Two students in a lab with pipettes

WHERE CURIOSITY DRIVES IMPACT

Change begins with curiosity.

From exploring new ideas to solving the world’s biggest issues, LAS empowers thinkers and doers to transform curiosity into measurable impact.

We believe that education is more than lectures and textbooks. It’s about cultivating minds that question, explore, and act with purpose. And we know that when curiosity meets opportunity, innovation follows—and the impossible becomes possible. 

LAS News
Ribbon cutting in museum
The "abiding passion" of preserving small town Illinois history
I asked Helaine Silverman, professor emerita in anthropology, if she remembered her first time crossing the Mississippi River. She said, “I remember exactly.” August of 1982. “We got to St. Louis and we started driving across the bridge over the...
Students looking at an opossum
What does it mean to live in a multi-species world?
 As humans, we rarely ponder life through the perspective of a non-human, but what happens if we try to see the world through the eyes of a bird, a squirrel, or an opossum? Anthropology professor Jane Desmond offers this question to her graduate...
students sitting on Quad
15 proposals awarded for Curiosity to Impact initiative
 The College of LAS is where curiosity drives impact, and the new Curiosity to Impact (C2I) Fund helps faculty members to do exactly that.Announced in fall of 2025, the C2I Fund is part of the college’s Strategic Investment Program....
outside Foellinger Auditorium
PURSUE LAS expands student access to research
 PURSUE LAS is a program at the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences with the goal of expanding access to transformative undergraduate research experiences. It supports both established programs and new initiatives that connect...
Award-winning image by Michelle Patiño-Flores
Images of freedom
 Michelle Patiño-Flores, a sociocultural anthropology doctoral candidate at the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, works with Black (and) queer artists in Cuba to study their practices of freedom. One medium she uses to tell their stories is...
Main Quad
College of LAS announces named scholars and research awards
 The College of LAS has honored 20 professors, researchers, and research staff members with named scholar positions and research awards in recognition of their contributions to education and learning at the University of Illinois.The awards include the LAS Interdisciplinary Research Award and...
The English Building
The persistent thread of poetry
 “There’s a thread you follow,” William Stafford wrote in the poem “The Way It Is,” and for Dipali V. Apte, that thread may be poetry, a quiet, persistent line running through childhood, through her years at U of I, through a career in ophthalmology, and back again in the form of the Dipali V...
R. Fisher Houston
LAS students receive prominent scholarships
College of Liberal Arts & Sciences undergraduate students have been awarded several prominent scholarships this spring.Sameer Abbasi and Lyndon Shi have received Boren Awards. Di Lan Johnson, Christine Nguyen, and Karel Pene were awarded U.S....

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99.6%
of Illinois students take a class in LAS
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70+
majors offered within LAS
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33%
of campus' tenure-track faculty members work in LAS
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180,000
network of LAS alumni
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New students: Start your LAS journey

Fuel your curiosity, explore big ideas, and discover what drives you. Designed for new students, LAS First-Year Experience will help you connect, grow, and step confidently into college life.
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When you support the College of LAS, you play a crucial role in shaping the success of thousands of students and faculty.

Join us in creating a powerful network of influential thinkers and proven achievers—and help us seek a better tomorrow, today.