News Bureau

postscripts

Dear Parents

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.

Although the inscription on the base of the Alma Mater statue hasn’t changed, the statue’s location did Aug. 7 as workers lifted the 5-ton sculpture onto a truck and took it to Chicago for extensive conservation work.

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.

The refurbished Lincoln's bust has been returned, ready for students to start rubbing his nose for luck once again.

UI students have access to some of the best professors in the country using the most current data and teaching techniques – but funding challenges have made campus classroom space the final educational frontier.

They left for Turkey last May as a group of student reporters. They returned two weeks later as novice foreign correspondents.

Gardeners, cross-country runners (and skiers), stressed-out students, soccer players, bug enthusiasts, Japanese tea aficionados, bird watchers, architects and scientists of nearly every stripe find something of value at the UI Arboretum, a vibrant, 57-acre swath of green near the south end of the Urbana-Champaign campus.

Imagine spending a summer in a place where the summer sun lights the sky for 24 hours, where you can take a long hike on a grand glacier, and where nature’s brilliance greets you at every turn.

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.

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.

There are outstanding universities in every state where a student can get an education. We want to ensure that at Illinois, students don’t just get an education – they have experiences that really prepare them for the challenges they’ll have when they leave this campus. 

Administrative Posts

postscripts

Life – and career – lessons can take many forms. For seven UI undergraduates, a hands-on engineering collaboration with peers in South Africa – with weekend excursions to some of the most exotic locales on the planet – offered just about all of them.

To new Urbana Chancellor and UI Vice President Phyllis M. Wise, education and family are inextricable elements.

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.

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.”

Journeys that foster self-discovery are not always easy or pleasant – but can be empowering and liberating, says Elka Kazmierczak, a slender woman with short gray hair and sparkling brown eyes. She seems to vibrate with energy and purpose. At the first meeting of the semester for the Illini Art Therapy Association, Kazmierczak invites participants to take such a journey with her.

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.

Whether people are crunched for time or for cash, or they’re overwhelmed by having to grocery shop and cook for themselves for the first time, eating healthy can be a challenge for college students. However, a team of aspiring registered dietitians at Illinois is sharing its expertise to help everyone get passing grades in good nutrition and healthful living.

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.

Administrative Posts

Much to my delight, in my first few months as chancellor I have discovered two common threads at this great university: Learning never rests and helping others is a way of life.

postscripts

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.

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

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.

UI Police say the Urbana campus is as peaceful as it has been in years – not because there are fewer bad guys, but because of the implementation of several integrated security upgrades over the past two years.

At the July 21 meeting of the UI Board of Trustees on the UIC campus, university trustees voted 6-2 to close the Institute of Aviation and end the undergraduate degree program. The institute, which opened in 1945, will likely close its doors at the end of the 2013-14 school year, after all current students have completed the program.

Chalk one up for the pedestrians after Illinois lawmakers last year changed the state’s crosswalk law, forcing motorists to stop – not just yield – if a walker has already entered a crosswalk.

Dining Services cooked up some excitement at the annual New Student Convocation and the Guinness Book of World Records certified their efforts. The world’ largest smoothie – a 330-gallon pink delight – was created from 960 pounds of yogurt, 600 pounds of strawberries and 105 gallons of pineapple juice.

Administrative Posts

On Oct.1 during Homecoming I assumed my new responsibilities as vice president of the University of Illinois and as chancellor of the Urbana campus. I want to share with you how excited and humbled I am to have the privilege to lead one of the greatest modern research universities in the world. 

postscripts

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.