2020-04-23
- Going from teaching in front of an auditorium that seats 600 students to lecturing on a webcam at home requires patience and skill – and, for one professor, a lot of imagination.
Martha Gillette, professor of cell and developmental biology...
LAS News Archive
2020-04-22 - Epidemics often bring a search for scapegoats, with anti-Asian harassment in the wake of COVID-19 the latest example. Likewise, ideas circulate that different races also differ in their susceptibility to the disease, evidenced by a myth that blacks were immune to the virus. Both are subjects...
2020-04-22 - Several professors in the College of LAS have received named scholar positions for their contributions in education and research at the University of Illinois. The named positions include the inaugural LAS Dean’s Distinguished Professorial Scholars, who are receiving $10,000 for teaching and...
2020-04-20 - Back in early March, when the COVID-19 pandemic began shuttering businesses and schools across the United States, Chris Brooke wondered how he’d teach his classes online. As the virus spread with astonishing speed, however, and it became frighteningly clear that COVID-19 threatened something far...
2020-04-17 - Two professors at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been awarded a 2020 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. This year’s fellows are Janice N. Harrington, a poet and professor of English; and David Sepkoski, a professor of...
2020-04-15 - State and local governments across the U.S. are asking people to isolate themselves at home and avoid all but the most essential trips to grocery stores, pharmacies and hospitals. This level of behavior change is unprecedented in most people’s lifetimes, and for many it represents a direct threat...
2020-04-14 - Editor’s note: Intelligence officials report that Russia is continuing its interference in the 2020 election by stirring controversy and spreading disinformation on social media, and it is becoming more creative and harder to track, according to intelligence officials. Richard...
2020-04-14 - What a difference a month makes. In early March, students at Illinois were attending class in places like Lincoln Hall and Natural History Building, visiting faculty during office hours, and bumping into each other on the Main Quad. Now, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the suspension of on-campus...
2020-04-13 - What's one way to pass time during the COVID-19 pandemic? You can do crossword puzzles, or you can make them, as is the case with University of Illinois freshman Adam Aaronson. Aaronson is using the crossword puzzle-making skills that got him published in two of the country’s leading newspapers to...
2020-04-09 - University of Illinois juniors Sriyankari Chitti and William Lyon were awarded Barry M. Goldwater scholarships for their potential to contribute to the advancement of research in the natural sciences, mathematics, or...
2020-04-07 - A new class called Careers for Humanities Majors is helping students explore job opportunities and develop skills for starting a new career. As part of HUM 275, students work on resumes and cover letters, take field trips to local organizations and businesses, practice networking with...
2020-04-06 - Parents sheltering at home with their kids sometimes struggle to foster their children’s continued engagement with learning. Eva Pomerantz, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, studies the factors that...
2020-04-02 - “I used to think immigrants were a problem.” When Ann Abbott read this introduction to a student’s final essay, she realized the Spanish in the Community curriculum may be one of the most unique and important experiences of which she’s been a part. “Those words, ‘I used to’—that’s really...
2020-04-02 - Although she never considered herself a “literary type,” the career of Carole Stivers (née Carole Reeve, PhD, ’81, biochemistry) has taken a distinctly literary angle: She recently wrote “The Mother Code,” a near-future science fiction...
2020-04-01 - Some buildings get all the glory. At U of I, Lincoln Hall has its presidential connection, Altgeld Hall has its chimes, English Building has its ghost. But what about the workhorses—the gritty brick behemoths whose claim to fame isn’t their name or design, but their practicality, and the fact that...
2020-03-31 - “Shelter in place” is now the norm in much of the country, thanks to COVID-19. As a result, connections once made face to face are now happening electronically in both work and personal lives. John Caughlin heads the Department of Communication at...
2020-03-30 - A new artificial intelligence consortium that will include the University of Illinois has made fighting the COVID-19 pandemic its first order of business. The C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute, chaired by Thomas Siebel (BA ’75, history; MBA ’83; MS...
2020-03-26 - I’m standing on the edge of a high-rise in the middle of a city. I can hear the car horns, feel the traffic below and—just a few feet away—see the spiraling girder that’s my destination. Summoning my courage, I leap—and miss, plummeting rapidly towards the ground. Instead of making impact, however...
2020-03-23 - I grew up on the Kenyan coast, in a town called Mabafweni, in Kwale County. My parents were teachers, but their income was not enough to sustain us and send us to school. So, we also farmed. I got up early every day to work on the farm before school. When I was a young person working on my family...
2020-03-11 - According to Brendan Morris, a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, treehoppers are the wackiest, most astonishing bugs most people have never heard of. They are morphological wonders, sporting bizarre protuberances that look like horns, gnarled branches, antlers,...
2020-03-09 - It may seem incredible in an age of polarized division, but Ned O’Gorman is making a proactive case for politics. His new book “Politics for Everybody” is true to its title. It’s a “defense of politics for people who...
2020-03-09 - In the United States, voting for president is as old as the Constitution itself. The process by which presidential candidates are chosen by their parties, however, is much murkier, and marked by more than a century of shifting influence between political insiders and voters in caucuses and primary...
2020-03-06 - A study of the early career paths of University of Illinois graduates reveals strong and steady success among new alumni from the College of LAS. About 89 percent of new LAS alumni are securing a first destination soon after graduation, according to the Illini Success initiative, a university-...
2020-03-04 - Before Julia Cisneros started working toward her PhD in geology at the University of Illinois, our understanding of sand dunes on the bed of large rivers was limited, and based largely upon observations in small rivers and laboratory experiments. After...
2020-03-03 - The College of LAS has selected winners of this year’s teaching and advising awards. Professors, graduate students, a lecturer, and an advisor have been honored for their service. The LAS Dean’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching is being awarded to Andrew Gaedtke, a professor of...