News Bureau

Champaign County Citizen Police Academy accepting applications for enrollment

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. A day of family fun will take place Saturday (Oct. 13) during the Family Fall Festival at the University of Illinois Arboretum. Children and adults can enjoy a variety of activities, contests and exhibits while learning more about horticulture.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. The Champaign County Citizen Police Academy is accepting applications for the 16th session, which will begin Sept. 12.

A transit boarding island on Green Street, reconfigured Illini Union vehicle entrance and parking, all-way pedestrian crossing and protected bicycle lanes are some of the new features to be developed by the Multimodal Corridor Enhancement Project starting in 2016.

The Office of Diversity, Equity and Access is now accepting nominations for the annual Larine Y. Cowan “Make a Difference” Awards. The awards honor campus community members who have demonstrated exceptional dedication to promoting diversity and inclusion on campus in the following areas (nomination forms and criteria are online):

The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies will host its 8th annual Latin American Film Festival Sept. 18-24 at the Art Theater Co-op, 126 W. Church St., Champaign. The festival will screen six recent fiction films and one documentary from different countries of the region.

The YWCA will host its 11th annual Race Against Racism on Sept. 27 at the U. of I. Arboretum. Registration is open to anyone older than 10, and participants can choose to run or walk in the 5K event. The event starts at 1 p.m., and the registration fee is $20 for advance registration and $25 on race day.

Each fall and spring, the Education Justice Project accepts applications from faculty and staff members, graduate students and community members who wish to participate in the programming at the Danville Correctional Center, a medium-high security men’s state prison. The project instructors are unpaid volunteers.

Dr. Richard Isaacson and Max Lugavere will discuss “The Role of Nutrition in the Management of Alzheimer’s Disease” at 6 p.m. Sept. 23 in the auditorium of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.

Award-winning poet, author and musician Joy Harjo, a U. of I. professor of creative writing and of English, who also is affiliated with American Indian Studies, will give a reading Sept. 16 as part of the Creative Writers Showcase of the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities. Her reading will be at 7:30 p.m. in the Knight Auditorium at Spurlock Museum. U. of I. music professor Gabriel Solis will join her for a discussion of her work. The event is free and open to the public.

Penny Chisholm, a professor of environmental studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will kick off the upcoming weekend symposium hosted by the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology with a free public lecture. No registration is necessary.

Soil moisture levels rose across Illinois the second week of September as the state saw increased rainfall and cooler soil temperatures.

Faculty and staff members and students are invited to discuss the future of campus information technology at the IT Power Plant Town Hall from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Sept. 22 in Illini Union Room C.

In May 2015, the campus announced that modifications would be made to its Smoke-Free Campus Policy in accordance with the State of Illinois Smoke-Free Campus Act (110 ILCS64/1-99).

Each year, faculty members are invited to submit scholarly and creative proposals for consideration by the Center for Advanced Study’s permanent professors.

Krannert Art Museum will host a free screening of the film “Woman in Gold” at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 21.

The campus will host its fifth annual Summit on Online Education on Oct. 14 with Johns Hopkins University professor, author and New York Times higher education columnist Kevin Carey as the keynote speaker.

A new documentary premiering on the Big Ten Network features three extraordinary women at the University of Illinois. “Making Their Mark” will air on BTN on Friday, Sept. 25 at 8 p.m. CDT, following the Illinois-Maryland women’s volleyball match. The 30-minute program profiles athlete Jean Driscoll, entomologist May Berenbaum and computer artist Donna Cox.

The Office of Volunteer Programs is sponsoring the eighth annual Cans Across the Quad food drive Sept. 29 in conjunction with National Hunger Action Month. Registered student organizations, campus units and people from the university and community are encouraged to participate.

University Primary School will host an open house Oct. 13 and 14. Prospective families, researchers and community members may observe the preschool in action from 9 a.m. to noon.

The Baroque Artists of Champaign-Urbana announces its 20th anniversary season. When holding its first concert, the group had no idea it would still be bringing baroque music to central Illinois in 2015.

Wesley Student Center and United Methodist Church at the U. of I. have been sponsoring a monthlong exploration of race and violence in America. The final event will be a panel discussion at 1:30 p.m. Oct. 4 featuring Travis Dixon, a U. of I. professor of communication, and Monica McDermott, a U. of I. professor of sociology, as well as Champaign Mayor Deb Frank Feinen and Champaign Police Chief Anthony Cobb.

Nev Schulman, of MTV’s “Catfish: The TV Show,” will speak at the Illini Union I-Rooms at 7 p.m. Sept. 24 as part of the Illini Union Board Lecture Series.

Bernard Hammes, a professor of medicine, will speak on advance care planning from noon-1 p.m. Oct. 14 at the Presence Covenant Medical Center auditorium, 1400 W. Park St., Urbana. The event is free and open to the public.

The U. of I. and Dow AgroSciences LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company, announced the Sept. 28 grand opening of the Dow AgroSciences Innovation Center in the Research Park on the Urbana campus.

Supporters of the U. of I. Wildlife Medical Clinic will host a fundraiser at the Harvest Moon Drive-In Oct. 3 for a viewing of “How to Train Your Dragon.”

Three faculty members will join Krannert Art Museum curators at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 1 for a discussion of the current exhibition “Attachment.”

Emanuel Donchin, a professor of psychology at the University of South Florida, will present the U. of I. department of psychology's 2015 Lyle Lanier Lecture, “Typing With Your Brain Waves: A Communication Tool for Locked In Patients.” The lecture is at 4 p.m. Oct. 15 at the auditorium of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.

The Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies will host a daylong symposium dedicated to exploring the Ganges River – its heritage, threats to its sustenance and planning initiatives to conserve it.

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 4, more than 350 veterinary medicine students will give a behind-the-scenes look at the state’s only veterinary medicine college. From prospective veterinarians to anyone fascinated by animals, visitors will find something of interest at the U. of I. College of Veterinary Medicine Open House.

Do you have a work-related question that doesn’t have a simple answer? Are you unsure of which office to contact? Representatives from campus, community and affiliated organizations will provide information about benefits, services, programs and other related topics at the All Employee Expo.

Who can see what we share? Does our email belong to us? How is technology changing the ways we communicate? Two faculty members from the College of Fine and Applied Arts will address such questions at the college’s Uncorked and On Topic event at 5:15 p.m. Oct. 15 in the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts Tryon Festival Theatre Foyer.

The U. of I. will again offer four-week online courses during winter break this year. Winter Session 2015-16 will run Dec. 21 through Jan. 15. The courses offer an opportunity for undergraduate degree-seeking students to take an active role in their education, learn time management, set goals and meet them as they work toward degree completion. Illinois faculty members teach the courses that are offered to U. of I. undergraduate students at the Urbana campus and nondegree students at other institutions.

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.

Stephen P. Long, the Center for Advanced Study Professor of Plant Biology will deliver the 25th Annual CAS Lecture at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 27 in the Knight Auditorium at Spurlock Museum. Long’s topic is “Feeding and Fueling the World from Crops: Will it be Possible by 2050?”

Nominations are being accepted for the Chancellor’s Academic Professional Excellence Award program, which is designed to recognize the important contributions made by academic professionals at the U. of I.

Six academic units came together to offer the new Sustainability, Energy and Environment Fellows Program, a campuswide undergraduate minor through the Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment to promote systems-level thinking about energy and sustainability, and to foster the development of an integrated view of the economy, society and the environment.

A Los Angeles-based artist will discuss how race is represented in art in a lecture this evening, Oct. 8, at Krannert Art Museum. Ken Gonzales-Day, a professor of art and humanities at Scripps College, will speak at 5:30 p.m. The title of his lecture is "Interruption and Absence: A History of Lynching (Latinos) and How It Changed What I Think About Contemporary Art."

Omega Tau Sigma, the professional veterinary fraternity, will host the 5K Road Race for Animals on Oct 25. Participants may run or walk, with or without a dog.

The fourth annual MRL Biological Conference will be Nov. 4 and 5 at the Materials Research Laboratory. The laboratory offers an array of characterization tools, which enable a wide range of structural research in biological and advanced materials systems. To further educate current and future facility users in the number of options available to them, this workshop is devoted to biological inquiry and applications.

The Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment will host an array of events during Sustainability Week, Oct. 19-23.

Would you like to enhance your experience when attending performances at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts? Patrons may use monthly guides provided by the Music and Performing Arts Library to learn more about the performers and works being performed through materials in the library's collections. 

Three faculty panelists will lead a discussion of the issues arising from the June censure of the U. of I. by the American Association of University Professors and the proposal by the U. of I. Board of Trustees this fall to require criminal background checks for all new faculty members. The event, sponsored by the Urbana campus AAUP Chapter, will be at 4 p.m. Oct. 20 in Room 314A Illini Union.

Technology Services recently implemented a new password system that will save faculty and staff members and students time by not having to maintain multiple passwords. It also will be easier to reset a password if the user forgets it.

The University YMCA will present the “Behind Closed Doors No-More” exhibition series, displaying linocuts and quilts by Elzbieta (Elka) Kazmierczak. The exhibition opens at 5 p.m. Nov. 5 at the Y’s Murphy Gallery, followed by a gallery talk with Kazmierczak at 5:30 p.m. Light refreshments will be provided.

Japan House is auctioning more than two dozen handmade quilts. The online auction is live now and continues through Nov. 8. A portion of the proceeds from the auction will go to the Kimiko Gunji Legacy Fund to support visiting artists and teachers who will share Japanese culture.

Energizing the U. of I. since 1941, Abbott Power Plant provides safe, reliable, environmentally compliant and cost-effective energy to support the mission of the university.

The School of Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics will offer a unique learning opportunity in the form of its Intensive Foreign Language Instruction Program for winter 2016.

Technology Services will perform maintenance to the campus network on Friday morning, Oct. 23, beginning at 3 a.m. The work is expected to take 15 to 20 minutes, but maintenance could potentially continue until 5 a.m. 

On Friday, Oct. 23, several campus-area streets and intersections will be closed between 5:30 and 7 p.m. for the Homecoming parade.
 MTD routes through the parade area will be modified and delays may occur. Streets and intersections that are affected are listed below.