News Bureau

The 22nd Annual Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, co-founded and hosted by Chaz Ebert and also known as “Ebertfest,” announced additional actors and musicians who will appear as guests at this year’s festival, as well as a bonus film.

Registration is open for I-Ready, a virtual summer camp for college-bound Illinois high school students on the autism spectrum. I-Ready is being offered by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Mohegan playwright Madeline Sayet’s adaptation is a work of Indigenous futurism about building a world where all people and cultures are valued.

Barrington Coleman, the director of the Varsity Men’s Glee Club and a professor of vocal jazz studies, initiated the New Awakenings concert series. It will include a work that was commissioned to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Coleman’s directorship of the Varsity Men’s Glee Club.

The School of Art and Design Master of Fine Arts Exhibition opens April 2 and runs through April 23. It will be the first in-person MFA exhibition since 2019.

The lineup for the 22nd Annual Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, co-founded and hosted by Chaz Ebert and also known as “Ebertfest,” takes the festival back to the roots established by late co-founder Roger Ebert, an Urbana native and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumnus who gained a wide following as a film critic until his death in 2013.

Dr. Mark S. Cohen will be the next dean of the Carle Illinois College of Medicine and senior vice president and chief academic officer at Carle Health, pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Cohen is currently a professor of surgery and pharmacology at the University of Michigan.

The seventh annual Illini Success report shows that recent University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign graduates found jobs, enrolled in graduate school or began volunteer programs on par with previous years – despite the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Director Guillermo del Toro and screenwriter Kim Morgan will screen a black-and-white version of their Oscar-nominated movie “Nightmare Alley” at the 22nd Annual Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, co-founded and hosted by Chaz Ebert and also known as “Ebertfest.” Director Terry Zwigoff also will attend with his cult classic film “Ghost World.” Previously announced participants are directors Azazel Jacobs and Ramin Bahrani.

The oratorio depicts the events of Kristallnacht. The music includes five spirituals that express hope and reconciliation.

“Reckless Law, Shameless Order: An Intimate Experience of Incarceration” explores shared experiences of detention.

Illinois theatre students’ adaptation of “An Enemy of the People” considers how the truth gets told (or not told) during a public health crisis.

The dance concert will be performed Feb. 3-5 at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

The exhibition features work from family pottery lineages and shows how women were inspired by previous generations of artists while developing their own interpretations of the designs.

Lee’s portrait is installed near a display of the history of housing on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus.

The works include Christian imagery, as well as devils, demons and monsters.

Shari Mickey-Boggs has been selected as the senior associate chancellor for human resources at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, with an "interim" job title pending approval by the Board of Trustees. She will begin in this role March 1.

A new book, "Dangerous Ideas on Campus: Sex, Conspiracy and Academic Freedom in the Age of JFK," explores how the prevailing moral values of the 1960s affected protections for scholars at the U. of I.

The project includes a community read, book discussions, an art exhibition and an opera based on the novel.

The 20th annual EU Day at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will feature an online talk by former Canadian political leader turned academic Michael Ignatieff about threats to intellectual freedom in Europe.

November Dance is Nov. 11-13 at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

“Origin Story” was written by Illinois theatre alumnus Nathan Alan Davis. The theatre department’s production will be the Midwest premiere of the play.

The performance at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts will feature six dances and a short dance film.

The exhibition features the work of artists with disabilities or non-normative identities. It is part of a collaborative project “Cripping the Arts” that includes increasing accessibility in art institutions.

The theatre department will feature a diverse group of playwrights in its 2021-22 season.

Biochemistry professor Nicholas Wu has received a 2021 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. His project aims to understand how antibodies interact with their targets.

Sociology professor Kevin Leicht to testify before congressional subcommittee about the effects of social media disinformation in fomenting distrust of scientists, particularly in regard to COVID-19 vaccines. 

Siebel Center for Design on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus opened for business in early August. The multidisciplinary hub of student-focused design thinking and learning was established by a $25 million lead gift from the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation.

The CAS initiative will bring together experts to discuss misinformation, disinformation, “fake news” and conspiracy theories.

A new 30-minute-long documentary tells four separate stories of individuals or programs at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign that were either affected by harsh Cold War politics and their destructive aftermath or, in one segment, shed light on a government film studio dedicated to Cold War propaganda. “Cold War: Illinois Stories” premieres Sept. 29 at 7 a.m. CDT on the Big Ten Network.

“Hal Fischer Photographs: Seriality, Sexuality, Semiotics” features his well-known photographic series focused on gay life in 1970s San Francisco, as well as his early work as an Illinois student.

“To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults” documents the life stories of transgender older adults through photographs and interviews.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign freshman enrollment of 8,303 for the 2021-22 academic year is a record. The new class brings total student enrollment to 56,299, the largest in university history.

“A Question of Emphasis: Louise Fishman Drawing” is the first retrospective of Fishman’s works on paper, and features many works of art that have never been shown.

Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, also known as “Ebertfest,” has been rescheduled to April out of concern for a spike in COVID-19 variants in the state. The Virginia Theatre in Champaign will automatically transfer all pass and seat reservations for the event to the new dates, and refunds are available to those who cannot attend the rescheduled event. 

Sixteen civil service employees – eight this year and eight in 2020 – at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign were recognized for exceptional performance with the Chancellor’s Distinguished Staff Award.

ELLNORA: The Guitar Festival will feature influential guitarists playing a wide range of musical styles. The festival will take place on a smaller scale than in past years.

The 22nd Annual Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, co-founded and hosted by Chaz Ebert and also known as “Ebertfest,” announced some of its films and guests for the 2021 event and shared updated COVID-19 safety protocols for the festival.   

Venetria K. Patton will become the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign effective Aug. 2, pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Patton is currently the head of the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Purdue University.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has received the inaugural Research Response to Community Crisis Award from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities for its COVID-19 testing program.

The University of Illinois is offering a virtual summer camp called I Ready for high schoolers diagnosed with autism so that prospective students can learn about college life and the resources that are available on campus.

Students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who have not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19 can enroll in a study to help understand the effectiveness of vaccines in reducing the spread of the coronavirus. Participants will be paid and could receive the vaccine as soon as April 1.

Recent University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign graduates still found jobs, enrolled in graduate school or began volunteer programs on par with previous years – despite the global pandemic. The sixth annual Illini Success report was released today.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is planning an in-person individual, private stage-crossing experience for 2020 and 2021 graduates May 10–17. Graduates may register for a time slot to cross a stage at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts while their name is announced. COVID-19 safety protocols will apply.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is among the U.S. colleges and universities that produced the most 2020-21 Fulbright U.S. Student Awards, as announced recently by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign updated its COVID-19 dashboard to add more data points and greater detail.

Krannert Art Museum has acquired work by celebrated Native American artists – a painter, a glass artist and Pueblo potters – that will help present the history of contemporary Native American art.

The Carle Illinois College of Medicine, a partnership between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Carle Health, has been granted provisional accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education.  Provisional accreditation affirms that a medical school meets nationally accepted standards of educational quality and can move forward with plans to build a sustainable medical education program.

European Union Day at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is online this year, with Sweden’s ambassador to the U.S. speaking on gender equality and a Swedish hip-hop artist discussing racial concerns. EU Day will also include a U.K.-based theater performance of an ancient Greek play focused on refugees.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has administered its millionth saliva-based COVID-19 test since initiating a broader management program last summer. A number of other institutions are in the process of implementing the university’s innovative testing procedure.