North Central College honors William Soper of Northbrook with Outstanding Alumni Award

North Central College is honoring William Soper, M.D., of Northbrook with a 2013 Outstanding Alumni Award. He graduated from North Central in 1968 with a degree in biology.

Soper and six others will be honored during the College’s Homecoming Convocation at 4:15 p.m. Friday, Oct. 25, at North Central College’s Wentz Concert Hall at the Fine Arts Center, 171 E. Chicago Ave., Naperville.

A top surgeon and leader in the medical field, Soper is a board-certified general surgeon at Advanced Surgical Associates, S.C. in Arlington Heights, Ill., and has built his career around general surgery and transplantation. He received his medical degree from University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago and completed his surgical residency at the University of Illinois Medical Center.

Soper also completed a two-year fellowship in transplant surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Following his training, he served as director of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at the University of Illinois Medical Group and as associate director of transplantation at Northwestern Memorial Hospital for 12 years. He has been practicing general surgery in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago since 1994 with special interest in dialysis access, hernia, breast, gallbladder and colon surgery, in addition to advanced laparoscopic surgery of the abdomen.
 
He has held several leadership positions at area hospitals, including chief of general surgery at Northwest Community Hospital and president of the Illinois Transplant Society, as well as local and national organizations, such as the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and the American Cancer Society Reach to Recovery Program. Soper has published numerous articles in national journals in the areas of transplantation and general surgery and is a member of many national surgical societies.

Others being honored during North Central’s Homecoming are Outstanding Alumni Award recipients Charles Bartsch of Washington, D.C.; John Giannini, Ph.D., of Mullica Hill, N.J.; Steven Hoeft of Naperville; and the Rev. Dr. Tracy Smith-Malone of Aurora. The Alumni Recognition Award recipient is Josh Stumpenhorst of Oswego, and Wilber C. Harr, Ph.D., will be honored with a posthumous Wall of Witness honor.

Founded in 1861, North Central College is an independent, comprehensive college of the liberal arts and sciences that offers more than 55 undergraduate majors and graduate programming in seven areas. Located in the Historic District of Naperville, Illinois—rated by Money magazine as among the nation’s “Best Places to Live”—North Central College is just 30 minutes from Chicago’s Loop. With more than 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students, North Central College is committed to academic excellence, a climate that emphasizes leadership, ethics, values and service, a curriculum that balances job-related knowledge with a liberal arts foundation and a caring environment with small classes. Visit www.northcentralcollege.edu to learn more.