Giving
Donations to LAS
Gifts in Action: Richard G. Cline, AB '57 Sciences and Letters
Promoting Civic Leadership
Students at Illinois are discovering how they can make their mark on society through the Civic Leadership program in the Department of Political Science's Center for Democratic Governance. Both the center and the program were made possible with an initial gift from Richard Cline.
Richard Cline has a philosophy about how you achieve success-you make a commitment to values. "The best organizations embody a sound value structure," he says. "For collaborations to work, the values of trust, mutuality, honesty, and agreement must be present." As a highly successful businessman, he knows the truth of that message. And as an LAS alumnus, he has found a way to ensure that students hear it.
Each spring, the Cline Symposium on Values and the Public Interest brings a national speaker to campus to discuss the values and ethics of civic leadership and responsibility. Students explore these issues in a semester-long class focusing on the speaker's work, and the course culminates in the speaker's presentation and small group discussion sessions led by alumni.
Cline has participated in past symposiums, bringing his business experience to the small group discussion sessions. He is the retired chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Nicor Inc. and founder of Hawthorne Investors, Inc. Before joining Nicor in 1985, Cline was chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Jewel Companies, Inc. and had been with Jewel for 22 years. He was chairman of Hussmann Corporation, has served as chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and has been a director of PepsiAmericas, Inc., Ryerson Inc., and Kmart Corporation and a trustee and chairman of the Northern Funds, Northern Institutional Funds and Northern Multi-Manager Funds.
Cline believes that what the symposium participants learn through the study of values and ethics is central to building a better world. "Our country and its philosophy of respect for individual rights, tolerance of differences, representative government, and free enterprise are the best experiment going in providing opportunity to fulfill human aspirations. When people play fast and loose with these principles, when they step over the boundary or walk too close to the edge, they destroy rather than build. It is essential to preserve those values if we are to be successful in improving the human condition."