Advancing our community
LAS influence
The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is filled with accomplished, thoughtful, and dedicated faculty, staff, students, and alumni whose work influences many advancements throughout our community. LAS strives to address the world’s fundamental problems and grand challenges through indispensable research, innovative courses, and an ingrained focus on diversity.
Read on to learn how the College of LAS is advancing our community in Urbana-Champaign and beyond.
'Trees are time machines'
How a graduate geology course uses tree rings to read Earth's climate history
Communications Coordinator for the School of Earth, Society and Environment, and Astronomy, Jake Kesiter, interviews professor of Earth Science and Environmental Change Hưng Nguyễn on his Geology 593 special topics course: “Tree Rings and Climate."
Special topics courses under the Geology 593 umbrella vary by semester, allowing faculty to design focused, hands-on tracks around emerging areas of Earth science for graduate students. This iteration focused on dendrochronology—the study of tree rings—and their use in reconstructing past environmental and climate conditions.
Nguyễn designed the course to guide students through the entire scientific process, from field sampling to climate reconstruction. “Students were able to go through the whole process,” he said.
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The course combined fieldwork, laboratory analysis, and data-driven projects, allowing students to collect, process, and analyze their own samples, ultimately using them to reconstruct past climate conditions.
At the core of the class was the idea that trees are more than biological organisms—they are environmental archives. “Trees are time machines,” Nguyễn said. “The wood will record anything that the trees experience in an environment. That can be temperature, moisture, fire, insects, volcanic eruptions, glacial activity—anything that happened around the environment of the tree.”
940 Feet series
Join LAS professors and students for a stroll on the Quad, and learn more about the influential people advancing our community.
Professor discusses "unimagined" findings from one of the first research missions
The 1870s expedition of the HMS Challenger collected enormous amounts of data about the world’s oceans and its creatures. English professor Gillen D’Arcy Wood's book covers the important discoveries made during the voyage.
Differing ideologies led to strained romantic bonds
A new study by communication professor Emily Van Duyn said that online misinformation/disinformation, conspiracy theory groups, and their former partners’ rabbit-holing behaviors caused insurmountable rifts in their relationships.
Professor brings to light charges for ice and other discriminatory practices
Some nightclubs in Chicago use tactics such as charging Black men inflated prices for drinks or turning them away at the door and not permitting them inside, a team led by sociology professor Reuben A. Buford May found in a recent study.
Faculty research
The College of LAS has more than 600 faculty experts working on the world’s fundamental problems and grand challenges. Learn about their work.
