News Bureau

New U. of I. chancellor Robert Jones will be introduced at a public event Wednesday

The Estonian ambassador to the U.S. will address the state of the European Union as part of EU Day on Oct. 20.

In 2018, the University of Illinois Press will mark its 100th anniversary with numerous events in Champaign-Urbana, Chicago and Springfield. A founding member of the Association of American University Presses in 1937, the UIP has published more than 4,500 books in its first century.

Organizers of the 19th annual Roger Ebert’s Film Festival have announced the slate of panel discussions for the festival.

The Illini Union will host a celebration of its 75th anniversary on Friday, Feb. 17, from 4 to 6 p.m.  in the Illini Union Art Gallery and Pine Lounge. All are welcome to attend.

Money in U.S. politics will be the theme of a U. of I. symposium starting Friday, Nov. 11, with the director of the watchdog website OpenSecrets.org giving the keynote.

After 33 years of service, the Scholarship Program Committee for the Civil Service Employee and Dependents Scholarship Program is analyzing the program  to ensure its continuity. 

Media passes and parking are available for University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign commencement.

Slavery in Illinois and the move to freedom will be the subject of a Nov. 8 lecture at the U. of I., part of a series commemorating the state’s bicentennial.

Through the centuries, people have devised imaginative puzzles to test our wits. Three-dimensional puzzles crafted of wood, metal, plastic and other durable materials are designed to be taken apart, rearranged or untangled. The exhibit “Fall to pieces: Ingenious mechanical puzzles from around the world,” debuts June 4 at Spurlock Museum of World Cultures and runs through July 21.

Immigration, migration and refugees – topics that have loomed over both the U.S. presidential campaign and world politics – will be the subject of a two-day conference Monday and Tuesday (Sept. 26-27) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The reward for information about missing scholar Yingying Zhang’s whereabouts will be raised to $50,000. The increase, requested by Zhang's family, will be announced at a news conference Friday morning.

The Chancellor’s Commission on Native Imagery: Healing and Reconciliation is seeking input from the community to help the campus move forward on the matter of the permanently retired symbol Chief Illiniwek.

This year’s “Ebertfest” will close with a performance by Native American artist Pura Fe following its final film, “Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World.”

Significant rain in March led to above-normal soil moisture in Illinois and major flooding events for many local streams and rivers, according to Brian Kerschner, a spokesperson for the Illinois State Climatologist Office at the U. of I.’s Illinois State Water Survey. 

Some areas of Illinois experienced record-breaking amounts of rain in May, as statewide totals mark the sixth consecutive month with above average rainfall, according to Brian Kerschner, a spokesperson for the Illinois State Climatologist Office at the Illinois State Water Survey, part of the Prairie Research Institute at Illinois.

A lecture by educational psychologist Kathleen Gallagher is among the events planned to celebrate the Child Development Laboratory's 75th anniversary.

Constitutional checks and balances and the power of the presidency will be topics of a speech and roundtable Nov. 29 at the U. of I.

News media passes for Saturday's campuswide commencement at Memorial Stadium are available through Friday at the Office of Public Affairs, 507 E. Green St., Room 319, Champaign. 

Dance at Illinois will present February Dance 2016 at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 4, 5 and 6 at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

Travis L. Dixon, a professor and director of graduate studies in communication, will deliver the annual Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean’s Distinguished Lecture at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 23.

Ten faculty and staff members and students associated with the department of history will get six minutes each to make their case for the book they think changed everything. A jury will then vote and declare a winner.

The UP Center, in collaboration with the University YMCA’s Art @ the Y program, is hosting the exhibit “Queering UP the Arts: Celebration of Queer Artists and Artworks,”  on display through May 13 in the University Y’s Murphy Gallery. The exhibit is free and open to the public.

The gallery, located at 1001 S. Wright St., Champaign, is open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The exhibition includes submissions from adult and youth artists from Champaign, Urbana, Mahomet, Saybrook and Bloomington. The artworks are of various mediums including digital prints, photographs, cyanotypes, spray paint, acrylics and many other types.

Art @ the Y seeks to engage issues of social justice through quality arts programming. The UP Center was founded in 2009 as an organization to advocate for the equality, wellness, advocacy and visibility of the LGBTQ communities in Champaign County.

Artistically enhanced research images from the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology will be shown at the Art of Science 7.0 exhibit.

The seasonal flu shot is now available 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday for free at McKinley Health Center to all U. of I. students who have paid the Health Service Fee and all benefits-eligible faculty and staff members, retirees and state employees. Check the McKinley website and its Flu Clinic Events Calendar for other locations on campus.

The Audiology Clinic at the U. of I. is offering free hearing screenings June 1 to July 22. Screenings appointments may be scheduled by calling 217-333-2230. The clinic does not schedule appointments by email.

Twenty-four U. of I. research teams have been awarded allocations on the National Center for Supercomputing Applications’ Blue Waters, the most powerful supercomputer on a university campus.

“The U. of I. is a tremendous university with plenty of talented people who can take effective advantage of a resource like Blue Waters,” said Blue Waters project director Bill Kramer. “It’s important for the project that our home institution has a close relationship with this great supercomputer, and we look forward to seeing more groundbreaking science come from the researchers at Illinois.”

The Campus Faculty Association will award up to five $1,000 scholarships to undergraduate students at the University of Illinois’ Urbana campus who demonstrate a commitment to social justice in the community.

Illinois’ weather in October was a mixed bag of conditions with temperatures in the 90s, the first fall frost, the first snow of the season and widespread heavy rains, according to Illinois State Climatologist Jim Angel at the Illinois State Water Survey, part of the Prairie Research Institute at Illinois.

Soils across Illinois were cooler and drier than average in the first half of August, said Jennie Atkins, the water and atmospheric resources monitoring program manager at the Illinois State Water Survey, part of the Prairie Research Institute at Illinois.

The Illinois Fire Service Institute will host the 94th Annual Fire College on June 7-10 in Champaign. The event will bring together more than 400 first responders from across the state and country to experience in-depth, hands-on training.

The University of Illinois College of Law will host a panel discussion at noon Friday on President Trump’s executive order on immigration. The discussion will be moderated by U. of I. law professor Lesley Wexler.

The Illinois Fire Service Institute, part of the U. of I., will host a ceremony on Wednesday, Jan. 9 at 10 a.m. on the IFSI training grounds in Champaign. The event, held in cooperation with the Office of the Illinois State Fire Marshal, will officially release four mobile trailers containing equipment essential for firefighting skills training.

Native Pop, an organization that brings American Indian pop art and art making to widespread venues and communities, will present a weekend of events March 30-31 titled “Native Pop Presents: Strong Women: Reclaiming Imagery.” The events feature MaryBeth Nelson (Cherokee), Serena Penaloza (Navajo and Maricopa) and Brent Learned (Cheyenne-Arapaho), who will bring their art, insight and skills to a variety of programs.

Champaign, Ill. - The University of Illinois Black Chorus will perform its fall concert, “Grace (an amazing homecoming),” Sunday, Oct. 7 at 3 p.m. in the Foellinger Great Hall of Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, 500 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana. The concert continues a legacy of 50 years of sustained campus, national and international musical performances.

Led for 38 years by University of Illinois professor of music  Ollie Watts Davis, the concert welcomes alumni back to campus and features music from the African-American sacred music tradition, with arrangements of spirituals, anthems, hymns and traditional and contemporary gospel selections.

The concert is supported by the School of Music at Illinois and Krannert Center for Performing Arts. Tickets are $10 and available for purchase at the Krannert Center Ticket Office. For ticket information, call 217-333-6280.

A day-long summit on sexual harassment on Wednesday, Oct. 16 is open to the news media, but audio and visual recording will not be allowed.

The European Union ambassador to the U.S. is speaking March 15 at the University of Illinois, part of EU Day 2017.

DoCha, downtown Champaign’s premiere free chamber music festival, announces its 10th anniversary season, Friday to Sunday, April 5-7.

Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Fox/Atkins Development LLC and the University of Illinois present a free summer concert featuring the Barcelona, Spain-based Alma Afrobeat Ensembleat 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 19, in Research Park.

News media are invited to set up for the Urbana campus's fundraising campaign inaugural event at the State Farm Center as early as 6:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 13.

With warmer-than-average temperatures, December 2018 brought slight snowfall and a historic late-season severe weather outbreak to Illinois.

On Dec. 1, the National Weather Service confirmed 29 tornadoes in Illinois, an event that is considered the largest December tornado outbreak in state history, according to Brian Kerschner, a spokesman for the state climatologist office at the U. of I.’s Illinois State Water Survey. The second-largest number of tornadoes in December was 21  in 1957.

The Illinois Learning Sciences Design Initiative recently awarded $164,000 in grants to six interdisciplinary research teams on campus.

The awards were disbursed under the second phase of ILSDI’s seed-funding program, which was implemented to foster interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaborations among faculty members on campus and facilitate development of large-scale proposals for external funding

Soil temperatures are above normal in mid-July, according to Jennie Atkins, the Water and Atmospheric Resources Monitoring program manager at the Illinois State Water Survey, part of the Prairie Research Institute at Illinois.

The University YMCA is seeking volunteers in Champaign County to join the 15th annual Dump & Run community recycling event to help divert reusable items from the landfill. Volunteers are needed beginning Aug. 8 and up to Aug. 21 to help collect, sort, price and sell household items at the garage sale on Aug. 20-21. Volunteers at last year’s event were able to divert approximately 27 tons of reusable items from the landfill.

Donna Cox, the director of the Advanced Visualization Laboratory at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the U. of I., will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award this week at the eighth annual IMERSA 2017 Summit in Denver. The event creates an opportunity to explore the converging worlds of virtual reality-themed entertainment and immersive cinema.

The YWCA at Illinois is seeking nominations for the 31st annual Women’s Leadership Awards.

Prospective nominees are exceptional women who display leadership, initiative, creativity and dedication, and go the extra mile to get involved in programs and activities that benefit the communities in which they live and work. The awards recognize the achievements and contributions of exceptional individuals, organizations and businesses in the greater Champaign-Urbana community who work to advance the mission of the YWCA.

The National Endowment for the Humanities has announced $28.6 million in grants to support 233 humanities projects nationwide, including four at the University of Illinois. Each of the Illinois researchers will receive an award of $6,000.

Nicole Krauss, an award-winning and best-selling author, will talk about her latest novel, “Forest Dark,” and her other works at two campus events April 9.

The Illini Union Office of Volunteer Programs will sponsor the annual Thanksgiving Basket Drive starting Tuesday, Nov. 1. The drive provides families with a basket of nonperishable items and a $25 gift card, which can prepare a Thanksgiving meal. The entire Illinois campus is invited to participate.

The University Library has announced plans to redesign the Main Library at Illinois. As an ongoing project, the Senate Committee on the Library will regularly discuss this project throughout the 2018-19 academic year. Those interested in this conversation are invited to attend the upcoming Library Committee Meeting on Thursday, Dec. 6, from 9 to 10 a.m., Room 232 in the English Building, 608 S. Wright St., Urbana.