News Bureau

Even before state legislators took a vote on a historic pension reform plan Dec. 3, campus leaders were crying foul over the plan's potential effect on the university's current and future retirees.

A review of the operational structures of the Urbana Academic Senate office is over, and Senate Executive Committee chair Roy Campbell said a complete list of recommendations will be brought before the SEC for action in the near future.

Less than 48 hours after the curtain went up Nov. 7 on “Clybourne Park,” director Lisa Gaye Dixon was off to New York, leaving the cast of U. of I. theater students to carry on through the end of the show’s 10-day run.

"There she is!" The "she" is Madeline Gibson, a senior library specialist at the Undergraduate Library since 2006, and the exclamation point was from an employee trying to meet a student's request - but running out of options.

The U. of I. Board of Trustees appointed members to the Task Force on Open Access at its Nov. 14 meeting in Springfield in an effort to ensure the university meets the provisions of a new state law set to take effect Jan. 1.

The Office of the Provost is making institutional data more readily available and will be delivering it in easier to understand formats.

The new Illinois law allowing citizens to carry a concealed handgun won't have much effect on campus.

With hundreds of Chinese students enrolling annually at the U. of I. and thousands of Illini alumni already living and working in China, there's little doubt the university has a strong presence there.

A soon-to-be-released report on the strategic use of massive open online courses suggests there is a value to the free courses and that the campus should continue to experiment with them.

Five U. of I. faculty members have been named 2013-14 fellows of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation's Academic Leadership Program.

Between Sept. 1, 2012, and Aug. 31, 2013, 32 faculty members and 59 academic professionals retired from the U. of I., according to the Office of Academic Human Resources. Those who retired during that time were honored last spring at the campus's Academic Service Recognition Luncheon. Also honored were employees celebrating an employment milestone (10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years) during that time.

Part of Greg Milner's job description calls for him to crush and otherwise destroy objects.

On Oct. 21, members of the Urbana Academic Senate heard the first reading of a proposal that would give the University Senates Conference, which has representatives from all three campuses, the power to propose amendments to university statutes.

ittle things like flipping the lights off or big things like replacing fume hoods will earn equal respect under the new Campus Energy Conservation Incentive Program.

Thomas J. Farrell, the president of the U. of I. Foundation, wants to establish a new strategic direction for the U. of I. to not only to raise more money, but also to engage its alumni and donors in supporting the university on various levels, including serving on volunteer boards and serving as ambassadors for the university.

The university's budget won't be granted relief anytime soon and will continue to suffer in the shadow of the state government's financial crisis, said Christophe Pierre, the vice president for academic affairs.

[ Email | Share ] As Americans await the uncertain consequences of a shuttered federal government, university leaders are wondering how deeply the shutdown will affect campus programs that depend upon federal support.

[ Email | Share ] Senate Executive Committee members at their Oct. 14 meeting heard several reports on simultaneous efforts being undertaken to improve campus academic operations.

When Carol Phillippe heard about the extra help opening in the department of agronomy in 1992, she quickly filled out the application.

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The Alma Mater sculpture is still getting herself together but it is expected that she will be back to her old form in time for commencement 2014.

When it comes to offering massive open online courses, it's already been proven that if you build the infrastructure, students will enroll - and usually by the tens of thousands.

Champaign on Oct. 27 (Sunday) with Shozo Sato and his wife, Alice. Shozo Sato is the founder of Japan House and a professor emeritus of art and design.

Six collaborative projects will bring together the expertise of U. of I. faculty members and the skills of staff members at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications because of support from the Institute for Advanced Computing Applications and Technologies.

Eight projects have been awarded funding for 2013-14 through the Graduate College's Focal Point initiative, designed to engage faculty members and graduate students in new collaborations that explore the interfaces between disparate fields of scholarship. Projects also allow graduate students to engage directly in the process of developing new research directions in areas of critical national and human need - including how to identify, define and frame new research.

Before coming to Illinois, Tim Prunkard, the technical services supervisor at the Nathan M. Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory, had always considered himself a lineman.

The history of nuclear energy research from the height of the Cold War into space colonization of the future is detailed through one man's career in the new book "Life at the Center of the Energy Crisis: A Technologist's Search for a Black Swan," published by World Scientific.

The Parkland College Board of Trustees approved a three-year intergovernmental agreement with the U. of I. on Sept. 18 for the transition of the university's aviation programs to Parkland College by fall 2014.

In December, the Obama administration announced that increasing the number of U.S. college graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) by one million over the next decade is a top priority that will be bolstered by several federal agencies.

In the few weeks since campus leaders submitted the three-year Strategic Plan to U. of I. President Bob Easter, strategy already has given way to measurable action.

On Sept. 20 a group of experts did their best to predict the seemingly unpredictable during a panel discussion on the delivery of higher education five years from now.

When there's a serious crime within the campus district, the U. of I. police department sends an email to inform the campus community of the situation. Public Safety officials are planning to use the system to share good news as well.

The Senate Executive Committee endorsed the recommendations of its summer Task Force on Faculty Issues and Concerns Sept. 9 and have released the task force's report to the public. The committee also sent the recommendations to the Urbana Academic Senate for further discussion. (See related story.)

Several senators at the Sept. 16 Urbana Academic Senate meeting provided input on a report prepared over the summer by the Senate Executive Committee's ad hoc Task Force on Faculty Issues and Concerns.

Listening to Tammy Nohren explain the logic behind her ever-changing, self-created, multilayered office-organizing system, one quickly senses she's right at home working in the College of Engineering.

The U. of I. moved up two places in U.S. News & World Report's 2014 edition of "Best Colleges," released Sept. 10. Illinois is now tied at No. 11 among public universities. The Urbana campus also moved up, five places, in the national rankings, and now is tied at No. 41.

The U. of I.'s operating budget for fiscal year 2014 will increase 1.2 percent, which is below the national inflation-rate average and the smallest increase in more than two decades.

Chancellor Phyllis M. Wise is delighted that the new academic year is underway.

The Senate Executive Committee's first meeting of the academic year was light on business - but don't expect that to become a trend, said new chair Roy Campbell after the Aug. 26 meeting.

Maynard Brichford wasn't thinking about the past when he was given the task of starting the University Archives.

This year's new faculty members included in our annual "New Faces" feature. Inside Illinois continues its tradition of introducing some of the new faculty members on campus and will feature two new colleague in each edition of Inside Illinois during the fall semester. 

Work hard, play hard and follow your passion. That's the credo Marie Childress follows, and it has worked well during her 26 years at the U. of I.'s College of Veterinary Medicine. She has spent nearly the last 10 years in the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory and the last three as a business manager I.

It's been just a year since the Office of the Provost created the Office of Undergraduate Research and it already has produced tangible results.

Award-winning novelist Micheline Aharonian Marcom will read from her latest book, "A Brief History of Yes," to open the fall 2013 Carr Reading Series at 4:30 p.m. Sept. 18 in the Illini Union Bookstore.

The U. of I. and the U. of I. Foundation had another record-setting year in fundraising for the fiscal year that ended June 30.

Illinois was founded by a brilliant idea almost 150 years ago. Our foundations were laid with the promise of establishing a beacon of knowledge and service for our state and nation. Today, together, we stand as a university that not only delivered on that promise, but that has redefined the very idea of what a great public research university should be and do.

Two high-impact building renovation projects employing an innovative financing structure that ties construction funding to future energy savings are now finished.

The competition for academic funding has never been greater, and now there's a new way to help match campus faculty members with available foundation grant money and a host of grant-related services.

New hires, rehires and other employment issues topped the agenda of the U. of I. Board of Trustees at its July 25 meeting at UIC.

Champaign splitting street ownership almost in thirds. "The map will be available this fall to help clarify which areas are part of the smoke-free campus."