News Bureau

If you could measure which words have been uttered most in the past few years on the U. of I. campus, "shared governance" would rank at the top.

If anyone is capable of understanding the challenges confronting the U. of I., it's Robert Birgeneau, the chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley.

Conducting an interview with Todd Moeglich from the sales floor of the Illini Union Bookstore is foolish and futile.

Honest introspection, vigorous discussion, strong leadership, increased outreach and effective strategic planning will not keep the U. of I. from the tumult encompassing higher education.

The Academic Senate on Feb. 4 voted to support the temporary establishment of a Confucius Institute on the Urbana campus.

Chancellor Phyllis M. Wise announced Jan. 28 that the Grainger Foundation, of Lake Forest, Ill., has pledged $100 million to support the College of Engineering by establishing the Grainger Engineering Breakthroughs Initiative. The contribution is in memory and honor of William W. Grainger, a 1919 Illinois graduate in electrical engineering, and the founder of W.W. Grainger Inc.

The 2013 Annual Faculty Retreat on Teaching and Learning will take place Feb. 22 in Illini Union Rooms A and B. This year's theme, "When Teaching and Learning Meet Undergraduate Research," explores the concept that teaching and learning can be significantly enhanced when students are engaged in collaborative research and scholarship. The retreat, now in its 19th year, brings together faculty members from across campus to share and explore best practices and innovations.

With Gov. Pat Quinn on hand to show his support, the U. of I. Board of Trustees heard plans for a nonprofit, university-affiliated research technology center designed to improve the economy of Illinois and Chicago and to make the area attractive to new innovators.

Public universities in Illinois will retain the authority to exempt certain skilled jobs from the civil service system as a result of a nearly unanimous decision Jan. 30 by the University Civil Service Merit Board.

Should admission requirements for the U. of I. place less emphasis on ACT scores and more emphasis on other factors?

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Kathleen Graber - a former high school English teacher who was inspired to write poetry after taking students on a field trip - will read from her critically acclaimed collections at 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 13 (Wednesday) at the Illini Union Bookstore.

Not unlike the scientists of the Prairie Research Institute, Angie Wisehart on any given day can be found digging in something new as an administrative assistant in the PRI director's office.

Senate Executive Committee members on Jan. 14 agreed to set aside time at the Feb. 4 Urbana Academic Senate meeting for a presentation on collective bargaining.

Leaders at the U. of I. presented a united front at a Jan. 3 State Universities Civil Service System public hearing, asking SUCSS officials to recommend that job classification exemption authority be left with universities.

Several upcoming programs and events commemorate the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation.

The investment made when the university hired Norris Purdy 10 years ago is still paying dividends.

Anyone who subscribes to the science of popular culture has been led to believe any imaginable post-apocalyptic world will be overrun with plodding zombies intent on feasting on the brains of survivors.

The Urbana Academic Senate voted Dec. 3 to create the Center for a Sustainable Environment to help develop campus sustainability strategies and provide support for interdisciplinary education, research and engagement.

The Council of Academic Professionals is urging campus leaders to speak against new rules being considered by the State Universities Civil Service System that would limit the U. of I.'s ability to classify its employees.

Members of the Urbana campus Graduate Employees Organization voted by more than 95 percent to ratify a new contract.

In the corner of the lobby of Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, in a well-lit shop, stands a man in a fitted suit, micro-patterned dress shirt with a gold tie tack, all anchored with a pair of designer wingtips.

Parents and their children often have special relationships that demonstrate a type of closeness unlike any other. UI French horn professor Bernhard Scully is quite familiar with that concept. He and his mother, pianist Joanne Minnetti, have formed a unique musical partnership over the years.

Between Aug. 16, 2011, and Aug. 15, 2012, 252 faculty members and academic professionals retired from the UI, 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.

Thanks to the diligence of UI housekeeper Denise Shroyer and a small staff of caretakers, the university president's house is where dust bunnies go to die.

The UI Board of Trustees met in Springfield on Nov. 8 and approved a 20.5-acre solar farm that its planners project will produce more than 2 percent of the electricity used on the Urbana campus by 2015.

Korean diasporic theater takes center stage in a new collection of plays compiled by Esther Kim Lee, a professor of theater and of Asian American studies at the UI.

Many make their living by crawling through the sewers beneath the border cities of Nogales, Mexico, and Nogales, Ariz., and mugging migrants seeking new lives in the United States. Some of these young men and women, who call themselves Barrio Libre ("Free Hood"), traffic in drugs in the desolate deserts where more than 5,000 people trying to enter the U.S. have died.

What now? That question was asked in a variety of ways Nov. 1 as faculty members representing a wide range of disciplines met at the Summit on Online Education to contemplate the university's place in the burgeoning world of massive open online courses.

The Veteran's Day ceremony, conducted Sunday at the Armory by the Illinois ROTC program, is an annual reminder of the university's historical connection with the military.

The Urbana Academic Senate on Nov. 5 approved a carefully worded resolution reaffirming the legal rights of members of the Graduate Employees Organization.

Coursera co-founder and co-CEO Daphne Koller sounded more visionary than business manager during a keynote address Nov. 1 at the campus Online Education Summit.

Cheryl Westlund, an office support specialist at the College of Law, has seen the UI from afar and, for the past five years, up close.

Travel authors often showcase the foreign lands they visit with colorful descriptions of the food and tourist attractions they encounter. Books of this genre depict abbreviated and relaxing trips.

Abraham Lincoln, the president who once said "A house divided against itself cannot stand," understood the importance of a solid foundation.

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The UI is expanding safeguards to protect young people who visit its campuses - as well as employees and students - following a broad, 10-month review of policies that began in the wake of the sex-abuse cases at Pennsylvania State University.

At work, Rose Jones, an administrative aide who assists the executive director of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, is all business.

Senators at the Oct. 8 Urbana Academic Senate meeting narrowly approved a new policy designed to better regulate electronic surveys and questionnaires sent through the universitywide network.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - When Ralph Cicerone, a renowned climate scientist and the president of the National Academy of Sciences, first set foot on the UI campus in the mid-1960s, focus wasn't his strong point.

Chancellor Phyllis M. Wise announced at the Oct. 15 Senate Executive Committee meeting that the next phase of the Visioning Future Excellence process is ready to begin and will be completed by the end of the academic year.

There's never been a store like it on campus.

In 1988, Safdar Khan was a lonely UI student, studying for his Ph.D. in veterinary medicine, and missing his family and friends back in Pakistan. Then one day, his American roommate - having heard Khan pining for his favorite sport - mentioned that he had seen students out in a field near Orchard Downs, all dressed in white and playing cricket.

Dan Peterson, who has served in several senior leadership positions at three universities, has been named vice chancellor for institutional advancement at the Urbana campus of the University of Illinois.

Margaret C. "Peggy" Day, an office support specialist in the Office of Online and Continuing Education, practices what she preaches.

The campus's wireless Internet-access system operates invisibly, but a growing number of users are making it one of the predominant communications tools on campus.

The new generation of the Compass learning-management system does more than point instructors and students in the right direction; it literally gives them the tools to forge their own teaching and learning paths.

The UI and the UI Foundation recorded $210.6 million in outright cash gifts, pledge payments, annuities/ life income gifts and estate distributions for the fiscal year that ended June 30, according to Walter Knorr, UI chief financial officer and treasurer of the UI Foundation. It marks the fifth consecutive year that cash gifts exceeded $210 million.

The UI has announced a new interactive online resource to help researchers and professionals in the sciences, engineering and mathematics incorporate ethical practices into their professional lives.

On the clock, Mike Pingleton, a computer operations manager for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, monitors the building-size computer system that will become the Blue Waters project in December.

Oral history is a powerful historical tool, one that can illuminate the often-overlooked individual voices behind a historical event.