News Bureau

Physics often is the stuff of nightmares. For students, the terror lies in the expectation of mastering concepts as foreign as a never-heard language. Professors struggle to effectively teach complex concepts in a limited amount of time. And the expense of laboratory equipment is enough to make a department administrator reach for the antacids.

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On Oct.1 during Homecoming I assumed my new responsibilities as vice president of the University of Illinois and as chancellor of the Urbana campus. I want to share with you how excited and humbled I am to have the privilege to lead one of the greatest modern research universities in the world. 

Administrative Posts

Dining Services cooked up some excitement at the annual New Student Convocation and the Guinness Book of World Records certified their efforts. The world’ largest smoothie – a 330-gallon pink delight – was created from 960 pounds of yogurt, 600 pounds of strawberries and 105 gallons of pineapple juice.

Chalk one up for the pedestrians after Illinois lawmakers last year changed the state’s crosswalk law, forcing motorists to stop – not just yield – if a walker has already entered a crosswalk.

At the July 21 meeting of the UI Board of Trustees on the UIC campus, university trustees voted 6-2 to close the Institute of Aviation and end the undergraduate degree program. The institute, which opened in 1945, will likely close its doors at the end of the 2013-14 school year, after all current students have completed the program.

UI Police say the Urbana campus is as peaceful as it has been in years – not because there are fewer bad guys, but because of the implementation of several integrated security upgrades over the past two years.

What should a little girl aspire to become when she grows up? If you’re asking Kristin Schoemaker, anything she wants. Schoemaker, a junior in nuclear engineering, is preparing to cast off the limitations of an age-old Navy rule prohibiting women from serving on nuclear submarines.

Students Consulting for Nonprofit Organizations (SCNO) is only 1 year old, yet it already has a worthy list of achievements linked to its name.

It was the final game of the Urbana Park District basketball season, and Jordan Morris’ motley crew of third- and fourth-grade boys (at right) was winning. He watched them dribble, pass and deploy the pump fake and the jab step – moves he and his friends had taught them at practice – to almost double their opponent’s score.

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Much to my delight, in my first few months as chancellor I have discovered two common threads at this great university: Learning never rests and helping others is a way of life.

Administrative Posts

On a campus of 40,000 undergraduates, a student organization can provide a grounding point. For the members of Frontiers International Health Society, it’s also a launch pad, sending students far beyond the lecture halls to apply their skills around the globe.

Whether people are crunched for time or for cash, or they’re overwhelmed by having to grocery shop and cook for themselves for the first time, eating healthy can be a challenge for college students. However, a team of aspiring registered dietitians at Illinois is sharing its expertise to help everyone get passing grades in good nutrition and healthful living.

The athlete shines on the playing field or the court, in the gym or the pool. That’s the part of “student-athlete” that most UI fans know about. The student part happens out of the limelight, but the record shows student-athletes succeeding there as well.

Journeys that foster self-discovery are not always easy or pleasant – but can be empowering and liberating, says Elka Kazmierczak, a slender woman with short gray hair and sparkling brown eyes. She seems to vibrate with energy and purpose. At the first meeting of the semester for the Illini Art Therapy Association, Kazmierczak invites participants to take such a journey with her.

During the winter holiday break, when music education major Christopher Whiteford went home to Bradley, Ill., he played a few Christmas carols for his parents, jammed on some rock ’n’ roll with a guitarist friend and serenaded his girlfriend with one of her favorites, Ingrid Michaelson’s “You and I.”

A generation ago, all an entrepreneur needed was an idea and a garage. Now, entrepreneurs need little more than an Internet connection – and, for UI students, the help of a unit on campus that can guide them as they turn their ideas into full-fledged businesses.

To new Urbana Chancellor and UI Vice President Phyllis M. Wise, education and family are inextricable elements.

Life – and career – lessons can take many forms. For seven UI undergraduates, a hands-on engineering collaboration with peers in South Africa – with weekend excursions to some of the most exotic locales on the planet – offered just about all of them.

Administrative Posts

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There are outstanding universities in every state where a student can get an education. We want to ensure that at Illinois, students don’t just get an education – they have experiences that really prepare them for the challenges they’ll have when they leave this campus. 

A student-centered research course at the UI in the spring semester proved it is possible for the concepts of academic exploration and commercial practicality to peacefully co-exist – and that Earth’s environment can benefit from the union.

On Quad Day, more than 600 registered student organizations set up displays in hopes of attracting new members. Junior Utkarsh Yadav didn’t need to browse. He knew exactly which RSO he wanted to join.

Imagine spending a summer in a place where the summer sun lights the sky for 24 hours, where you can take a long hike on a grand glacier, and where nature’s brilliance greets you at every turn.

Gardeners, cross-country runners (and skiers), stressed-out students, soccer players, bug enthusiasts, Japanese tea aficionados, bird watchers, architects and scientists of nearly every stripe find something of value at the UI Arboretum, a vibrant, 57-acre swath of green near the south end of the Urbana-Champaign campus.

They left for Turkey last May as a group of student reporters. They returned two weeks later as novice foreign correspondents.

UI students have access to some of the best professors in the country using the most current data and teaching techniques – but funding challenges have made campus classroom space the final educational frontier.

The refurbished Lincoln's bust has been returned, ready for students to start rubbing his nose for luck once again.

UI junior Spencer Gore, the founder and director of Space for All, holds onto the payload rigging at the launch site as he addresses the launch crew. Inside the payload housing are devices and cameras filming the action figure "passengers" astride a model of the Starship Enterprise.

Although the inscription on the base of the Alma Mater statue hasn’t changed, the statue’s location did Aug. 7 as workers lifted the 5-ton sculpture onto a truck and took it to Chicago for extensive conservation work.

The weeklong camp is geared toward high school students with interests in science and engineering. GAMES includes seven camps, each focusing on a particular engineering discipline: aerospace engineering, bioengineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, environmental engineering, materials science and robotics.

Dear Parents

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Administrative Posts

You don’t have to look to the runways of New York City to find the hallmarks of high culture and style. Inside IMPULSE magazine, an independent quarterly publication created by U. of I. students, it’s easy to find glamour and glitz in the heart of Champaign-Urbana.

Charles Tucker III, the newly installed vice provost for undergraduate education and innovation, is well aware of the challenges of producing a high-quality undergraduate experience.

The U. of I. student body has spoken, and it says it doesn’t want to inhale secondhand smoke anymore.

The trip that took Bell, Wang and their peers from East Central Illinois to East Asia is part of a new program in the College of Education called the Greater China Initiative, which makes study abroad practicable for undergraduate preservice teachers and provides an opportunity for them to delve into research.

If that’s not the math you remember from school, that’s no surprise. But that’s the math they practice and preach through the Illinois Geometry Lab, a new math department initiative now in its fourth semester.

For students looking to become the next Nate Silver, or for those who simply like working with numbers but don’t want to become engineers, the U. of I. offers a little-known but highly esteemed major that’s also very much in-demand in the business world.

If curiosity gets the better of the passersby, and they pause to read the card attached to the brightly colored ceramic hearts or hands, they’ll find that the chimes, called Ben’s Bells, are part of a nationwide grassroots movement for spreading kindness. The bells are gifts for whomever happens upon them, but they come with strings attached: Those who pluck the bells from their perches and take them home are volunteering to spread kindness wherever they go.

Welcome to the virtual lab, a digital re-creation of the nuclear, plasma and radiological engineering (NPRE) undergraduate laboratory. The virtual lab is a detailed first-person video game developed to guide freshmen through basic lab setup and procedure, though it soon could provide a training environment for advanced classes in nuclear engineering and beyond.

A farmer in Burkina Faso learns how to safely store his crops. An entrepreneur in India learns how to truck her harvested grain to market. Thanks to student animators at the U. of I., these people and countless others around the world can also see and hear about the symptoms, transmission and treatment of tuberculosis, or how and when to wash their hands to avoid disease.

Amelia Lee wasn’t sure she wanted to attend the University of Illinois. As a serious oboist, her idea of college was an arts institution such as Oberlin Conservatory or the Manhattan School of Music. Her mother, however, wanted Lee to get a more well-rounded education, and with a top-10 ranked music school, the U. of I. suited them both.

As you read this issue of Postmarks, we will be near the mid-point of the fall semester. Whether this is your first semester with a son or daughter at Illinois or it is a year of return for your child, we are proud to count them among our students.

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