Retired Waubonsee College President Given Key To The City

AURORA, IL — The president of Waubonsee Community College for 21 year years, Christine Sobek hung up her cap and officially retired Jan. 4.

The education leader was celebrated for her three-decades-long career at the Sugar Grove college at Tuesday night's City Council meeting where she was gifted a Key to the City of Aurora.

"You have opened the doors for so many students," Mayor Richard Irvin said during a special presentation at the meeting. "In return, we want you always to know the doors of our city are open to you. You are always welcome here."

To further honor Sobek's final day in office and her career, which Irvin described at the meeting as "trailblazing," he issued a proclamation and made Jan. 4, 2022, Dr. Christine Sobek Day.

During the president's tenure at Waubonsee, the school increased enrollment, multiplied student scholarships by 300 percent, built five new buildings on its main campus as well as two new campuses, one in Plano and another in downtown Aurora, and launched the Latinx Resource Center in Aurora to better serve the school's growing Latino student population, officials said.

"Concluding a stellar 33-year career at Waubonsee Community College, of which the past 21 she was at the institution’s helm, Dr. Sobek has left an indelible mark on the college, the nearly 180,000 students that have attended during her presidency, and more than 1,000 employees," Chief Communications Officer Clayton Muhammad wrote in a news release.

Effective upon her retirement, Sobek was named president emeritus by the Waubonsee Community College Board of Trustees.