News Bureau

On the job: Joe Dilts

The “University of Illinois Tax Workbook,” used by tax schools in 17 states (including Illinois), has been published at the UI since 1965. Originally called the Farm Income Tax Workbook, the book is created annually by staff members in the UI Tax School Program (in the UI College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences) and Facilities and Services’ Printing Department.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A national treasure is adding another gem to its collection.

A campaign to raise at least $30 million in private gifts for the University Library was announced Oct. 10 during the UI Foundation’s 68th annual meeting on the Urbana-Champaign campus and during a dedication ceremony at the library to mark its 10 millionth volume.

Gifts to the UI and the UI Foundation for the fiscal year that ended June 30, totaled $168 million, according to Stephen K. Rugg, UI chief financial officer and treasurer of the UI Foundation. Of the $168 million received, $44.5 million was given directly to the UI and $123.5 million was contributed through the foundation, the private gift arm of the university.

Artist Suk Ja Kang Engles initially began to ponder issues of race and identity as a teenager growing up in a small town in Korea. “There was a woman, in a poor neighborhood in my town, who became a streetwalker on the military base … after sleeping with a black soldier, she was allowed only to be with the black soldiers, not white ones,” Kang Engles said, recalling that the woman was known around town as the “black princess.”

Two days, two Nobels.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Martial arts demonstrations are among the highlights of the annual fall open house at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Japan House on Oct. 25.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The University of Illinois is seeking proposals from consultants with experience in private-public partnerships to conduct an analysis of how to modernize family and graduate housing at the Orchard Downs housing complex in Urbana.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is marking the 35th anniversary of the inception of Special Educational Opportunities Program - also known as Project 500 - with a series of events this week.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Alternative medicine and quality of life issues are among the topics to be considered when world leaders in the fields of aging and measurement meet at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Oct. 16-18 for the 10th Measurement and Evaluation Symposium.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Two new exhibitions open this month at I space, the Chicago gallery of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Both shows are on view Oct. 10 through Nov. 29.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Artist Suk Ja Kang Engles initially began to ponder issues of race and identity as a teenager growing up in a small town in Korea.

CITES personnel kept busy protecting campus networks, machines

Inside Illinois is now accepting advertising Who can advertise? Campus units and departments as well as off-campus businesses may advertise in Inside Illinois. (See our ad guidelines on the Web for content guidelines and restrictions.) Ad Sizes: 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and full page ads as well as pre-printed inserts. Campus advertisers interested in a four-page supplement should call well in advance. Deadlines: Space should be reserved two weeks in advance and camera-ready ads are due at 4 p.m. one week prior to the publication date. Rates: Rates will vary depending on whether the ad is for an event or service affiliated with the UI. Multiple insertion discounts also are available. For more information: Doris Dahl, editor333-2895 / dkdahl@illinois.edu www.news.uiuc.edu/ii/iiadv.html

Sue Walker is assistant director for event management at Assembly Hall.

A yearning to make a personal contribution to the nation’s counter-terrorism initiatives led one faculty member from his Urbana campus classroom to the steps of the White House.

When then-UI music student Kristina Boerger set out to organize a lesbian/feminist choral ensemble in 1991, she drew women in with a hand-lettered poster announcing that the choir was open to any woman who could sing. Or, as Amasong member Raeann Dossett recalls in a new film about the choir, the sign indicated that “if you can carry a tune in a bucket, you’re welcome.”

Despite an effective budgetary cut of more than $48 million this fiscal year through baseline reductions and reallocations for unavoidable expenses, the Urbana campus is making progress in many areas, Provost Richard Herman said at the Urbana-Champaign Senate meeting Sept. 29.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - In May 1961, a group of six blacks and seven whites boarded buses in Washington, D.C., for the original Freedom Ride, designed to test the legality of "separate but equal" facilities in interstate public travel in the South. The riders would never reach New Orleans, their intended destination, as they would be stopped along the way by angry mobs, severe beatings and the firebombing of one bus.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - College students preparing to apply to law school are invited to attend Law School Day at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on Oct. 13.

College of Communications to assemble task force to address concerns

On the job: Peggy Neville

If the UI gets what it wants from the state of Illinois for next fiscal year, the result would be more teachers, smaller classes, additional courses and raises for employees.

Paula Miebach is a program administrative assistant at the Building Research Council.

Status of major construction projects on campus:

The UI marked the inception of an ambitious six-phase, multiyear plan to modernize the South Farms with a groundbreaking ceremony Aug. 26.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The doctoral program in clinical-community psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been honored for its record of creating and sustaining effective programs for recruiting, retaining and training ethnic minority students.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - From the origins of humankind to the origins of the Tango, and from the future of environmental research to the future of Iraq, the speakers will cover a wide variety of topics once again this fall in the Center for Advanced Study/MillerComm lecture series at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - If you can't get enough "Law and Order" and "NYPD Blue," you're the perfect participant for the Champaign County Citizen Police Academy.

On the Job: Daniel Honnold

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Ronald E. Yates, the head of the journalism department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been named interim dean of the College of Communications on the Urbana campus, effective Thursday (Aug. 21), pending approval of the U. of I. Board of Trustees at its Sept. 11 meeting.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Two major exhibitions - one featuring African art, the other photographic images of the American South - will open the fall 2003 season at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Krannert Art Museum in late August and early September.

Student-built home intended to be catalyst for community

New department heads announced

Pat Ridinger has worked in the Division of Housing for 23 years.

As the university settles into the second month of the fiscal year, faculty and staff members on the Urbana campus face difficult choices about how to sustain quality instruction and services with fewer people and economic resources.

University employees in same-sex relationships will soon be able to obtain health and dental insurance benefits for their partners similar to those provided to their married colleagues under a program approved by the UI Board of Trustees at its July 17 meeting in Urbana.

On the job: Mark Hurt

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Recent work by six graduates of the master of fine arts program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is on view Friday (July 18) through Aug. 13 at I space, the university's Chicago gallery.

Mary Blair is a conference coordinator at the Illini Union.

The UI Board of Trustees unanimously approved a 5 percent increase in tuition for this coming academic year, the lowest increase for an Illinois public university and less than half the average for public universities across the nation.

Karen A. Ferneding, a professor of curriculum and instruction in the College of Education, revisits current technocentric educational reform policy and examines the meaning of educational reform within the context of a technological society and globalized market economy in her new book, “Questioning Technology: Electronic Technologies and Educational Reform.”

Browsing Room closes after more than 62 years of service By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor (217) 244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu Since its opening on Feb. 8, 1941, the Browsing Room, a branch of the University Library inside the Illini Union, has weathered a world war in addition to ideological and economic conflicts that occurred closer to the UI Quad. The Browsing Room ceased operations June 13, a cost-saving measure implemented by the University Library in preparation for the leaner budget it faces during the upcoming fiscal year beginning July 1. The full-time librarian who worked in the Browsing Room has been reassigned to the undergraduate library. For more than 62 years, the Browsing Room offered a quiet retreat for procrastinating students to cram in some desperate, last-minute studying and for leisure readers to peruse a limited selection of books, popular magazines and newspapers. The Browsing Room contained about 4,000 volumes, about one-third of which were checked out at any given time, and was dubbed "our own little public library" by some of its devoted patrons, said Bob Berger, associate university librarian for services. During the room's 50th anniversary year in 1991, patrons successfully fought to keep the Browsing Room open after the University Library proposed its closure as part of a package of cost-cutting measures. The proposed closure incited a flurry of protest letters from users and appeals from student government that persuaded university administration to preserve the Browsing Room. During FY02 and FY03, the library was shielded from the rescissions and cutbacks that plagued other campus units, except for approximately $450,000 of its FY03 allocation being given in the form of nonrecurring funds, Burger said. "The campus has certainly been very good from our point of view and certainly from that of our users in trying to protect the library as much as possible from the effects of these budgetary problems," Berger said. "But now with these budgetary exigencies, we really had no choice because (its closure) would have less direct effect on curriculum, instruction and research than any of the departmental libraries." The library will save approximately $65,000 to $70,000 next year from closing the Browsing Room and expects to implement several other cost-cutting plans as well. The library plans to reduce evening and weekend hours at the smaller departmental libraries around campus so that the hours of operation in the larger libraries - for example, the undergraduate library, Grainger Engineering Library and the education library - can remain unchanged. The shorter hours at the smaller facilities will enable the library to cut back on student wages, and some graduate student positions may be reduced from 50 percent to 38 percent appointments as well. In addition, 24 civil-service positions that were left unfilled during FY03 probably will be eliminated, Berger said. Those positions represent about 10 percent of the library's civil-service staff. Patrons may also see fewer materials in the library next year too. A $300,000 reduction in the library's materials budget may force library administration to direct some of those funds toward providing support services instead of purchasing new items. In addition, inflation and price increases by publishers may cause the library to cancel some serials and buy fewer monographs.

Sherry Cibelli is an administrative aide in the Graduate and International Legal Studies Office in the College of Law.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - For superior scholarship, 234 junior, senior and graduate students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been elected to the Phi Kappa Phi honor society for the spring semester 2003.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The Post Genomic Institute, a cutting-edge facility expected to lead the nation in biological research, was launched June 5 with a groundbreaking ceremony on the Urbana campus.

Fire Service Institute hosts 79th Illinois Fire College

Bob Ward is a locksmith in the Planning, Construction and Maintenance Division.

UI President James J. Stukel has commended the budget crafted by Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the Illinois General Assembly as an austere plan to erase a crippling state deficit, and he said the university remains dedicated to preserving quality as it manages its way through the fiscal crisis.