CARBONDALE, Ill. – Four professors at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale are launching what they hope becomes a scholarship fund in a late journalism student’s name.

Ryan Rendleman was a 22-year-old SIU photojournalism student from Batavia when he was killed last month in an accident at a southern Illinois construction zone.

He was granted a degree posthumously Saturday.

Four members of the school’s journalism faculty have pledged the initial $2,000 for the scholarship, with hopes of collecting the $25,000 necessary to create the endowed scholarship.

The award will go to a photojournalism student at the school, perhaps beginning in the spring 2009 semester.