News Bureau

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - It started as a casual, offhand comment from a lighting technician speaking to the director during an opera program rehearsal at the University of Illinois: "We should do a production just for ourselves sometime," the technician said. "You know, just for fun."

A new 30-minute documentary tells the story of Tim Nugent, known by many as the “Father of Accessibility,” who founded the first comprehensive program for college students with physical disabilities at the University of Illinois. Prior to the start of that program, people with disabilities were not expected to go to school, find employment or play sports.

Standing at the foot of the mountains, I look to the east. It’s still early and I have hiked up here alone to gather my thoughts. I can see why they call this “Big Sky Country.” The tree-covered foothills of the mountains behind me give way to rolling scrubland. Stunted trees mark the edges of dry creek beds cut into the soft rocks below. The sun sparkles on the surface of a reservoir in the valley several miles away, and beyond that, another mountain range rises to meet the sky. This is southwest Montana and I’m here to hunt.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The first long-term U.S. field trials of Miscanthus x giganteus, a towering perennial grass used in bioenergy production, reveal that its exceptional yields, though reduced somewhat after five years of growth, are still more than twice those of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), another perennial grass used as a bioenergy feedstock. Miscanthus grown in Illinois also outperforms even the high yields found in earlier studies of the crop in Europe, the researchers found.

A Minute With™... Sandra Kopels, a lawyer and social worker

Many moms and dads say the toughest part of parenting is keeping the peace when their kids squabble and bicker. But making an end to conflict your primary focus is a mistake, said Laurie Kramer, a UI professor of applied family studies and co-editor of a special section of Child Development Perspectives devoted to sibling relationships.

A Minute With™... Extension entomologist Phil Nixon

A Minute With™... political scientist Brian Gaines

A Minute With™... Leigh Estabrook, the director of the Library Research Center

A Minute With...™ Illinois Professor Chris Roegge, executive director of the Council on Teacher Education

A Minute With™... Don Fullerton, expert on finance and energy policy

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Women taking aromatase inhibitors to treat breast cancer or prevent its recurrence should think twice before also taking a soy-based dietary supplement, researchers report.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Kyung Won (K.W.) Lee, a columnist for the Korea Times who has been called the dean of Asian-American journalists, will return to his alma mater, the University of Illinois, to talk about his personal odyssey in the United States and in journalism.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The small kerosene lamps that light millions of homes in developing countries have a dark side: black carbon - fine particles of soot released into the atmosphere.

A Minute With™... Andrew D. Leipold, a professor of law

My students and I are standing at the edge of a 73-acre cornfield. Covered in mud and sweat, we are dreading the task ahead. We are hunting the western corn rootworm, a menace to corn growers everywhere. 

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Inspired by the success of the 24-year-old Insect Fear Film Festival at the University of Illinois, the U. of I. Geology Club and the department of geology are sponsoring an Earth Fear Film Festival on April 13 (Friday).

A Minute With™... Christian Sandvig, a professor of communication and of media and cinema studies

A Minute With™... Business professor Elizabeth Chorvat 

“The College Years of a Catholic Radical: Dorothy Day, University of Illinois Dropout,” scheduled for July 18 at 4 p.m. at Spurlock Museum of World Cultures, 500 S. Gregory St., Urbana, illuminates Day’s experiences as a U. of I. student, their impact on her later work and the legacy of Day’s presence on campus.

A Minute With™... Sundiata Cha-Jua, a professor of history and of African American studies

A Minute With™... Brant Houston, the Knight Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting

With dual-earner families increasingly becoming the norm, President Obama trumpeted the importance of "universal child care" in his State of the Union address - a pivot from previous years, when he advocated for universal pre-kindergarten.

Stephen Long, a professor of plant biology, will deliver the lecture “Feeding and Fueling the World from Crops. Will it be possible by 2050?” at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 27 at the Knight Auditorium in Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana.

The Center for Advanced Study announces the Associates, Fellows and Beckman Fellows for 2019-20.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- An inside perspective on 25 years of change in the business side of coaching college basketball will be the theme of a lecture Feb. 6 at the University of Illinois.

 A Minute With™... Edward J. Hertenstein, a professor of labor and employment relations

A U. of I. journalism alumnus who is now the newsroom attorney for The New York Times got some unexpected online attention last week. The focus of that attention was his response to an open letter from Donald Trump’s attorney, demanding the paper retract and apologize for a story. McCraw’s brief letter to the attorney, published on the Times site, went viral on social media and shot to the top of the paper's most-read content. In an interview, he talks about the letter, his job and what he learned at Illinois.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - From the recent Broadway revival of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" to next summer's Kennedy Center festival featuring "Cat," "Streetcar Named Desire," "The Glass Menagerie" and other works, 20th century American playwright Tennessee Williams has once again become a hot property.

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

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

Less than 48 hours after the curtain went up Nov. 7 on “Clybourne Park,” director Lisa Gaye Dixon was off to New York, leaving the cast of U. of I. theater students to carry on through the end of the show’s 10-day run.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. For the second year in a row, the Pulitzer Prize for drama has been awarded to a new American play first staged by University of Illinois theater professor Daniel Sullivan.

A new book by geology professor Bruce Fouke and photographer Tom Murphy brings together art and science in the study of Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park.

A Minute With™... Asef Bayat, a U. of I. sociologist

The annual All Employee Expo will take place Tuesday, Oct. 18, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Illini Union, 1401 W. Green St., Urbana, in rooms A, B and C.

A Minute With™... Sundiata Cha-Jua, a professor of history and of African American studies

 A Minute With™... Barbara H. Fiese, a professor of human and community development

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Sulak Sivaraksa, a noted philosopher and activist from Thailand, will discuss Buddhism and the law on Thursday (Oct. 21) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The impact of text messaging on the decline of formal writing among teens has been debated in pedagogical circles ever since cell-phone ownership became an adolescent rite of passage in the mid-2000s. But according to a University of Illinois expert in media literacy, not only are critics who argue that texting is synonymous with literary degradation wrong, they also often overlook the bigger role that texting and its distant cousin, "tweeting," could play in education and research.

Students applying for fall 2021 freshman admission to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will not be required to submit SAT or ACT test results due to the COVID-19 pandemic limiting students’ opportunities to take the exams.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Many energy researchers and environmental advocates are excited about the prospect of gaining more efficient large-scale biofuel production by using large grasses like miscanthus or switchgrass rather than corn. They have investigated yields, land use, economics and more, but one key factor of agriculture has been overlooked: water.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Michael S. Moore, professor of law and of philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will give the 2002-2003 Annual Philosophy Public Lecture at 4 p.m. April 4 (Friday) in 141 Loomis Laboratory of Physics, 1110 W. Green St., Urbana.

The 2019 Insect Fear Film Festival at the University of Illinois features termites – a threat to all things wooden but also a valuable part of the ecosystem.

The concept of “meaningful work” isn’t something that’s found or discovered. It’s created over time through people and organizations with similar values to create meaning over time, said U. of I. labor expert Teresa Cardador in a presentation to the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

Ten University of Illinois students have been offered student Fulbright grants to pursue international educational, research and teaching experiences this coming year. The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to build international relations to solve global challenges. 

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Ten University of Illinois undergraduates have been awarded Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships to study abroad in the spring semester. Illinois ranks sixth in the nation in the number of Gilman Scholarships for the upcoming semester.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Ten University of Illinois undergraduates have been awarded Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships to study abroad. Illinois had the most recipients in the Big Ten and is among the top 10 schools in the nation in terms of number of recipients.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The fall film series sponsored by the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities will comprise a variety of films that have only one thing in common: They didn't attract large audiences during their initial showings early in the series' 10-year history and deserve second screenings, according to Christine Catanzarite, senior associate director at IPRH and organizer of the series.

CHAMPAIGN, lll. - Every time a neuron sends a signal - to move a muscle or form a memory, for example - tiny membrane-bound compartments, called vesicles, dump neurotransmitters into the synapse between the cells. Researchers report that this process, which is fundamental to the workings of the nervous system, relies on a simple mechanical reality: Tension in the axon of the presynaptic neuron is required.