Dear Parents
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.
The stories in this issue give you a snapshot of the broad array of rich learning experiences students will find here and the ones they create for all of us. From two young women and their efforts to inspire girls with scientific role models to a summer camp for children who have a parent with cancer to peer education programs to programming new library apps – our students are already transforming their communities. Imagine what they will achieve after they graduate with an Illinois degree. Here, the educational experiences may begin in a classroom, but they certainly don’t end there. They reach into the communities around us and they circle the globe.
This is a place where every day brings a chance to learn something new, to tackle a different challenge, to ask a different question, to meet someone who is unlike any person you’ve ever known, and to succeed in ways you never thought you could. Our students will have the chance to meet and learn from Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, MacArthur “genius” awardees, Olympic and Paralympic champions. We push ourselves to find better solutions to society’s most complex challenges and we understand that finding great success often means being willing to take risks.
These are the attitudes we see reflected in the students who choose Illinois for their college career. We call it transformative education. They just call it another day at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. And that’s the reason why you’ll find us consistently ranked among the top dozen public universities in the nation. For us, pre-eminence is measured by the impact our graduates have on the world.
Whether you have children enrolled here today or if you are among those with a son or daughter considering Illinois for next year, I hope you enjoy this issue of Postmarks and this window into the Illinois experience.
And please believe me when I tell you that as much fun as it is to read these stories, it’s even more exciting for those of us here at Illinois who have the privilege of seeing them happen in person.
Sincerely,
Phyllis M. Wise
Chancellor
