The International Relations Organization (IRO) raised $1,000 in six hours for a legacy tree honoring late political science professor and political science department chair Dr. Marc Simon.
Simon was the adviser for IRO, so when he passed on Dec. 6, 2024, the students said they wanted to honor him in a way he would appreciate.
“Dr. Simon was our faculty advisor, but he was so much more to us than just a faculty advisor. He was truly a mentor for all of us in International Relations Organization,” said IRO publicist and senior political science major Ryleigh Roberts.
On the first day of classes, Simon would hand everyone a buckeye meant to bring good luck, so the organization decided planting a buckeye tree on campus would be a great way to honor him.
“Dr. Simon had a buckeye tree and would collect them all the time and would bring them into class for us. Sometimes, I think he also just picked them up off the sidewalk on his way to class. But he always said, ‘here’s your lucky buckeyes for the semester,’” said IRO member and senior political science major Elyse Adrian. “Plus, they’re native to Ohio, so it’s also important to plant native species.”
When raising money for a legacy tree, BGSU asked for $1,000 to cover the cost of the actual tree, the plaque and labor costs. The fund that IRO started raised a total of $1,482 from 36 donors in just over six hours.
“That amount of money in that amount of time is wild,” Adrian said. “And I got a notification every time somebody donated and every time, I just wanted to cry because it just showed how much people care about him.”
Members of IRO shared the fund with family, friends and other people associated with Simon.
“We shared the link to all of our members of IRO and then encouraged people to donate in any way that they could or just to share it to family and friends or on social media,” Roberts said. “We also sent it to some faculty as well, so faculty also contributed, which is amazing.”
Out of the 36 total donors, seven people left $100 donations, six of whom were faculty members.
“Those were all professors, except for Maria Simon, Marc Simon’s wife, who donated to her own fundraiser, which I told her not to do, but she did it anyway,” Adrian said.
BGSU allows for donations to be sent directly to them, but IRO wanted to be able to keep the extra funds instead of them going back to other campus beautification projects.
“Dr. Simon would have wanted the extra money to go towards International Relations Organization instead of sent towards campus beautification projects, which in and of themselves are very worthy to have donation dollars, but we knew that the people donating to Dr. Simon’s memorial wanted it to go to the place that he would have wanted it to go, which is IRO,” Adrian said.
Now that the money has been raised and sent to the university, members of IRO have also planned where they want the tree to go.
“We would love to do something closer to Williams Hall since that’s where the political science offices are,” Roberts said.
They also have to decide what to write on the plaque to memorialize Simon.
“We’re in the process of figuring that out because I think it’s not necessarily a decision that the students are very keen on making,” Adrian said. “I think we will have input into it, but we had only known Dr. Simon for such a short time even though he made such a large impact on us, so we did ask his wife, Maria to give input on what she thinks it should be and then we’re also asking the political science department.”
The final step is finding a date to plant the tree, which is up to the university.
“We want to do it by the end of the semester to so that we can all be here when it happens, but that’s the university’s timeline now,” Roberts said.
The buckeye tree will honor Dr. Simon, and the process of raising the funds showed just how much he meant to the BGSU community.
“I just think that this goes to show how much everyone loved Dr. Simon and how much of an impact he had on our community. The loss of him is still felt in every space,” Adrian said.
