News Bureau

The UI Library has added its 13-millionth book to its collections, maintaining its status as the largest public university library in the country. "Ise Monogatari" (or "Tales of Ise"), the first illustrated Japanese printed book, is an anonymous compilation of 209 poems and 125 episodes from a poet's life. Enormously popular, "Tales of Ise" recounts the amorous exploits of an unnamed lover/poet, often identified with Ariwara no Narihira (825-80), one of the six "sages" of Japanese poetry.

The UI has been selected as one of five new research teams joining the NASA Astrobiology Institute to study the origin and evolution of life, on a five-year grant totaling about $8 million.

The Urbana campus of the UI was ranked No. 13 nationally among U.S. public universities granting doctoral degrees, according to U.S. News & World Report, which released rankings as part of its "America's Best Colleges" issue.

Senators received assurances at the Sept. 10 Urbana Academic Senate meeting that the precepts of shared governance were followed prior to university officials signing an agreement this summer with Coursera, an online educational platform provider.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $100,000 to the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities at the UI to fund the planning of an extensive consortium of humanities institutes in the Midwest and beyond. By leveraging the strengths of multiple distinctive campuses across institutional boundaries, the initiative, titled "Humanities Without Walls," aims to create new avenues for collaborative research, teaching and the production of scholarship in the humanities, forging and sustaining areas of inquiry that cannot be created or maintained without cross-institutional cooperation.

The UI has weathered the initial waves of the global economic downturn and state financial turmoil, but the outlook is far from sunny.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The 2012-13 freshman class is smaller than last year's and its students are ranked higher academically, according to fall enrollment statistics released this week by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Heather Blair, an office support associate for the School of Music for two years, doesn't have to whistle when she works.

Historians have long been interested in patterns of human movement. Throughout history, people have had to move to survive, either through regular circuits that bring them to communities and resources or through occasional, long-distance migrations, in search of new ways of life.

Memories are essential to our personal identities, and to understanding life and our surroundings. The book, "Individual and Collective Memory Consolidation" (MIT Press), co-written by a multidisciplinary team of researchers at the UI, explores the process by which we organize and retain memories.

The Stewarding Excellence @ Illinois initiative has come to a close, with final reports issued Aug. 14 for the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Institute for Genomic Biology and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

Less than a month old, the Urbana campus's Office of Undergraduate Research doesn't even have an actual office.

On Aug. 27, Coursera, an online education platform provider, began offering 10 UI-authorized no-fee, no-credit courses to anyone in the world with a computer and an Internet connection.

Life got just a little easier for UI human resources officers and anyone else on campus involved in the hiring process.

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. 

This is the final installment of Inside Illinois’ summer series. Previous stories have focused on the professionals who make campus gardens beautiful and bountiful all year long. In this final story, we focus on individual UI gardeners–employees who leave the office each day and go home to create their own backyard paradises.

The daunting challenge of leaving an anthropological field site and moving to another halfway across the globe may be a situation most familiar to anthropologists, but the intellectual and emotional challenges of uprooting one's life for one's field of study are something that many scholars can relate to, says Alma Gottlieb, a UI professor of anthropology.

The UI has already seen a 50 percent increase in retirements so far this calendar year compared to last, President Bob Easter told university trustees Thursday.

Officials at the UI College of Law accepted sanctions from the American Bar Association July 24 and announced plans to develop internal rules to prevent future performance-reporting abuses.

Light, or rather its capture, has been critical to the UI Observatory's mission of stellar discovery since its construction in 1896.

Derek Peterson talks about Robert Allerton like he knew the man.

Out-of-the-box thinking just became easier to achieve thanks to a new cloud-based tool being offered to UI employees.

The Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board announced July 9 it has entered into an intergovernmental agreement with the UI to continue operating the Police Training Institute. The organizations have worked together since 1967 when the board first certified PTI as one of its law enforcement basic training academies. The new and expanded arrangement establishes PTI as a training and research institute, with the board and the university jointly guiding academic research on numerous law enforcement and criminal justice topics.

The UI will offer seven online courses as part of an agreement announced July 17 with commercial provider Coursera that will expand the company's nationwide massive open online course platform.

After two years of planning and implementation, officials at Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services have announced the successful switch to a campuswide computer-based unified communications system.

Despite a spate of retirements this year estimated to deplete the Facilities and Services' workforce by nearly 10 percent, officials say there is a silver lining.

Champaign County Extension Master Gardeners' Idea Garden, an annual focal point at the UI Arboretum, is more than an oasis of brightly colored flowers and unique plants.

UI trustees approved a preliminary operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year at their May 31 meeting at UIC, although it's unclear exactly how much funding the university will receive from the state.

For half the year, the UI's 57-acre Arboretum is one of the area's best places to take a relaxing walk off the beaten path.

The UI closed out its most ambitious fundraising campaign with gifts, commitments and pledges of nearly $2.43 billion. That is $179.6 million (8 percent) more than the announced goal of $2.25 billion. The Brilliant Futures campaign ran from July 1, 2003, through Dec. 31, 2011.

Despite continued uncertainty over next year's university health care benefits, the state has announced June 15 as the end date of the Benefits Choice period.

Like many young boys, Bryan McMullan wanted to follow in his father's footsteps.

Who says you can't take it with you?

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Peter E. Schiffer, the associate vice president for research and director of strategic initiatives at Pennsylvania State University, will become the vice chancellor for research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, pending approval of the board of trustees at its May 31 meeting in Chicago.

There still is no end date to the university's Benefit Choice period, which began May 1 because not all health contracts for FY2013 have been finalized.

There's no disputing that Joseph Lieb, a 26-year UI employee, has the most spacious office on campus.

The issue of employee benefits has taken center stage on the UI campus this spring and it likely won't be going away anytime soon.

The Urbana Faculty Senate on April 30 accepted the final report of its enrollment management task force, which endorsed the formation of a three-campus policy council to better coordinate enrollment-related practices.

It would be more accurate if the title of this week's "On the Job" feature were changed to "Back on the Job."

The UI is offering a seminar series starting in May, designed to give educators a multifaceted peek at how higher education is changing to address society's changing needs.

Kevin Kelly has four jobs, and they're all about making noise. He hosts "Live and Local" on WILL-FM (90.9), and directs three distinctly different musical groups - the East Central Illinois Youth Orchestra, the choir at Emmanuel Memorial Episcopal Church and The Prairie Ensemble - a small orchestra known for its quirky programming and unstuffy presentation.

The odds are good you won't see an umlaut above the university's legendary "Block-I" logo anytime soon.

Chet Utterback has worked at the UI's Poultry Research Farm for 26 years and not once has a chancellor dropped by to ask for his advice.

Eight civil service staff employees will be honored with the Chancellor's Distinguished Staff Award at a banquet April 24. The award recognizes exceptional performance.

Ask Tim Cunningham about the importance of education and he'll tell you how it saved his professional life.

Urbana Chancellor Phyllis M. Wise told UI trustees at the board's March 15 meeting in Urbana that campus leaders are working on a plan to increase summer school enrollment and are organizing the upcoming UI-sponsored Global University Summit.

The UI Board of Trustees recognized former board secretary Michele M. Thompson for her distinguished service to the university at its March 15 meeting in Urbana.

An Urbana professor is calling on university leaders to take action on an already approved 2006 senate resolution calling for a more concerted effort to end the practice of holding Unofficial St. Patrick's Day on an instructional day.

A proposal to limit discount tuition waivers for children of public university employees was defeated by a wide margin in the Illinois House last week.

There will be different speakers for the UI campuswide commencement ceremonies scheduled for 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. May 13 at Assembly Hall. News analyst and best-selling author Cokie Roberts will speak at the morning ceremony, and Orion Samuelson, widely regarded as the best-known agricultural broadcaster in the U.S., will speak at the afternoon ceremony.