2023-09-21
- The College of LAS has named six faculty members as recipients of the Marjorie Roberts Professorships in Liberal Arts & Sciences and the Robert W. Schaefer Professorships in Liberal Arts & Sciences.
Professors Wendy Heller, Bo Li, Silvina Montrul, and Harriet Murav have received Marjorie Roberts Professorships in Liberal Arts & Sciences. The professorship is named for the late...
2023-09-20 - Christiana Lewis, a junior in psychology, has received the Obama-Chesky Scholarship for Public Service. Known as the Voyager Scholarship, the award was created by former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama along with Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, to foster emerging leaders dedicated to addressing global...
2023-09-19 - 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. Total student enrollment is 56,403. Of the total number of new freshmen who arrived on campus...
2023-09-11 - Bobby J. Smith II remembers the day that changed his professional life. He was a graduate student at Cornell University when he began to read “I’ve Got the Light of Freedom,” a seminal study of the community organizing tradition in the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi and across the South, by Charles Payne. On page 158 he read the lines that altered the arc of his career. Now, a few...
2023-09-08 - New research led by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign expert who studies personnel psychology shows a better way to assess noncognitive abilities such as a job candidate’s personality and vocational interests using the “graded forced-choice format.” The scientific study of a person’s soft skills heavily relies on self-reported measures – for example, respondents are often presented with...
2023-09-07 - Artificial roosts for bats come in many forms — bat boxes, condos, bark mimics, clay roosts, and cinder block structures, to name a few — but a new conservation practice and policy article from researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign suggests the structures haven’t been studied rigorously enough and may harm bats in some scenarios. The article, published in Conservation Biology...
2023-09-07 - Director of graduate studies doesn’t necessarily sound like a show-stopping role. At Illinois, it’s an essential job reserved for faculty members who are ready for the challenges that come with largely unnoticed tasks. It’s a job that, if done correctly, is noted very little by those who benefit most — the students. However, in the Department of History...
2023-09-06 - The first thing professor Scott Althaus shows you when you enter the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research is a painting by the artist Brian Alfred. It shows seven giant letters arranged on a hill, evoking the landmark “Hollywood” sign that stands above Los Angeles. The letters are shown from the back, exposing the superstructure that holds...
2023-09-06 - By the turn of the 20th century the residents of east-central Illinois had learned a few hard facts about the environment, and one of them was this: Once you chase away the squirrels they almost never come back. Nevertheless, in 1901, the University of Illinois launched a plan to return the long-lost tree-dwellers to campus. To appreciate the magnitude of the plan, consider what had been lost....
2023-09-01 - On Feb. 22, 1998, the U of I women’s basketball team fell to Purdue, dropping their record to 18-8. With her fifth point that day, however, future Illinois Athletics Hall of Famer Ashley Berggren became the all-time women’s leading scorer in school history. Berggren (BS, ’98, psychology) would finish her career with 2,089 points, a mark that would...
2023-09-01 - Note: Watch a video about how researchers are examining coal balls to learn about the ancient past. Paleobotanists at the University of Illinois understand one thing better than perhaps anyone in the world: Studying coal balls is a long-term commitment. The late plant biologist Tom Phillips began hauling the prehistoric objects out of the...
2023-09-01 - Brian Rosten was supposed to be an engineer. It’s what his parents wanted. And he was on board with the plan, until an internship at a plastics plant made him realize it was not the path for him. “It was soul-crushing,” said Rosten (BS, ’12, chemistry; MS, ’21, educational policy, organization and...
2023-08-31 - The College of LAS has announced 33 faculty promotions to take effect during the fall semester. The promotions include 15 faculty members who were promoted from associate professor to professor; 13 who were promoted from assistant professor to associate professor; and five who received specialized faculty promotions. “We are proud to grant these well-deserved promotions to our faculty members...
2023-08-25 - Hilary was the first tropical storm to hit California in 84 years. Atmospheric sciences professor Deanna Hence spoke with News Bureau physical sciences editor Lois Yoksoulian about what made this storm unique and if the Southwest U.S. should expect more like it in the future. Why don’t we usually see tropical...
2023-08-25 - Office manager Jazmine Summerville wears many hats as an office manager for the School of Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics. After working for three years on campus, she knows that helping someone’s day run smoothly is a gratifying reward for a job well done.
2023-08-23 - As summer storms roll though your region, have you wondered who is behind the science of a weather warning? In west Texas and portions of southeast New Mexico, College of LAS alumnus Devin Chehak (BS, ’18, atmospheric sciences; MS, ‘20, atmospheric sciences) is part of the team that creates the watches and warnings that have the potential to save lives....
2023-08-22 - Nineteen faculty members have accepted new leadership positions in departments and other academic units within the College of LAS for the 2023-24 academic year. Executive officers lead each of the almost 70 departments, programs, schools, centers, and other academic units within the College of LAS. In addition to the new executive officers, five faculty members will take associate and interim...
2023-08-22 - Cathy Murphy, the Larry R. Faulkner Endowed Chair in Chemistry, has been named the interim director of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, pending Board of Trustees approval. Murphy is a highly regarded scientist, experienced administrator, and even met Arnold Beckman when she was a postdoctoral researcher at the California...
2023-08-18 - The whaling industry helped drive industrialization in the 19th century, with whale oil used to light lamps and lubricate machinery. Even after petroleum replaced whale oil as an energy source in the U.S., whaling continued to be part of our cultural imagination and helped develop the idea of an energy industry, said English professor Jamie L. Jones....
2023-08-18 - Despite efforts across the globe to move toward a circular plastics economy, more than three quarters of the 400 metric tons of plastic produced worldwide each year still ends up as waste. A group of chemistry researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign demonstrated a way to use the renewable energy source of electricity to recycle a...
2023-08-11 - The women began to gather in the large living room, flanked on one side by a fireplace, on the other by a grand piano. As they got settled, one could hear the murmuring of soft voices and the whispers of full skirts shifting. Some students sat on the carpeted floor, others on the sofas and chairs scattered across the room. Tonight, the women had not assembled for a traditional sorority meeting....
2023-08-11 - Illinois public schools will be required to teach students about Native American history in the state beginning with the 2024-25 school year. The legislation, which was signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Aug. 4, requires that schools teach about the contributions of Native Americans in government, arts, humanities, sciences, and economic, cultural, social, and political development. The law also...
2023-08-09 - What is selfish behavior? Selfishness is defined as the tendency to act in one's own interests without regard for the impact on others. New research shows that a person’s own behavior is the primary driver of how they treat others during brief, zero-sum-game competitions. Generous people tend to reward generous behavior and selfish individuals often punish generosity and reward...
2023-08-03 - CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Scientists have identified a protein that plays a critical role in the action of several emerging cancer therapies. The researchers say the discovery will likely aid efforts to fine-tune the use of immunotherapies against several challenging cancers. They report their findings in the journal...
2023-07-26 - A new report reveals that U.S. beekeepers lost roughly half of the honey bees they managed last year. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign entomology professor Adam Doleza...