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  • The Lincoln Scholars program has so far provided financial assistance to 50 Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) students to help complete their studies.

    Growing support for scholars: A Lincoln Hall scholarship program has multiplied in size since the building renovation

    With the reopening of Lincoln Hall more than two years behind us, an initiative tied to the renovation grows more significant every day. The Lincoln Scholars program has so far provided financial assistance to 50 Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) students to help complete their studies.

  • Giving sustainability a hand: Student helps launch recycling program for disposable gloves

    Madeline Kull didn’t know much about sustainability initiatives before starting an internship at the Illinois Sustainability Technology Center, but found that the field fit her like a recycled glove.

  • Former Sustainable Student Farm manager Zack Grant harvests the fruits of student labor.

    Students put sustainability on U. of I. map

    The year 2015 will mark a milestone for sustainability at Illinois. This fall, a 5.87-megawatt, 20.8-acre solar farm – now under construction on university farmland – will supply about two percent of the campus’s total electricity needs. This project is the result of a dream and a lot of hard work by many stakeholders – not least among them the Illinois students.

  • Dear Parents: Letter from the Chancellor

    As this issue of Postmarks reaches your home, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign we are moving into the final months of the academic year.

  • n January 2015, girls across the country will be playing with dolls based on a 10-year-old Curie, who will lead them through various hands-on activities in basic chemistry and physics through an interactive mobile app.

    Miss Possible: Students design dolls and activities to teach girls about science and engineering

    Marie Curie: Chemist, physicist, Nobel laureate…childhood playmate

  • The five-day trip to the Minnesota Twins home base  Target Field  was the capstone experience for students taking a new online course titled Sport and Sustainability, which met during the summer term.

    New Online Course Hits a Home Run: Students pitch sustainability during All-Star Week

    A group of Illinois students joined the Green Team this past summer, volunteering with Major League Baseball and the Natural Resources Defense Council to promote environmental sustainability during MLB’s annual All-Star Week, held July 11-15 in Minneapolis.

  • Avicenna services are available to anyone in the community free of charge, and its mission is to deliver immediate access to health care regardless of religious beliefs. Since its inception, the interfaith center has helped more than 3,000 patients.

    Impacting the Community: Students invest time, talent in Avicenna Community Health Center

    At the height of the recession, east central Illinois residents saw medical needs growing in their community. And, due to the job market, many residents were without health insurance.  

  • Illinois Camp Kesem has been making magic for families coping with cancer since 2007. Camp Kesem is a weeklong, overnight summer camp organized by student volunteers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

    Camp Kesem acts as an escape for children whose parents have cancer

    The little girl chatted excitedly to her dad. As the two waited in the check-in line, she began to list all of the things she loved about camp: the special guest, the other kids, the counselors. She was the typical girl excited to attend summer camp, with one marked difference: two weeks earlier her mom passed away from cancer.

  • On a 10-day excursion to India, students meet and tour the facilities of small-scale farmers, food distributors, market vendors, restaurant managers, and storage facility operators.

    From Field to Market to Table: Students study post-harvest losses in India

    Flowers. Groundnuts (peanuts). Wheat. And paddy (rice): These were the focus of a 10-day student excursion to India over the 2014 winter break. Business administration professor Udatta Palekar organized the trip with 15 undergraduate business students majoring in supply chain management.

  • A mobile phone application called Minrva, developed by student interns in the undergraduate librarys Technology Prototyping Service (TPS), allows library users to use their cell phones to search books and journals, request books, and after they request them, pick them up from the front desk.

    Minrva project makes library navigation and research easy with app

    Finding the right book in the library these days doesn’t involve a card catalog. In fact, it doesn’t necessarily involve a computer terminal or even a librarian, thanks to a mobile phone application called Minrva, developed by student interns in the undergraduate library’s Technology Prototyping Service (TPS).

  • Peer Education Program promotes dialogue on edgy topics

    There’s perhaps nothing more intimidating in a young adult’s life than leaving the comfy confines of the family nest for the first time and venturing off to college. But University of Illinois students can take comfort knowing a well-developed and well-supported network of fellow students – or “peer educators,” as they’re known on campus – are ready and willing to help them navigate the swirling sea of college life.

  • There is nothing quite like living, learning and studying a historical event in the place where it occurred, said John Vasquez, an expert on war and peace and crisis diplomacy. Its ghosts still walk the streets.

    The Great War: Two courses make conflict meaningful through study abroad and campus expertise

    World War I began in 1914 n the age of biplanes and the Model T – before even radio, much less the Internet. Yet its effects were massive and are still being felt today.

  • Dear Parents: Letter from the Chancellor

    By the time this fall issue of Postmarks is in your hands, we’ll be well into the fall semester at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Nearly 7,000 freshmen and more than 1,300 new transfer students joined the Illinois family in August, setting new records for academic achievement. Together with our returning students, they represent every state in the nation and nearly half the nations in the world. The campus is once again full of the energy, excitement and anticipation of what this year will bring us all.

  • History professor Mark Micale has picked the brains of 20 of the universitys best teachers as part of a project he conducted in connection with a recent teaching award. Parents who were in the biz is often part of the story, he said, but even more often, the best teachers have been motivated by teachers in their past who served as role models, who were not just good, but inspirational.

    Inspiration. Perspiration. Dedication. Four professors share the Joy of teaching

    Teaching was part of the environment Mark Micale grew up in. His father taught high school history and economics. “There was a lot of talk in the household about schools and classes and students,” Micale said – though it didn’t prompt him, as he started college, to pursue a career in education. Two great college teachers did that.

  • Beckwith Residential Support Services personal assistant Shelby Wills, left, hangs out with Nugent Hall resident Mary Griffith.

    Getting personal: Beckwith assistants may receive more than they give

    All students have their favorite places to escape the stress of finals week. But during a study break last December, senior Shelby Wills found herself in a place she had never imagined: in a swimming pool with a classmate who has a severe physical disability.

  • Having both studied overseas, Study Abroad student advisers Bobby Warshaw and Ruchi Tekriwall are able to share their first-hand knowledge with other students considering participating in a U. of I. program.

    Study Abroad's top priority is safety for students

    Students participating in the U. of I.’s Study Abroad program say they were thankful for the comprehensive safety training they received on campus before traveling – and more thankful still they never had to employ it in an emergency situation.

  • Sophomore Colter Wehmeier, an architecture major, said he appreciates the mix of formal education while also being able to expertiment as part of his SPIN internship at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

    Students 'SPIN' opportunity with NCSA into internship gold

    Help wanted: On-campus supercomputing behemoth – you know, the place that invented the Web browser – seeks highly motivated student interns to solve some of the world’s most intractable problems.

  • Among the members of La Colectiva: front row, from left, Laura Carlos; Samantha Busso, the 2013-2014 president; Ines Nava; Kevin Estrella; and Cristian Nuo; back row: Neil Hernandez; Diego Espino; Andrea Barron, Xavier Ramirez; and Jennifer Escobar.

    La Colectiva advocates for immigrants, social justice, change

    When Stephanie Mazariegos was a small child, her parents struggled to pay their bills. During the day, her parents worked alternating shifts – her father in a restaurant and as a janitor at a synagogue, her mother cleaning a woman’s home – so that one parent could be at home to care for the children.

  • Practice made perfect: Men make the women's volleyball team better

    If you visit a women’s volleyball practice you might be surprised to see one or two men on the court. There they are, playing against the women, spiking the ball over the net or jumping high to block a shot. These men are practice players, helping the women hone their skills. The men serve as hitters, blockers, motivators or whatever else the team needs.

  • Delta Xi Phi sisters Shixin Lan, left, the associate member educator and treasurer of the U. of I. chapter of Delta Xi Phi, and Yesenia Marquez, the chapter president.

    The Greek life was greek to them so they started their own

    Jasmine and Jeniece Baines had no interest in Greek life when they stumbled into the Delta Xi Phi sorority. It happened last fall, when the twin sisters from Country Club Hills, near Chicago, visited a cultural fair at the Illini Union.

  • Sophomores in bioengineering Maggie Barbero, left, and Rachel Walker, both members of the World Champion iGEM team, at work in a laboratory in the Institute for Genomic Biology. Their team was the lone undergraduate winner at the international competititon.

    World champions genetically engineer winning design

    Last summer, as most undergraduates spent their vacation traveling to exotic locales or lounging by the pool, one group of students spent their time on campus in an Institute for Genomic Biology lab, reading papers and creating a probiotic pill that could help prevent heart disease."

  • Band director Barry Houser supervises the Marching Illini last fall from a rented scissor lift overlooking the field north of Krannert Art Museum, one of the bands two unofficial campus practice locations.

    Forward march! Marching Illini strike up a lasting relationship with practice field

    The University of Illinois Marching Illini provide the soundtrack for a long list of cherished football traditions. Gridiron games wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without the band leading the players out of the tunnel, playing “Imperial March” from “Star Wars” on third downs and of course “Oskee Wow Wow” after every touchdown. But the band is abandoning one lesser-known custom that dates back several generations – and everyone is happy to see this tradition go.

  • Administrative Posts

    Administrative Posts

  • postscripts

    postscripts

  • Dear Parents: Letter from the Chancellor

    By the time you are reading this issue of Postmarks, we’ll be moving into the final months of our academic year. It’s hard to believe that another academic year is coming to a close so quickly. And just as those of us on campus find ourselves in a whirlwind of exams, final projects and preparation for graduation, many of you are considering whether Illinois is the right choice for your child next year. 

  • Robert Sanchez, guest lecturer and writer for the Denver-based magazine 5280, speakes to the Journalism 480: Literary Journalism class, which met at the The News-Gazette, the daily newspaper in Champaign-Urbana.

    It takes time and patience: Journalism students apply literary craft to shape stories

    Journalism is often a deadline-driven job. Get the story; get it done.

  • Danylo Hirnyi, left, and Alejandro Gomez attempt to troubleshoot th ecode controlling the quadrocopter's motorw while floating weightlessly.

    Moon Goons have out-of-this-world experience at NASA

    One high-flying group of engineering students discovered the heavy importance of gravity in a few moments of weightlessness.

  • Chess Club members Bo Schmidt, right, a senior in physics, plays against Benson Wang, a freshman in electrical and computer engineering, in the food court of the Illini Union.

    Four kings of Illini Chess Club make move on elite stage

    Last spring, a Cinderella team from the U. of I. clinched a berth in the Final Four of a major college tournament. But this unheralded group of undergraduates used pawns, bishops and queens – not basketballs – to work their tournament magic.

  • Loreal Latimer, a May graduate, was matched with mentor Pat Justice when Latimer was a freshman.

    I-Promise delivers support to first-generation college students

    The day Loreal Latimer arrived at the U. of I., her parents dropped her off at Taft-Van Doren residence hall and drove away. Because she graduated fifth in her class at Chicago’s Corliss High School – while leading extracurricular activities and working 17 hours a week at a food service job – the Latimer family figured she could easily navigate a bucolic college campus. 

  • Graphic designers branch out to help develop identity for garden

    Students majoring in graphic design took their skills out of the classroom and into the real world during the spring 2013 semester, when they offered their services to Prosperity Gardens – a community garden in Champaign.

  • Illini Union Board vice president for programs Emily Silva, left, and Stuti Mehta, president, found their niche.

    IUB: A community that builds community across campus

    One of U. of I. senior Stuti Mehta’s most memorable experiences at Illinois may have been dinner with Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.

  • Boneyard Yacht Club members and U. of I. students Robert Butler, left, and Min Yin power their vessel, christened Vincere, during the races at Homer Lake on June 22.

    Heavy competition

    What began 40 years ago as a civil engineering class project at the U. of I. has grown into an organized annual tradition for engineering students worldwide. 

  • Crime alerts to include follow-up notices on arrests

    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.

  • Coursera student Kunwar Apoorva Singh is surrounded by tribal children he taught in rural Maharashtra, a state in western India, as part of an outreach campaign supported by the NGO Don Bosco.

    Coursera shares U. of I. courses far beyond campus

    As Illinois students took their seats last fall in lecture halls across campus, half a world and several time zones away in New Delhi, Kunwar Apoorva Singh booted up his computer and logged into the Illinois portion of Coursera, the consortium of more than 80 global universities offering free online courses to anyone in the world with access to the Internet.

  • Paul Diehl, the Henning Larsen Professor of political science, says the new office for undergraduate research that he leads is already seeing tangible results in just a year.

    Undergraduate research office off to good start

    It’s been just a year since the Office of the Provost created the Office of Undergraduate Research and students this fall are already seeing tangible results.

  • Smoke-free campus initiative postponed

    The start date for the smoke-free campus initiative has been postponed from this fall to Jan. 1.

  • Administrative Posts

    Administrative Posts

  • postscripts

    postscripts

  • Dear Parents: Letter from the Chancellor

    As you read this issue of Postmarks, we will be near the mid-point of the fall semester. Whether this is your first semester with a son or daughter at Illinois or it is a year of return for your child, we are proud to count them among our students.

  • Oboe major Amelia Lee uses a knife to refine an oboe reed. On the table, her reed case is filled with reeds in various stages of completion.

    Shaving cane: Making music by the micrometer

    Amelia Lee wasn’t sure she wanted to attend the University of Illinois. As a serious oboist, her idea of college was an arts institution such as Oberlin Conservatory or the Manhattan School of Music. Her mother, however, wanted Lee to get a more well-rounded education, and with a top-10 ranked music school, the U. of I. suited them both.

  • The work of undergraduate animators, from left, Pakpoom Buabthong, Annie Lin and Benjamin Blalock brings development education to people around the world on their cellphones.

    Animators help fight disease, preserve crops, feed the world

    A farmer in Burkina Faso learns how to safely store his crops. An entrepreneur in India learns how to truck her harvested grain to market. Thanks to student animators at the U. of I., these people and countless others around the world can also see and hear about the symptoms, transmission and treatment of tuberculosis, or how and when to wash their hands to avoid disease.

  • Nuclear engineering professor Rizwan Uddin, teaching Neutron Diffusion and Transport, created the Virtual Lab after enrollment in the entry-level course in his department swelled to four times the usual enrollment.

    Virtual lab encourages creativity, offers safe place to explore

    Welcome to the virtual lab, a digital re-creation of the nuclear, plasma and radiological engineering (NPRE) undergraduate laboratory. The virtual lab is a detailed first-person video game developed to guide freshmen through basic lab setup and procedure, though it soon could provide a training environment for advanced classes in nuclear engineering and beyond.

  • Pamela Hochwert, a senior in special education, standing left, and Michelle Bonati, a doctoral student in special education, at a Bens Bells event at Champaign Public Library.

    Service learning project unites special ed students, others

    If curiosity gets the better of the passersby, and they pause to read the card attached to the brightly colored ceramic hearts or hands, they’ll find that the chimes, called Ben’s Bells, are part of a nationwide grassroots movement for spreading kindness. The bells are gifts for whomever happens upon them, but they come with strings attached: Those who pluck the bells from their perches and take them home are volunteering to spread kindness wherever they go.

  • State Farm interns, from left, seniors Alan Kessler and Eric Adomaitis and junior Tiera Wiegand are among the 25 student interns who perform actuarial work on pricing, predictive modeling and risk management at the insurance giants R & D center in the Research Park on campus.

    Students 'interns in name only' at Fortune 500 company

    For students looking to become the next Nate Silver, or for those who simply like working with numbers but don’t want to become engineers, the U. of I. offers a little-known but highly esteemed major that’s also very much in-demand in the business world.

  • Sophomore Jason Hempstead uses a 3-D printer in the Illinois Geometry Lab to make solid shapes from plastic.

    X students + 1 subject + 1 room = creative and fun teamwork

    If that’s not the math you remember from school, that’s no surprise. But that’s the math they practice and preach through the Illinois Geometry Lab, a new math department initiative now in its fourth semester.

  • The Illinois group  from the left, Kristin Wang, Riley Wharton, Jenna Kandah, Anny Chang, Kayla Bell, Cheryl de Guzman and Megan Lee  at the statue of the late 1989 U. of I. alumna Iris Chang in the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall in Nanjing. Changs best-selling book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II was published in 1997 on the 60th anniversary of the Nanking Massacre.

    Trip to China a welcome new opportunity for future teachers

    The trip that took Bell, Wang and their peers from East Central Illinois to East Asia is part of a new program in the College of Education called the Greater China Initiative, which makes study abroad practicable for undergraduate preservice teachers and provides an opportunity for them to delve into research.

  • Students push for smoke-free campus; planning under way

    The U. of I. student body has spoken, and it says it doesn’t want to inhale secondhand smoke anymore.

  • Undergraduate focus Charles Tucker III, shown here in a study lounge at the Illini Union, is the new vice provost for undergraduate education and innovation.

    Tucker named head of undergraduate education, innovation

    Charles Tucker III, the newly installed vice provost for undergraduate education and innovation, is well aware of the challenges of producing a high-quality undergraduate experience.

  • IMPULSE magazine is a quarterly independent publication first created by students in April 2011.

    Now trending: Pop, politics, fashion, food among the glitz and glam

    You don’t have to look to the runways of New York City to find the hallmarks of high culture and style. Inside IMPULSE magazine, an independent quarterly publication created by U. of I. students, it’s easy to find glamour and glitz in the heart of Champaign-Urbana.

  • Administrative Posts

    Administrative Posts