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  • Peter Fritzsche

    75 years later, why did Germans follow the Nazis into Holocaust?

    Aug 26, 2014 9:00 am236028 views

    A Minute With™... Peter Fritzsche, a historian of modern Germany

  • When Mexican Americans say they are "white" on the U.S. Census, it's often not for the reasons many assume, says Julie A. Dowling, a professor of Latina and Latino studies and author of a new book.

    Question of race not simple for Mexican Americans, author says

    Mar 5, 2014 9:00 am73670 views

    CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - About half of Latinos check "white" in response to the question about race on the U.S. Census. About half check "other race."

  • Illinois journalism professor Nikki Usher’s recent study with colleague Yee Man Margaret Ng looked at how Washington, D.C., journalists cluster on Twitter.

    Journalists’ Twitter use shows them talking within smaller bubbles

    Aug 5, 2020 9:30 am47617 views

    Washington, D.C., journalists are clustering not in one “Beltway bubble” but in a collection of “microbubbles,” based on a recent study of their Twitter postings. It means they “may be even more insular than previously thought,” say Illinois journalism professors Nikki Usher and Yee Man Margaret Ng.

  • U. of I. advertising professor John Wirtz found that sex doesn’t sell in advertising the way many assume it does.

    Research suggests sexual appeals in ads don’t sell brands, products

    Jun 22, 2017 10:30 am41003 views

    Sexy ads stick in the memory more but don’t sell the brand or product, according to research that analyzed nearly 80 advertising studies published over three decades.

  • Psychology professor Eva Pomerantz and her colleagues found that middle school students’ stereotypes about adolescence influence their own behavior.

    Study: Countering stereotypes about teens can change their behavior

    Feb 27, 2019 11:00 am31379 views

    In many societies, teenagers are repeatedly told – by adults, peers and popular media – that teens are more likely than younger children to take risks, ignore their parents, skip schoolwork and succumb to bad influences. But stereotypes are not destiny, a new study of Chinese middle school students suggests.

  • Image of professor Peter Fritzsche

    'Race': A historian looks at Jesse Owens' impact on Germany and the U.S.

    Feb 17, 2016 8:15 am29585 views

    A Minute With...™ Peter Fritzsche, expert on Nazi Germany

  • Sandra Kopels

    When a minor becomes pregnant, must schools notify the parents?

    Jun 28, 2010 9:00 am24207 views

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

  • Scott Althaus, the director of the Cline Center for Democracy

    Did news coverage turn Americans against the Vietnam War?

    Sep 5, 2017 11:30 am20931 views

    News coverage of the Vietnam War did not have the effect on popular support that many believe, says a University of Illinois researcher.

     

  • U. of I. history professor Peter Fritzsche looks at the Nazi transformation of Germany prior to World War II in his upcoming book “Hitler’s First Hundred Days.”

    Germany transformed under Nazis in 100 days. Do we understand why?

    Aug 20, 2019 10:00 am19423 views

    With world leaders gathering Sept. 1 to mark the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II in Europe, U. of I. history professor Peter Fritzsche describes how Germans came to embrace Nazi rule, especially in Hitler’s first 100 days.

  • Sundiata Cha-Jua

    The movie 'Selma': Historically correct, if not historically accurate

    Jan 14, 2015 9:00 am10927 views

    Just say the name "Selma," and anyone who knows the history of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s will know what you mean. It was on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in that Alabama city almost 50 years ago (March 7, 1965) that peaceful marchers were beaten back with billy clubs wielded by state and local lawmen. Captured on network television news, it would become known as "Bloody Sunday." The movie "Selma," which opened nationwide last Friday (Jan. 9), tells the story of that day and events before and after, which would prompt passage of the Voting Rights Act that summer. Sundiata Cha-Jua, a professor of history and of African-American studies at Illinois, teaches courses on both the civil rights movement and African-Americans in film. He talked about the film and the history with News Bureau social sciences editor Craig Chamberlain.

  • Urban teens whose parents advocate nonviolent approaches to resolving conflicts may reduce their children’s likelihood of abusing their romantic partners – even if these parents also say that aggression is warranted in certain situations, social work professor Rachel Garthe found in a recent study of more than 1,000 middle school students.

    Youth dating violence shaped by parents’ conflict-handling views, study finds

    Nov 16, 2018 10:15 am10345 views

    Parents who talk to their children about nonviolent conflict resolution reduce children’s likelihood of abusing their dating partners – even if parents give contradictory messages advocating violence in some situations.

  • Sandra Kopels

    The ethical dilemmas inherent in school social work

    Jul 6, 2010 9:00 am8819 views

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

  • Sociology professor Tom VanHeuvelen focuses on the rise in inequality as a key part of his research.

    Study shows diminished but ‘robust’ link between union decline, rise of inequality

    Aug 21, 2018 9:45 am8705 views

    A new study shows a diminished but “robust” link between the decline of unions and the rise in wage inequality.

  • Professor Adrian Bourgos

    Do politics or protests have a place in sports?

    Sep 28, 2017 12:30 pm8590 views

    A U. of I. professor who specializes in the history of sports says it’s not realistic to see sporting events as free of politics or protest

  • A new book offers an in-depth picture of what archaeologists found, and learned, from the vast collection of artifacts uncovered at Cahokia

    'Revealing Greater Cahokia' details research on ancient North American metropolis

    Jan 22, 2019 8:15 am8260 views

    With a population between 10,000 and 30,000 in its heyday (A.D. 1050-1200) and a sprawling assortment of homes, storage buildings, temples, cemeteries, mounds and other monuments in and around what is now St. Louis and East St. Louis, Illinois, the ancient Native American city known as Greater Cahokia was the first experiment in urban living in North America.

    A new book, “Revealing Greater Cahokia, North America’s First Native City,” offers the most complete picture yet of a decade of archaeological research on a little-known part of the larger city and its precincts in East St. Louis.

  • Photo of Samantha Iwinski and Kelly Bost

    Poor diet, household chaos may impair young children’s cognitive skills

    Jul 12, 2022 1:30 pm8147 views

    Young children’s development of the higher-level cognitive skills called executive function may be adversely affected by household chaos and poor nutrition, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign scholars found.

  • Photo of the researchers on this year's list.

    Nine Illinois scientists rank among world's most influential

    Nov 15, 2022 8:00 am7072 views

    Nine U. of I. researchers have been named to the 2022 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list. The list recognizes research scientists and social scientists who have demonstrated exceptional influence – reflected through their publication of multiple papers frequently cited by their peers during the last decade. This year’s list includes 6,938 individuals from around the world whose papers rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in the Web of Science.

  • How has Twitter changed news coverage?

    Oct 22, 2015 11:30 am6361 views

    A Minute With...™ Alecia Swasy, professor of business journalism

  • Two Indian corn plants standing in the sun.

    Cahokia's rise parallels onset of corn agriculture

    May 14, 2020 8:15 am6241 views

    Corn cultivation spread from Mesoamerica to what is now the American Southwest by about 4000 B.C., but how and when the crop made it to other parts of North America is still a subject of debate. In a new study, scientists report that corn was not grown in the ancient metropolis of Cahokia until sometime between A.D. 900 and 1000, a relatively late date that corresponds to the start of the city’s rapid expansion.

  • John Murphy

    JFK's inaugural speech still stirring, memorable at 50

    Jan 18, 2011 9:00 am6136 views

    A Minute With™... John Murphy, a professor of communication

  • Portrait of Gratton and Fabiani

    Cocoa flavanols boost brain oxygenation, cognition in healthy adults

    Nov 24, 2020 4:00 am5754 views

    The brains of healthy adults recovered faster from a mild vascular challenge and performed better on complex tests if the participants consumed cocoa flavanols beforehand, researchers report.

  • Jason Chambers, a professor of advertising, teaches advertising history.

    How has the portrayal of African Americans in advertising changed over the last century?

    Feb 26, 2008 9:00 am5715 views

    A Minute With™... Jason Chambers, a professor of advertising

  • Psychology professor Brent Roberts and his colleagues found no evidence that narcissism among college students increased between the 1990s and the 2010s. If anything, the team reports, narcissism declined over that period.

    No ‘narcissism epidemic’ among college students, study finds

    Oct 9, 2017 8:30 am5563 views

    Today’s college students are slightly less narcissistic than their counterparts were in the 1990s, researchers report in a new study – not significantly more, as some have proposed. The study, reported in the journal Psychological Science, analyzed data from 1,166 students at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1990s, and from tens of thousands of students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of California, Davis in the 2000s and 2010s. All of the students completed the Narcissism Personal Inventory, the oldest and most widely used measure of narcissism.

  • U. of I. psychology professor Nicole Allen is a co-author on a new analysis of sexual assault victimization and mental health outcomes.

    Increased risk of suicide, mental health conditions linked to sexual assault victimization

    Aug 8, 2017 4:00 pm5462 views

    An analysis of nearly 200 independent studies involving more than 230,000 adult participants finds that having been sexually assaulted is associated with significantly increased risk of anxiety, depression, suicidality, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, obsessive-compulsive disorder and bipolar disorder.

  • Observers look on during a Nevada nuclear test, one of many filmed by a secret Hollywood studio, its story chronicled by two Illinois professors.

    New book tells story of secret Hollywood studio that shaped the nuclear age

    Jan 14, 2019 2:30 pm5337 views

    Two Illinois professors tell the story of a secret Hollywood studio at the heart of the Cold War and the early nuclear age.

  • Photo of psychology professor Eva Pomerantz and graduate student Jiawen Wu

    Parents' reactions while helping with math shape young children's achievement

    Apr 25, 2022 10:30 am5303 views

    Cultivating a love of math – and inspiring the next generation of numbers-oriented professionals – may start with activities that promote enjoyable parent-child experiences, say U. of I. researchers.

  • Photo of social work professor Ryan Wade in his office at the School of Social Work

    Men's experiences of sexual racism differ in two online dating communities

    Sep 28, 2022 11:30 am5246 views

    While sexual racism abounds on dating apps, Black men who are sexual minorities reported differing forms of it on the popular apps Jack’d and Grindr, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found.

  • New research by human development and family studies professor Karen Kramer and doctoral researcher Sunjin Pak found that men’s and women’s psychological well-being is affected differently when their wages and share of their family’s income changes.

    Paper examines links between parents’ earnings, gender roles, mental health

    Aug 11, 2017 9:00 am5061 views

    New research out of the University of Illinois suggests that some mothers’ and fathers’ psychological well-being may suffer when their work and family identities – and the amount of financial support they provide – conflict with conventional gender roles.

  • Fear of Germany's destruction drove Nazism's appeal, scholar says

    Jun 17, 2008 9:00 am4974 views

    CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Seventy-five years after the Nazis rose to power, historians still struggle to explain how the Nazis could take such effective hold of Germany and bring it to such murderous extremes in war and in the Holocaust.

  • U. of I. Police Training Institute director Michael Schlosser has spent more than a decade studying police interactions with minority communities and testing new approaches to improve the dynamic. The PTI trains recruits from about 500 police departments in the state of Illinois.

    Police Training Institute challenges police recruits' racial biases

    Aug 1, 2016 9:15 am4782 views

    In early 2014, months before the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and shortly after the Black Lives Matter movement got its start, Michael Schlosser, the director of the Police Training Institute at the University of Illinois, began offering police recruits classes that challenged their views about race and racism, introduced them to critical race theory and instructed them in methods to de-escalate potentially volatile encounters with members of minority groups.

  • Political science professor Nicholas Grossman’s new book looks at the state of drone technology and how it’s changing the nature of warfare and terrorism.

    How are drones changing warfare, threatening security?

    Apr 30, 2018 9:45 am4777 views

    A U. of I. professor discusses drones and the implications of their use in terrorism and warfare.

  • Two smiling students sitting under a tree on the U. of I. quad in the autumn surrounded by fallen leaves

    Illinois Neurodiversity Initiative accepting freshmen applicants for fall semester

    Mar 6, 2023 11:45 am4714 views

    The Illinois Neurodiversity Initiative at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is accepting applications from neurodiverse students who will be incoming freshmen in the 2023 fall semester.

  • Photo of a prairie fire with yellow grass in the foreground.

    Study reconstructs 232-year history of prairie fire in Midwestern US

    Oct 19, 2021 10:30 am4534 views

    Researchers combed through thousands of historical documents for first-person accounts of fires occurring between 1673 and 1905 in the Midwestern tallgrass prairie. Their study is the first systematic analysis of the timing, causes and consequences of prairie fires in this part of the world.

  • Lori Kendall, a professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, says despite the increased popularity of geek culture and the ubiquity of computers, the geek's close cousin, the nerd, still suffers from a negative stereotype in popular culture. Kendall holds a familiar tool of the nerd: a slide rule.

    Geeks may be chic, but negative nerd stereotype still exists, professor says

    Mar 3, 2009 9:00 am4503 views

    CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Despite the increased popularity of geek culture - movies based on comic books, video games, virtual worlds - and the ubiquity of computers, the geek's close cousin, the nerd, still suffers from a negative stereotype in popular culture. This may help explain why women and minorities are increasingly shying away from careers in information technology, says Lori Kendall, a professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

  • History professor Kevin Mumford examines the lives of black gay activists, both famous and little-known, in telling an overlooked history of black gay men, who were both inspired and marginalized through movements for social change.

    Historian’s new book tells neglected history of black gay men

    Mar 15, 2016 9:45 am4448 views

    Black gay men were largely missing in both black and gay history, so Kevin Mumford, who specializes in both, set out to tell their story. “I wanted to reclaim a history that had been washed over, that had been overlooked,” said Mumford, a University of Illinois history professor. He wanted to show how “black gay lives matter.”

  • Illinois communication professor John Murphy’s new book examines the legacy of John F. Kennedy through his speeches.

    What can we learn from JFK about presidential speechmaking?

    Jan 24, 2019 9:45 am4401 views

    An Illinois professor looks at presidential speechmaking through one of its more-eloquent practitioners, John F. Kennedy.

  • Photos of doctoral student Gaurav Sinha and social work professor Lissette Piedra k

    Study examines India's policies for financial inclusion of the unbanked

    May 5, 2020 10:00 am4350 views

    A new analysis examines why India has had limited success at bringing the unbanked into the formal economy despite numerous policy initiatives.

  • RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY: New research by doctoral student Tamilia D. Reed, pictured, and educational psychology professor Helen A. Neville indicates that spirituality, rather than religiosity, may be the element that is critical to black American women's life satisfaction and mental health.

    Study: Spirituality, not religion, is critical to black women's well-being

    Sep 24, 2014 9:00 am4295 views

    CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A number of studies have suggested that religion plays a critical role in black Americans' mental health and life satisfaction, aiding their ability to cope with personal and societal stressors. However, a new study indicates that spirituality, rather than religiosity, may be the element that is essential to black women's psychological well-being.

  • image of Professor Richard Tempest

    Why has Putin's Napoleonic 'cold charisma' made him so popular in Russia?

    Oct 9, 2015 11:30 am4153 views

    A Minute With...™ Richard Tempest, professor of Slavic languages and literatures

  • People who are the most optimistic tend to sleep better and longer, suggests a new study led by University of Illinois social work professor Rosalba Hernandez.

    Optimistic people sleep better, longer, study finds

    Aug 7, 2019 9:00 am4109 views

    People who are the most optimistic tend to be better sleepers, University of Illinois social work professor Rosalba Hernandez found in a new study of 3,500 young and middle-aged adults.

  • A new study adds to the evidence that dogs were domesticated before first migrating to the Americas.

    First dogs in the Americas arrived from Siberia, disappeared after European contact

    Jul 5, 2018 1:00 pm4083 views

    A study reported in the journal Science offers an enhanced view of the origins and ultimate fate of the first dogs in the Americas. The dogs were not domesticated North American wolves, as some have speculated, but likely followed their human counterparts over a land bridge that once connected North Asia and the Americas, the study found.

  • Scholars and scientists have made key discoveries in the past decade about the 14th-century plague known as the Black Death, says history professor Carol Symes.

    What's new with the plague? More than you might think

    Apr 23, 2020 10:00 am4026 views

    Pandemics of the past are getting new attention, among them the plague of the 14th century. Known as the Black Death, it was medieval, European, bubonic and spread by rats – at least that’s what most of us think. Much of that needs adjustment, however, in large part due to discoveries of the past decade, says Carol Symes, a professor of medieval history at Illinois.

  • Image of professor Mattias Polborn

    Why not have one national primary election for presidential nominees?

    Feb 16, 2016 10:45 am3952 views

    A Minute With...™ Mattias Polborn, professor of economics and political science

  • Travis Dixon is a professor of communication at Illinois whose research deals with stereotypes in the mass media and their impact.

    Is it possible to overcome our biases in the face of conflict?

    Jun 4, 2020 2:30 pm3949 views

    Our biases, conscious and unconscious, influence how we process news of events like the death of George Floyd at the hands of police, and the media plays an important part in forming and reinforcing those biases, says Travis Dixon, a professor of communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

  • Poor social and communication skills heighten risks of peer rejection and bullying involvement for students with disabilities, according to a new study by U. of I. alumnus Chad A. Rose; Dorothy Espelage, a faculty member in the College of Education; alumna Anjali Forber-Pratt, and Steven R. Aragon, of Texas State University-San Marcos.

    Poor social, communication skills linked to peer rejection, bullying

    Oct 30, 2013 9:00 am3920 views

    CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Poor social and communication skills and psychosocial problems such as depression, low self-esteem and anger - all of which are often associated with disabilities - serve as risk factors for peer rejection and as predictors for bullying and victimization, according to a new study that was conducted at the University of Illinois.

  • Illinois advertising professor Jason Chambers specializes in the history of advertising related to African Americans.

    Why are familiar brands with Black images getting a rethink?

    Jun 29, 2020 8:00 am3863 views

    At least one familiar brand is being retired and others are getting a rethink due to their use of Black images. Illinois advertising professor Jason Chambers explains why.

  • Many young people lack financial literacy and money-management skills, indicating an urgent need for educational programs to help them enter adulthood better equipped to handle their financial affairs, University of Illinois graduate student Gaurav Sinha found in a new study. Social work professors Min Zhan and Kevin Tan co-wrote the paper, published recently in the journal Children and Youth Services Review.

    Many young adults lack financial literacy, economic stability, study finds

    Aug 24, 2018 9:30 am3844 views

    Many youths lack financial literacy and money-management skills, indicating an urgent need for educational programs that will help them enter adulthood better equipped to handle their financial affairs, a new study found.

  • Children need to understand the basics of advertising better than they do, says Illinois advertising professor Michelle Nelson. So she led the development of a curriculum and website to teach advertising literacy in school classrooms, incorporating lessons on healthy eating. This example ad developed for the curriculum playfully sells parents on feeding their kids vegetables.

    Beyond the big ads: teaching kids ad literacy and nutrition in grade school classrooms

    Feb 4, 2016 1:45 pm3793 views

    The Super Bowl will feature car ads, beer ads, food ads – but probably none for carrots. Most food ads, game time or anytime, are pitching less-healthy fare. Kids are often the target. Do they understand what an ad is? Who made it and why? Advertising professor Michelle Nelson worked with an Illinois school district to develop an advertising literacy curriculum that also promotes healthy eating.

     

  • Group homes appear to double delinquency risk for foster kids, study says

    Feb 28, 2008 9:00 am3793 views

    CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Group homes are generally the placement of last resort for children in foster care, and also one of the most expensive options for state child-welfare agencies.

  • History professor Leslie Reagan

    Vietnam War at 50: What has been the legacy of Agent Orange?

    Sep 5, 2017 11:30 am3774 views

    A historian looks at the Vietnam War herbicide Agent Orange and how it changed ideas about war wounds and the cause of birth defects.