region; that Ukrainian refugees are a drain on the country’s resources, or that they’re receiving preferential treatment through government assistance programs. In an opinion poll from the Warsaw-based Centre for Public Opinion Research, 50% of Poles believed the scale of government assistance for Ukrainian refugees was “too great” in general, while 58% believed Ukrainian refugees must work to receive social benefits.

“It was not only the Polish population—Czech, Slovaks, Germans, everyone wanted to help. The scale and magnitude of the assistance that was given to people was just extraordinary,” Stodolska said.

Stodolska is planning to re-interview many of the Poles who brought Ukrainian refugees into their homes and who offered assistance through other means, and ask, “if you were in this situation again, would you still help to the extent you did?”

“I want to have two snapshots in time,” she said. “Take a more longitudinal approach.”

While war negotiations remain at a standstill, the suffering continues. Yet, as Stodolska wrote in the closing paragraph of her paper, Ukrainian refugees’ experiences are only the tip of the iceberg: more than 100 million people globally have been forcibly displaced worldwide by war, oppression and persecution.

She wrote that it was her “sincere wish” that research on refugees was not needed, but that until they are able to return to their homelands, “their fight for survival and dignity [must be] brought to the witness of the world.”

“Don’t lose interest, don’t lose compassion. Compassion is never wrong. Doing the right thing is never wrong,” Stodolska said. “Research is only one tool of that. If I can use research to make sure that this stays in the news cycle, and that people don’t lose interest in helping Ukraine or helping other people who are in need, I’ve done my job.”

Editor’s note:

To contact Monika Stodolska, email stodolsk@illinois.edu
The paper “The Roles of Leisure in Trauma Coping Among Ukrainian War Refugees in Poland” is available online.
DOI: 10.1080/01490400.2025.2487070

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RST student startup built to help venues stay booked

Jan. 10, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

An RST alumnus developed a digital platform to help venues maximize their booking potential.

Atop the usual final exams and projects, University of Illinois senior Sean Chang has been charting a different path for his final year in the Recreation, Sport and Tourism program—by building his own business.

With the help of mentors and the entrepreneurial ecosystem at the U. of I., Chang is growing “DoubleSpot,” a digital platform designed to help venues maximize their booking potential.

The business officially launched this summer, and already partners with venues such as the I-Hotel and Conference Center in Champaign, Bedford Park’s Wintrust Sports Complex, and campus cafe BrewLab.

“When we talk about video, we talk about YouTube—my long-term goal is when people think of venues or events, I want them to think about DoubleSpot,” Chang said.

The senior’s ambitious idea has found catalysts through the iVenture Accelerator, an entrepreneurial bootcamp designed to kickstart U. of I. students’ startups, and in guidance from RST faculty members, such as Interim Associate Dean for Undergraduate and Graduate Affairs and former RST department head Carla Santos, who’ve dispensed their industry expertise and helped Chang connect with potential clients.

“[Sean] embodies that entrepreneurial spirit of RST,” Santos said. “We’re constantly reminding our students that while we are training you to go into this field, we’re training you to take risks, to reimagine what the field could look like.”

Chang grew up in Taiwan, but moved to California when he was a junior in high school when his father got a job at tech giant Nvidia.

“It was a new beginning for me,” he said. “Moving to a new country was completely different for sure, like culture, friends, school, everything.”

He fortunately joined his high school’s varsity basketball team, which helped him integrate within his new home, find friends and grow his love for sport.

When time came to apply for college, Chang wasn’t sure what he wanted for his future. He wanted to balance his desire for a career in the sports industry with the stability his family sought for him, he said. Chang applied for sports management programs, with the United States’ huge entertainment market in mind.

“There’s not a lot of Asian Americans in this field and I want to prove that if other people can do it, why can’t I do it? I think this kind of mentality has always been pushing me,” Chang said.

Illinois became his lead college option for its global reputation. Many famous Illinois graduates from his native Taiwan, such as YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, had cited the school as a powerful starting point. He went for the RST program in the College of Applied Health Sciences and obtained his family’s blessing by minoring in computer science.

“The U. of I.’s kind of a perfect match for me,” Chang said. “RST gives us a lot of opportunity to do what we like, and the faculty and professors are super supportive.”

Chang quickly made connections with faculty, including retired RST adjunct instructor Don Hardin, who had more than 30 years of NCAA volleyball coaching experience at the University of Louisville and the University of Illinois, where he was the head coach of the women’s team.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit during Chang’s freshman year and changed his course. He took a gap year to visit National Taiwan University, where he studied computer science and clarified his career goals.

“I figured entrepreneurship could be a good fit for me, I have the sports background, CS knowledge, and something we can bounce together,” he said. Plus, “U. of I. has a really good entrepreneurship ecosystem.”

With more professional knowledge, Chang started to dip his toes into the startup world. After returning to the U. of I., he engineered “Courtero,” a community basketball app designed to help players find games near them.

In 2022, he landed a summer job with the Los Angeles Dodgers as a business strategy analytics intern—essentially helping the team find more ways to generate revenue.

His idea for DoubleSpot first flashed in the walls of Dodger Stadium. Since the stadium only hosts 81 home games per season, he thought, what could all this square footage be used for in the downtime?

“Imagine people want to have their wedding in center field, or have their kids at a VIP lounge?” Chang said.

Sean Chang. (Provided)

He returned to campus with the idea fresh in his mind, finding early users for DoubleSpot in area park districts and local vendor CRS Hospitality, which owns several venues in the Champaign-Urbana area.

The pitch: For a small vendor fee, businesses can use DoubleSpot to drive users and event-planners to use the promoted venues on the site, or hopefully “double” their “spot’s” utilization rate, as Chang put it.

Landing a spot in the recent iVenture Accelerator cohort alongside several other student startups was “such a privilege,” Chang said. With the program’s extra time, resources, and mentoring opportunities, his team at DoubleSpot has catapulted its efforts.

“Sean and his team were culture-setters over the summer,” said Mayank Mehta, assistant director of entrepreneurial education at iVenture. “At every given time, you could see their team focused on developing their product. Whether it was during lunch, morning updates, and even after people had left for the day—someone was coding away.

“A lot of people’s passion shines in the way they talk about their idea, but Sean and DoubleSpot’s passion shines through in how they work on their idea.”

What’s driven the startup’s early success is a “customer-centric approach,” Mehta said, which solved a direct problem these vendors were facing. As for finding these vendors, RST faculty such as Santos have been a valuable resource to his team.

The Wintrust Sports Complex in Bedford Park has been an important early adopter of DoubleSpot, using the service to help digitalize its venue management process, Chang said. The complex is run by Chief Business Officer Joe Ronovsky, a two-time graduate of the U of I’s RST program.

Santos and Chang’s conversations have revolved around the ‘human component’ of building a business: how can you sell this product and what will you bring to the table that others won’t? Who from the RST alumni base could help him out?

Chang has a sponge-like ability to absorb information from mentors’ meetings, quickly implementing important slices of advice into his business, Santos said.

And yet, “Sean doesn’t really need mentoring,” Santos said. “He’s very self-directed and he knows what he’s doing. In our meetings, I hope I’ve given him as much as I’ve gotten out of it, to be quite honest.”

“He wants to deliver a product that makes a difference in not just the operation side of things but building a sense of community through using spaces more efficiently.”

Editor’s note:

To reach Ethan Simmons, email ecsimmon@illinois.edu.
 

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Welcome to AHS: Meet the Class of 2027

Aug. 23, 2023 | Ethan Simmons

The AHS Class of 2027 gathered in Huff Hall for the first time.

Welcome Week at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign capped off with individual college celebrations scattered across campus.

The College of Applied Health Sciences brought first-year students to Huff Hall for a spirited welcome and resource-sharing session. A few members of the newest freshman class offered their thoughts on why they chose AHS and what they’re looking forward to in the new academic year. 

Mustafa Siddique, hailing from Naperville, Ill., had a lot of fun with the “festive” atmosphere of University of Illinois Welcome Week, where it felt like everyone was there to lend a helping hand. 

Mustafa is studying interdisciplinary health sciences on the pre-medical school track. The College of Applied Health Sciences won out in his school choice for its real-world usefulness.  

“It kind of gives you a perspective into the specific field that you’re going into instead of just science as a whole. So I thought AHS was a good choice,” he said.  

Arely Soto, from Aurora, Ill., was exposed to a wide range of therapists through her mother, who’s a social worker. After speaking with a speech pathologist and learning about her career, Arely decided speech and hearing science was the path she wanted to follow. 

Experiencing Illinois Sights and Sounds, the capstone Welcome Week event that teaches new students Illinois traditions, was an early highlight for her. Especially taking a huge picture with her class packed into a “Block I” on the Memorial Stadium field. 

“I’m really excited for RSOs to start, to get involved and see what the schools offer in general.”

Dallas Miles, from South Holland in the Chicago suburbs, said his family always encouraged him to do something in the health field. 

“I’m glad I’m here now,” said Miles, who’ll be studying interdisciplinary health sciences in his freshman year. After Welcome Week, he’s got plenty of Illini merchandise—shirts and stickers galore. 

Dallas’ vision for his career vision orbits around health technology, “making stuff like hearing aids and heart monitors” to help patients day-to-day, he said. 

Allison Pines is from Highlands Ranch, Colo., but she’s a “religious Cubs fan” through and through. In fact, she declared for recreation sport and tourism with a concentration in sports management in the hopes of becoming an analyst for a Major League Baseball team. 

“I was really impressed with the prestige that the concentration in sports management held, it’s something that I’ve been dreaming of for a very long time. The fact that I found a prestigious program at a school I’m passionate about drove me to Applied Health Sciences,” she said. 

“Sports management is my declared major but I may get involved in kinesiology or other opportunities this college has to offer.” 

Illinois freshmen Sam Rausenberger from Carterville and Mihir Patel from Vandalia share an interest in the human body and how it works. Majoring in kinesiology at AHS seemed an easy choice for both of them. 

“I like sports and fitness and I like helping people,” Patel said. “Physical therapy spoke to me, basically, I feel like that’s something I can do.” 

Both freshmen are interested in the physical therapy path, specifically in the world of athletics. 

“I took a health class my freshman year which was required and I loved learning about the skeleton and muscles and all the movement,” Rausenberger said. “I didn’t take another class like that until anatomy in my senior year, we did the bones and learned in-depth how muscles move and how they work. I was super interested in that and knew this is what I want to do.”

After putting their names in for student organizations at the AHS Student Welcome—and in Patel’s case, catching a prized Illini shirt thrown into the crowd at Sights and Sounds—both are excited to explore the U. of I.’s opportunities. 

“I’m definitely looking forward to getting to know more people and knowing the campus, what I’ve seen so far. It’s a beautiful campus. I just don’t know my way around yet,” Rausenberger said. 

Editor’s note:

To reach Ethan Simmons, email ecsimmon@illinois.edu
 

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RST student Javier Maldonado talks about how COVID changed his summer

July 28, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Students in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois have had to adjust their internships because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Periodically, we will speak with them about how those changes have affected their summer plans and potentially career paths. Javier Maldonado expected to work at a field house in Chicago, but instead was part of the inaugural Illini RST Undergraduate Consulting (IRUC) program, created by RST department head Carla Santos and clinical assistant professor Mike Raycraft. He talked to AHS communications about his experience working for The Specialized Marketing Group and the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder.

Q: How are your experiences different from what you expected?

A: My experiences are very different from what I had expected from my internship; I expected something where I would be hands-on and not behind a computer screen. 

Q: Are you doing something different for your internship than what you originally planned?

A: No, not from when I found out about this internship and what it would be like. Since it’s begun, I don’t believe I have done anything different then what was originally planned. 

Q: Does your internship lead you to think about a different career path?

A: It doesn’t necessarily drive to a different path, but it does open up my eyes to different fields within my major. 

Q: What happened to your original internship?

A: I was waiting to hear back from a field house in Chicago but because of COVID-19, they didn’t know how many people they would actually need. Unfortunately, because of time, they weren’t able to give me an answer. 

Q: Has anything been frustrating about your change in internship status?

A: The only frustrating part is being at home and having to work from home.

Q: What are you missing out on because of the pandemic, in terms of working face-to-face with people?

A: I feel like face-to-face is the biggest thing I am missing out on; I am a very hands-on learner and would have liked to learn from a professional face to face. 

Q: What advice do you have for future students who might have disrupted internships?

A: The advice I have is to try and maintain a positive view on things. It’s going to be hard when things don’t go the way you expect but making the best out of situations goes a long way. 

Q: What other ways has COVID-19 affected you? Have you traveled? Have you been able to go home, see family? 

A: COVID-19 has just been a bummer and being stuck at home all the time hasn’t been fun, either. 

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinosomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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RST senior Cristina Guerrero talks about alternate internship in wake of COVID-19

July 01, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Students in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois have had to adjust their internships because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Periodically, we will speak with them about how those changes have affected their summer plans and potentially career paths. Cristina Guerrero was supposed to work in the special events department of the Cincinnati Art Museum, but instead was part of the inaugural Illini RST Undergraduate Consulting (IRUC) program, created by RST department head Carla Santos and clinical assistant professor Mike Raycraft. She talked to AHS communications about her experience working for the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder and Niagara Falls.

Cristina Guerrero

Q: How are your experiences different from what you expected?

A: Overall, I don’t think this internship experience would be that much different than many internship experiences. While there is not in-person interactions, we are still working very collaboratively with our peers and the RST professionals. However, since there are been so much change in every aspect of our lives, this change in internship adds to that difference. 

Q: Are you doing something different for your internship than what you originally planned?

A: My original internship was in special events. So no, I am not doing anything that I originally planned. 

Q: Does your internship lead you to think about a different career path?

A: No, so far this internship has not changed my aspiring career goals. 

Q: What happened to your original internship?

A: My original internship was with the special events department of the Cincinnati Art Museum. The program has not been officially canceled yet, but has been postponed with no new start date. 

Q: Are you working remotely?

A: Yes, I am working remotely. I am back home in Denver. 

Q: Has anything been frustrating about your change in internship status?

A: I am very grateful for the IRUC internship and it has been a great experience. However, it was frustrating having to change all my plans for the summer and fall semester. 

Q: What are you missing out on because of the pandemic, in terms of working face-to-face with people?

A: Yes, even though we are working in teams and trying to be as collaborative as possible. Working remotely rather than face-to-face makes your work much more independent. 

Q: What advice do you have for future students who might have disrupted internships?

A: My advice for anyone who is having difficulty with finding an internship or changes to their internship is to take what you can get. It might not be exactly what you’re are hoping for, but any experience is really important. And you’ll always be able to apply the experience you gained to other jobs/internships. 

Q: What other ways has COVID-19 affected you? Have you traveled? Have you been able to go home, see family?

A: COVID-19 has affected my future plans quite a bit—I was supposed to study aboard in the fall as my last semester, however that was canceled. I decided to drop my Spanish minor and graduate in August rather than December. So I’m graduating a lot sooner than I was expecting and have no job prospect, which has been stressful. But other than that, I’ve been pretty lucky—I went home during spring break and have been home since. I haven’t traveled anywhere (expect to move out of my apartment in Champaign), but since I’m home in Colorado I’ve spent a lot of time in the mountains hiking and camping. 

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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RST student Matt Maguire talks about alternative internship

June 22, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Students in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois have had to adjust their internships because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Periodically, we will speak with them about how those changes have affected their summer plans and potentially career paths. Matt Maguire was supposed to work for the Chicago Cubs in their premier services department in Chicago, but instead was part of the inaugural Illini RST Undergraduate Consulting (IRUC) program, created by RST department head Carla Santos and clinical assistant professor Mike Raycraft. He talked to AHS communications about his experience.

Matt Maguire, a senior in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism in the College of Applied Health Sciences, loves baseball, especially the Chicago Cubs. So he was eager to begin his internship with the Cubbies for a second year this summer, working in their premier services department in Chicago.

Then, the world stopped. COVID-19, which entered our consciousness in January, was acknowledged as a pandemic in mid-March and resulted in a shutdown of most industries beyond the most essential. Baseball’s spring training was halted March 14, just two weeks before planned Opening Day. 

Maguire knew what was happening, and that his internship being in peril was among the least of his worries. That didn’t temper his disappointment.

“I had to take that time realizing, ‘OK, there’s not really a spot for me right now. They’re definitely not worried about me right now when there’s no baseball going on,'” he said. “So it took a while, but I was finally coming to grips with that as it was coming down to the end. OK. This really isn’t going to happen.”

Maguire needed an internship to graduate, as do all RST students. Luckily, RST department head Carla Santos and clinical assistant professor Mike Raycraft collaborated to create the RST Undergraduate Consulting (IRUC) program. IRUC is an opportunity for graduating RST students to connect with industry partners and agencies to provide pro bono, (and remote) consultation, and report on a variety of special topics. The students work with organizations, such as the Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder and Niagara Falls, in three-week cycles and they have a deliverable product at the end of that cycle. Each student must complete two cycles, and the program runs through July 31.

For Maguire, although he had to work remotely, the IRUC still gave him a chance to work with the Cubs. Grouped with two other students, Maguire worked under Megan Gaesor, manager of event operations for the Cubs and an RST alum, working on marketing research.

“It was kind of, ‘How are we going to bring fans back to Wrigley in a safe way? How are we going to have staff feel safe coming back to Wrigley?,'” Maguire said. “And then also, what type of events that we could put on at Wrigley Field during that time because right now it’s just really an empty space. So they needed to find ways to use Wrigley Field, and they asked us to kind of do some research and figure out what people would want to see what was feasible for them to do.”

Maguire and his fellow interns communicated via text each day, with the project due to Gaesor at the end of the three weeks, and he emailed Gaesor once or twice a week. Ideas included using the marquee outside of Wrigley Field as a message-delivery system for local charities, as well as for thanking first-responders for their efforts fighting COVID-19.

“We came up with ideas like having a high school showcase (at Wrigley) for a lot of the (high school) players that had the season canceled because of the coronavirus,” he said. “So it would just be a nice way to get their recruiting a push, as well as having the local community in Illinois feel like the Cubs are really reaching out to them and supporting them in their endeavors.”

Maguire said the plan he delivered to Gaesor was well-received, and as of June 19, he had finished the first cycle and had moved on to working with another RST alum, Mark Thomas, longtime western district director for State Parks of New York, which includes Niagara Falls.

Maguire describes himself as a positive person, and sees the bright side of this alternative internship.

“I’m definitely more open-minded than I was before,” he said, before adding that he still wants to work in baseball. “But now I’ve come to realize there’s so many different ways that you can really get involved and still learn skills in a different firm that can go ahead and make you better as a person and as a worker and that you can bring to really the organization.”

Still, there is no doubt Maguire missed what he was looking forward to about his traditional internship.

“I’m a hands-on person. I like doing stuff. I like moving around all day.  I’m not really doing much, but it’s still fun. And I’ve had a really good time doing it, but I do miss the hands on experience.”

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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