News Bureau

Recreation, sport and tourism class creates public service messages about railway safety

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

Social Work Ambassadors promote the School of Social Work programs, courses to students curious about the major and the careers available to alumni with degrees in the field.

Illinois computer science students Mark Craft and Qinglin Chen created an extension for the Chrome web browser to verify articles and pictures posted to Facebook. Even more impressive? They did it in less than 36 hours, as part of a student hackathon event hosted by Princeton University in November 2016.

What should a little girl aspire to become when she grows up? If you’re asking Kristin Schoemaker, anything she wants. Schoemaker, a junior in nuclear engineering, is preparing to cast off the limitations of an age-old Navy rule prohibiting women from serving on nuclear submarines.

U of I team designs “bark park”

The athlete shines on the playing field or the court, in the gym or the pool. That’s the part of “student-athlete” that most UI fans know about. The student part happens out of the limelight, but the record shows student-athletes succeeding there as well.

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

By the time this issue of Postmarks is in your hands, we'll be well into the fall semester at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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.

Administrative Posts

Underrepresented students make the most of fellowships in animal biology

On Quad Day, more than 600 registered student organizations set up displays in hopes of attracting new members. Junior Utkarsh Yadav didn’t need to browse. He knew exactly which RSO he wanted to join.

The Career Center at the U. of I. is in a handy spot, across the street from the Alma Mater sculpture on the edge of Campustown.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Students learn about the past by replaying it, in a different kind of history class.

As you get this issue of Postmarks in the mail, we’re moving into the final couple of months of our academic year here at Illinois.

When Jessica Weston was choosing a study abroad location, she had two qualifications: beautiful weather and English-speaking. So, she chose the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, where she was able to fulfill her academic requirements, as well as develop her interest in volunteer work through a course called “Rebuilding Christchurch.” The New Zealand city was recovering from a series of violent earthquakes.

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.

On a campus of 40,000 undergraduates, a student organization can provide a grounding point. For the members of Frontiers International Health Society, it’s also a launch pad, sending students far beyond the lecture halls to apply their skills around the globe.

Resources await at the Center for Wounded Veterans in Higher Education

UI junior Spencer Gore, the founder and director of Space for All, holds onto the payload rigging at the launch site as he addresses the launch crew. Inside the payload housing are devices and cameras filming the action figure "passengers" astride a model of the Starship Enterprise.

Students play the role of U.S. House members for a semester and gain insights on process, politics and power.

Administrative Posts

The first time Angela Kucharski saw the Marching Illini perform, she knew she wanted to be a part of it.

Administrative Posts

Students Consulting for Nonprofit Organizations (SCNO) is only 1 year old, yet it already has a worthy list of achievements linked to its name.

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.

During the winter holiday break, when music education major Christopher Whiteford went home to Bradley, Ill., he played a few Christmas carols for his parents, jammed on some rock ’n’ roll with a guitarist friend and serenaded his girlfriend with one of her favorites, Ingrid Michaelson’s “You and I.”

Physics often is the stuff of nightmares. For students, the terror lies in the expectation of mastering concepts as foreign as a never-heard language. Professors struggle to effectively teach complex concepts in a limited amount of time. And the expense of laboratory equipment is enough to make a department administrator reach for the antacids.

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.  

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

By the time you read this issue of Postmarks, we’ll be nearing the middle of the fall semester here at Illinois.

The weeklong camp is geared toward high school students with interests in science and engineering. GAMES includes seven camps, each focusing on a particular engineering discipline: aerospace engineering, bioengineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, environmental engineering, materials science and robotics.

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.

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.

It was the final game of the Urbana Park District basketball season, and Jordan Morris’ motley crew of third- and fourth-grade boys (at right) was winning. He watched them dribble, pass and deploy the pump fake and the jab step – moves he and his friends had taught them at practice – to almost double their opponent’s score.

A student-centered research course at the UI in the spring semester proved it is possible for the concepts of academic exploration and commercial practicality to peacefully co-exist – and that Earth’s environment can benefit from the union.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In the summer of 2012, two undergraduate students tackled a problem that plant ecology experts had overlooked for 30 years. The students demonstrated that different plant species vary in how they take in carbon dioxide and emit water through stomata, the pores in their leaves. The data boosted the accuracy of mathematical models of carbon and water fluxes through plant leaves by 30 to 60 percent.

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.

A generation ago, all an entrepreneur needed was an idea and a garage. Now, entrepreneurs need little more than an Internet connection – and, for UI students, the help of a unit on campus that can guide them as they turn their ideas into full-fledged businesses.