News Bureau

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

The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign is now performing its new rapid, saliva-based COVID-19 test on all students, faculty members and staff.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has been chosen to lead the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago – a new biomedical hub – along with the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. The three-university team was selected to lead the new biomedical hub as part of a competitive application process for a research initiative explicitly focused on measuring human biology.

A Minute With™... Rini B. Mehta, a professor of comparative and world literature

Taking large or multiple doses of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin can cause a toxic overdose, and humans should not take forms intended for animal use, says Illinois veterinary medicine expert Dr. Jim Lowe.

Health authorities believe COVID-19 spreads by the transmission of respiratory droplets, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends homemade cloth face coverings for use in public spaces. Starting today, Illinois joins many other states in requiring people to wear masks while out. However, initial uncertainty regarding the masks’ effectiveness in reducing exhaled droplets leaves some people unsure or skeptical of their usefulness during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Mechanical science and engineering professor Taher Saif spoke with News Bureau physical sciences editor Lois Yoksoulian about a study that he and his graduate students, Onur Aydin and Bashar Emon, performed on the effectiveness of common household fabrics for use in homemade masks.

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

The new freshman class at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the largest, most academically talented and most diverse in the history of the university.

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

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign announces graduates, Dean’s List and Bronze Tablet honorees for the 2022 spring semester. 

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has announced 8,209 Dean’s List students, 253 Bronze Tablet honorees and more than 10,500 graduates for the 2023 spring semester. 

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

Through a combination of institutional, federal and state aid, including Pell Grants and Monetary Award Program grants, Illinois Commitment will provide financial awards to cover the tuition and campus fees for in-state students whose family income is less than $61,000, the current median family income in Illinois.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign communicated Wednesday evening with students, faculty members and staff on measures the university is taking to protect the campus community in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak. The message discusses course delivery, travel, and university-sponsored events and meetings.

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.

The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign will employ detailed plans to address the expected initial increase in COVID-19 positive cases through the next several weeks. Modified in-person instruction begins Monday. Data models developed by Illinois faculty members forecast that new cases will decline after the first few weeks of the semester and the daily positivity rate will remain low throughout.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign freshman enrollment of 8,303 for the 2021-22 academic year is a record. The new class brings total student enrollment to 56,299, the largest in university history.

A Minute With™... Christopher Span, a professor of educational policy studies

Rates of antibiotic-resistant infections in companion animals are rising at an alarming rate. An Illinois veterinarian discusses what can be done about it.

Sheldon H. Jacobson discusses the risks of air travel during the pandemic and what preventive measures airports and passengers can take.

Among the Top 10 in numbers in the U.S., the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s freshman class sets new high marks for students from underrepresented backgrounds and first-generation college students, as well as a 10-year high of Illinois residents.

2018 marks the 80th anniversary of the landmark physics discovery of superfluidity. News Bureau physical sciences editor Lois Yoksoulian asked University of Illinois physics professor and 2003 Nobel Prize winner Anthony Leggett about the significance of the historic finding.

Nick Holonyak Jr., a renowned innovator of illumination, has died. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor was 93 years old.

Holonyak (pronounced huh-LON-yak) is credited with the development of the first practical visible-spectrum LED, now commonly used in light bulbs, device displays and lasers worldwide. 

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign announced Dean’s List honorees and graduates for the fall semester 2022, as well as those who graduated in August 2022. 

Six faculty members at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have been named to the 2021 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list.

The Carle Illinois College of Medicine, the world’s first engineering-based medical school, welcomed its first class of 32 students July 2.

A partnership between the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Carle Health System, the college aims to create a cohort of physician-innovators who exemplify the qualities of compassion, competence, curiosity and creativity. The students will receive full four-year tuition scholarships, privately funded, valued at more than $200,000 each.

The only things one needs to learn Mandarin Chinese or nearly 30 other languages is a computer with a microphone, a University of Illinois NetID and plenty of phonetic practice.

Greater demand for online graduate programs pushed the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign’s 2020 enrollment to a record 52,331. In addition to delivering fall semester instruction as a mixture of face-to-face, hybrid and online courses, the university developed unique safety measures including a saliva-based COVID-19 test.

Students applying for fall 2021 freshman admission to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will not be required to submit SAT or ACT test results due to the COVID-19 pandemic limiting students’ opportunities to take the exams.

In most cases, an employer could require an employee to receive a COVID-19 vaccination. While that might seem like a violation of an employee’s personal freedom, “No one has a legally enforceable right to a specific job,” says Michael LeRoy, an expert in labor law and labor relations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Eight faculty members at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been named to the 2019 Highly Cited Researchers list, a global listing of scientists who produced the past decade’s most influential papers.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is adjusting its 2021 spring calendar to help maintain instruction during the pandemic. Classes will start a week later than scheduled and while there will be no spring break, three days without classes will be added. Students planning to attend classes in person will be required to return early for COVID-19 on-campus testing.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will open the fall semester with as much in-person instruction and residential occupancy as COVID-19 precautions allow.

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.

A Minute With™... Wendy Haight, a professor of social work

The 60,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art facility will cultivate interdisciplinary design thinking and will foster innovation in undergraduate and graduate curricula in multiple colleges.

The U.S. recently confirmed that the Russian Ministry of Defence fired a hypersonic ballistic missile to destroy an underground arms depot in western Ukraine. This event marks Russia’s first use of the Kinzhal ballistic missile in this war and the first known use of a hypersonic missile in combat. Mechanical science and engineering professor Kelly Stephani spoke with News Bureau physical sciences editor Lois Yoksoulian about the significance of this technology.

Eleven faculty members at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been named to the 2018 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list.

Illinois alumnus and actor, humorist, author and woodworker Nick Offerman, best known for his role as Ron Swanson on the NBC hit comedy series "Parks and Recreation," will be the U. of I.’s commencement speaker Saturday, May 13.

One of the Biden administration’s first acts was to send Congress the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, a long-promised immigration reform bill. But any legislative action on comprehensive immigration reform will face significant headwinds in the Senate, says Lauren R. Aronson, an associate clinical professor of law and the director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Law.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign today updated its faculty members, staff and students on the university's policies related to the coronavirus situation, including the immediate return of all people in Italy and the Daegu region of South Korea; restrictions of travel to those and other countries; and the offer to all study abroad participants to end their program early.

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

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign announced Dean’s List honorees and graduates for the fall semester 2023, and the graduates for August 2023.
 

Illinois alumnus and philanthropist Larry Gies will serve as the May 11 campuswide commencement speaker. Gies is the founder and CEO of Madison Industries, an international manufacturing company that is one of the largest privately held companies in the world.

The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign’s new measures for undergraduate students in response to a recent upward trend in positive COVID-19 cases will be discussed at a Zoom news conference at 3:30 p.m. today. 

A Minute With™... William C. Sullivan, a professor of landscape architecture

The expansive new set of vaccination requirements issued by the Biden administration affecting the federal workforce will likely be upheld by the courts, but the mandate emanating from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is on shakier legal ground, says Michael LeRoy, an expert in labor law and labor relations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The Event Horizon Telescope Project announced that it has captured the first image of a black hole. The feature is located at the center of Messier 87 – a giant elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo. News Bureau physical sciences editor Lois Yoksoulian spoke with University of Illinois physics and astronomy professor Charles Gammie, who heads up the theory working group for the large, multi-institutional collaboration.

Mental health outreach programs for farmers also need to provide services for their teens, who have similar rates of anxiety and depression, said agricultural and biological engineering professor Josie Rudolphi. 

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's incoming class of 7,957 first-year students brings greater representation by gender, nationality and students who are the first in their family to go to college, while a change in the application process resulted in greater academic competition.