University News
WIU Alumnus Neil Styczynski is CAS "Professor of the Day"
March 8, 2012
MACOMB, IL – Neil Styczynski will return to his alma mater Western Illinois University as the College of Arts and Sciences "Professor of the Day" Tuesday, March 27.
He earned a Bachelor of Science (teacher education) degree in mathematics (1974), with an economics minor at Western. As a freshman, Styczynski (pronounced sty ZIN ski) played on the Leathernecks football team and was a member of Delta Sigma Phi fraternity. Following his graduation, Styczynski earned an MBA at the University of Illinois.
As Professor of the Day, Styczynski will speak to two general education classes about mathematics and occupations outside of teaching, and one class of mathematics majors who are considering teaching as a career. He will also meet with the Math Club.
Styczynski's career began in June 1976 training as a large systems sales representative with IBM. Following 16 months of training, he was transferred to Bloomington (IL) to work with a team assigned to State Farm Insurance, where he remained until his retirement in 2006. In the early 1990s, he became a software sales specialist for State Farm and other large clients, including Caterpillar, John Deere, the State of Illinois and Eli Lilly.
Since retiring, Styczynski has gone back to his education roots and is a substitute teacher at Normal West High School and the laboratory schools at Illinois State University, Thomas Metcalf School (Pre K-8) and University High School (Normal U High). He is also educating himself, taking a language course each semester at Heartland Community College. He is currently in his fourth semester of French, after completing their curricula in Spanish and Italian.
He and his wife, Joan, are charter members of the ISU Lab School Legacy Society, and they started the Neil and Joan Styczynski Scholarship to help students in the College of Fine Arts and Communication at Illinois State University who transfer from a community college.
A board member for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Illinois, Styczynski is from Polo (IL), where his parents, Richard and Cathryn Styczynski, continue to live.
Posted By: University Communications (U-Communications@wiu.edu)
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