People

Ed Nestingen came to the University YMCA in 1959 after two decades in the student YMCA movement, and served it for more than 30 years: as its program director for nearly two decades, the steady hand behind the Faculty Forum, interim executive director in 1984, and director of the Bailey Scholarship Fund until 1991. Scott Peters credits him with turning around the Y's work with undergraduates and reaching a generation of students with his search for life purpose and meaning.

Henry E. Wilson, known to students, staff and faculty as "Chief," led the University YMCA as its general secretary for 30 years, from 1916 until his death in 1946. He moved the Y out of its commercial building and built up its staff and program. He carried it through two world wars and the Depression, and raised the building at Wright and Chalmers that opened in 1938. He held throughout that the Y was a Christian student movement, not an institution.

Steve Shoemaker, a Presbyterian minister who grew up in Urbana, led the University YMCA as executive director from 1999 to 2008, after 18 years as pastor of McKinley Presbyterian Church and nearly as many on the Y's Friday Forum committee. He opened the Y to interfaith work after Sept. 11, 2001, saw Dump & Run grow into one of the largest sales in town, and led the "Legacy of Leadership" campaign that began the building's renewal. He was also a poet and, for 14 years, the host of WILL's "Keepin' the Faith."