News Bureau

UI tutors make a difference in Champaign-Urbana community

The university's preliminary budget request for the 2006 fiscal year, presented to the UI Board of Trustees July 15, will concentrate on salary increases, deferred maintenance and academic programs.

The UI Board of Trustees met in Springfield on Nov. 8 and approved a 20.5-acre solar farm that its planners project will produce more than 2 percent of the electricity used on the Urbana campus by 2015.

Educational quality will be compromised by the measures that the UI will be forced to undertake to absorb the $72.5 million decrease expected in its FY04 budget, President James J. Stukel said. Stukel, who spoke during the May 15 UI Board of Trustees meeting in Urbana, said that while state funding has been on the decline for more than a decade, the rescissions imposed in FY02 and FY03 along with the decreased funding expected in FY04 imperil the university's educational mission. 

UI to receive flat funding from state

It doesn't take much research to discover the UI is near the top of the list when it comes to securing federal science funding.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded a grant of $3.5 million to a multi-university consortium led by the UI's Urbana campus to establish a rail transportation and engineering research center. Headquartered within the department of civil and environmental engineering at Illinois, the National University Rail Center will focus on rail education and research to improve railroad safety, efficiency and reliability. Particular focus will be on challenges associated with rail corridors in which higher-speed passenger trains share infrastructure with freight trains.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The University of Illinois announced today that it is provisionally joining the Worker's Rights Consortium, an organization dedicated to putting an end to substandard labor conditions for workers who make collegiate apparel.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - An award ceremony to honor student employees of the year is scheduled for 3 to 5 p.m. April 7 in the General Lounge of the Illini Union, 1401 W. Green St., Urbana.

Beginning with the fall semester, the UI will pay the salary of instructors teaching any Catholic studies courses taught for university credit. Previously, St. John's Catholic Newman Center had funded the instructors.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. The University of Illinois will hold a groundbreaking ceremony Monday (Nov. 19) for its new technology incubator, a facility that will give faculty and students the opportunity to explore commercialization options for their research.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Visitors to the Illinois State Fair who stop by the University of Illinois tent can get free Dreamsicles or temporary Illini tattoos and learn how to use the Library Gateway to access materials from the UIs collections.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The University of Illinois will be submitting a bid to the Illinois High School Association in an effort to bring championship games in three sports to campus. The bid seeks a five-year commitment from the IHSA for the events to be held at the UI.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. A University of Illinois student is ill with meningococcal meningitis, Dr. Robert Palinkas, the director of McKinley Health Center on campus, said today (Oct. 26).

UI staff members volunteer at 'Ground Zero' By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor (217) 244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The first film series at the University of Illinois dealing with South Asia will be offered this fall.

Rankings are not the end-all, be-all of measuring a university's worth, but being placed at the top never hurts.

UI retains trademark rights to Chief Illiniwek imagery

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor 217-244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu

UI receives record $219 million in private gifts

One of the leading publishers of works about Abraham Lincoln, the UI Press, is publishing two new Lincoln books later this year in advance of the bicentennial of his birth in February 2009.

UI president shares life lessons during lecture on ethics

UI President James J. Stukel has commended the budget crafted by Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the Illinois General Assembly as an austere plan to erase a crippling state deficit, and he said the university remains dedicated to preserving quality as it manages its way through the fiscal crisis.

UI president announces February 2005 retirement

UI policy offers guidelines for using Social Security numbers

The history of the UI Police Department is in fact two distinct stories covering more than 100 years.

Champaign real estate developer, was instrumental in helping them connect with the Champaign County Chamber of Commerce and explore the concept of a green business association with local business leaders, whose excitement indicated that the concept could extend well beyond campus or the local community.

The UI has formally registered its opposition to proposed state legislation that, if adopted, would eliminate discount tuition waivers for employees.

If ever there were a pair of creative collaborators who could be accused of having way too much fun working together, it would have to be Eduardo Diazmuñoz and Jerry Hadley.

UI officials work to resolve pig dispute The UI is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to resolve an issue that arose as a result of a Feb. 5 FDA report about what the agency said was a potential violation of regulations regarding the sale of the offspring of transgenic pigs. The 386 pigs the UI sent to slaughter between April 2001 and late January 2003 were not transgenic animals, according to the UI scientists involved in the research. In fact, two sets of four tests were performed on the pigs to make certain they were not transgenic, the researchers said. The testing procedures had been shared with FDA officials in 2001, and the research project had been approved by two university oversight committees - the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, and the Biological Safety Committee. The researchers began a series of studies in 1999 that involve gene insertion into pigs, the goals being to increase milk production in sows, improve digestive health in pigs and produce healthier animals without drugs. The researchers have worked closely with the FDA since the studies began. One of the issues to be resolved is the term investigational animals, a term the FDA has used regarding the 386 pigs in question. The UI researchers did not consider the pigs investigational because tests showed them to be non-transgenic. The FDA said it believed that based on its current information, the pork from the animals does not pose a public health risk.

The UI has weathered the initial waves of the global economic downturn and state financial turmoil, but the outlook is far from sunny.

UI Now offers Web buffet of Illinois news and information

The UI moved up two spots in the annual U.S. News & World Report undergraduate rankings of colleges and universities released this week.

The state of Illinois’ $4 billion state budget deficit brought the UI a $58 million diminution in state support this fiscal year, which began July 1. But the university is not alone: Nearly all of its Big Ten peers, and indeed public universities around the nation, are struggling to fill multimillion-dollar gaps in their operating budgets and worrying what they will do if funding recedes further next fiscal year.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) on the Urbana-Champaign campus will join Hewlett-Packard Co. and five other leading research institutions in the Gelato Federation, a worldwide consortium focused on enabling open source Linux-based Intel® Itanium Processor Family computing solutions for academic, government and industrial research.

While millions of Americans were out casting their votes for U.S. president, university officials announced the next UI president. B. Joseph White, who will become the 16th president of the UI, was introduced to the Urbana-Champaign campus Nov. 2 at a late-afternoon news conference at the Illini Union, following an announcement earlier in the day in Chicago.

UI Library opens high-density shelving facility

UI librarians working to rejuvenate African libraries

A campaign to raise at least $30 million in private gifts for the University Library was announced Oct. 10 during the UI Foundation’s 68th annual meeting on the Urbana-Champaign campus and during a dedication ceremony at the library to mark its 10 millionth volume.

With Gov. Pat Quinn on hand to show his support, the U. of I. Board of Trustees heard plans for a nonprofit, university-affiliated research technology center designed to improve the economy of Illinois and Chicago and to make the area attractive to new innovators.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has joined the University Affiliates program instituted by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The program involves 40 U.S. academic institutions whose purpose is to help support and develop the academys research, particularly through its new Visiting Scholars Center.

UI joins alliance to find cures for infectious diseases

When it comes to science, Joanne Manaster admittedly inspires easily.

The UI and representatives of the Graduate Employees Organization reached a tentative contract agreement midday on Nov. 17 during negotiations at the Levis Faculty Center in Urbana.

UI establishes scholarship to honor Sen. Stan Weaver UI President James J. Stukel has announced the Stanley B. Weaver Scholarship program to honor the long-time state senator whose district included the Urbana-Champaign campus. "There will be six Stanley B. Weaver Scholarships," Stukel said. "Each of them will reflect the interests and the values of the extended Weaver clan. And all of them will reflect the Weaver family's emphasis on higher learning and, specifically, the University of Illinois." Weaver, 78, represented the 52nd District in the Illinois Senate since 1970, after a single term in the Illinois House and a dozen years as mayor of Urbana. After 22 years as assistant senate leader, he was named senator majority leader in 1997 and held that post until his retirement last January. "I am honored by the university's establishment of these scholarships," Weaver said. "While I am not sure I am deserving of this honor, I am sure there is no shortage of students who will benefit from them - and that makes me very happy." Stukel said the scholarship program will begin in fall 2004 and will be funded by an endowment created in the UI Foundation by the President's Office. The Urbana-Champaign campus, however, will administer the program, which will provide $2,500 scholarships to undergraduates in civil engineering, special education, finance, chemistry, food science and human nutrition, and natural resources and environmental sciences. The academic areas in which the scholarships will be given relate to personal or professional ties to the university by members of the Weaver family.

Donna Zimmerman has bad days just like everybody else.

UI employees required to complete ethics training

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor 217-244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu

The charity initiatives mentioned here are just a few of the many charity drives under way this year that reflect the generous spirit of people in the campus community. If you'd like to contribute:

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor 217-244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu