{"id":37134,"date":"2025-04-08T17:44:23","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T21:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=37134"},"modified":"2025-04-08T17:55:27","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T21:55:27","slug":"svec-university-of-illinois-physics-alum-has-his-eye-on-the-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/svec-university-of-illinois-physics-alum-has-his-eye-on-the-sky\/","title":{"rendered":"Svec, University of Illinois physics alum, has his eye on the sky"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Furman University&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/people\/michael-svec\">Michael Svec<\/a> is part of an effort to restore the aging Campus Observatory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, his alma mater. Svec, a Furman professor of education and coordinator for the science education interdisciplinary minor, leads Friends of the Observatory, a group he and others established in 2010. The organization has raised a $500,000 grant from the National Park Service and matching funds from the university to get needed repairs underway.<\/p>\n<p>Svec, a physics alum of the university, said the building, which was named a National Historic Landmark, is more than an observatory. It&#8217;s a place to gather and &#8220;find a community having a shared love of the sky,&#8221; he said. Renovations are set to begin in summer 2025 and continue through fall. Learn more on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Department of Astronomy <a href=\"https:\/\/astro.illinois.edu\/news\/2025-04-04\/preserving-stars-alumni-led-effort-revitalizes-historic-observatory\">website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Education Professor Michael Svec leads Friends of the Observatory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where he earned a bachelor&#8217;s in physics. He is leading efforts to restore the Campus Observatory, a National Historic Landmark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":37137,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,6,3354],"tags":[2692,3355,3356],"class_list":["post-37134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-in-the-news","category-university-of-illinois","tag-astronomy","tag-historic-observatories","tag-preservation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37134"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37138,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37134\/revisions\/37138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}