LAS recognizes excellence in teaching and advising.
April 1, 2008
Top Teachers and Advisors

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences gratefully acknowledges the following individuals for their excellence in teaching and advising in 2008. Their contributions are vital to maintaining LAS as a great college.

Academic Advising Award

  • Carl Niekerk, Professor, Germanic Languages and Literatures
  • Gary Spezia, Academic Advisor, School of Integrative Biology

Award for Excellence in Undergraduate

  • Teaching by Graduate Teaching Assistants
  • Evelyn W.M. Au, Psychology
  • Ryan H. Blum, Speech Communication
  • Melissa Dennison, Mathematics
  • Eduardo Herrera, Latin American & Caribbean Studies
  • Michael Rosenow, History

Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching by Instructional Staff

  • Andrew Moss, Instructor, English

Humanities Award for Excellence in Teaching

  • Tara L. Lyons, Teaching Assistant, English
  • Robert A. Rushing, Professor, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, and Comparative World Literature

Dean's Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching

  • Rick Gorvett, Professor, Mathematics
  • Carol Symes, Professor, History
A worker removes one of the Altgeld bells
A temporary farewell to the Altgeld bells
A large crane is parked on the north side of Altgeld Hall on this sunny and mild mid-December morning. As I watch from near the Alma Mater statue, the arm of the crane that extends far above the scaffolding surrounding Altgeld’s bell...
New students forming the Block I
University of Illinois welcomes largest ever incoming class
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign welcomed a record-breaking freshman class for the 2023-24 academic year, with 8,325 new freshmen (up from last record of 8,303 in 2021) enrolling this fall. They help boost undergraduate student enrollment to 35,467, the largest ever in university history...
Worker cleans the exterior of Altgeld Hall
Altgeld glow-up
When you’re as old as Altgeld Hall, you deserve a nice cleansing scrub. The stony skin of the building dates to as far back as 1896, after all, and a lot of history, and other gunk, has built up on the stone. Even a U of I student’s thesis from more than 50 years ago notes the coloration change....