2014-11-01
- Olivia Widalski, a junior majoring in English in LAS, has landed a job that must sound as good as Shakespeare to her favorite English professor, Christopher Freeburg. She works in computer technical support.Granted, it’s just an after-school job on...
LAS News Archive
2014-10-01 - All of Germany was riveted last year by a three-part television miniseries, Generation War—the story of five Germans swept up in the titanic upheaval of World War II. Roughly 7 million viewers tuned in for each episode, sparking national debate in a country that has been grappling with the...
2014-10-01 - A little bit of support can go a long way, as demonstrated by a pair of exciting student success stories coming out of campus this fall. Both recipients of the first annual College of LAS Cook Award for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, awarded last spring, are taking their products and ideas to the...
2014-10-01 - Computers and quantitative analysis have revolutionized the study of science. What can they do for the study of literature? Investigators have high hopes as a new multi-institutional partnership involving the University of Illinois turns to big data to better understand the vast history of novels...
2014-10-01 - The oldest person on the University of Illinois campus hails from Alaska and can be found in Davenport Hall, but don’t expect him to be roaming the Quad anytime soon. This particular man is over 10,300 years old. Actually, only a few bones and teeth remain of this individual,...
2014-10-01 - A $1.5 million grant will help develop a tool to assist scientists in interpreting research data and make discoveries faster, says an astronomy professor and research scientist at the National Center for...
2014-10-01 - University of Illinois professor of entomology May Berenbaum has been awarded the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest honor for achievement and leadership in advancing the field of science, according to an announcement from...
2014-09-07 - Adam Bleakney (BA ’00, English; MA ’02, journalism) and Josh George (BS ’07, journalism) visited the College of LAS Storyography project to discuss Illinois’ world-renowned tradition of wheelchair racing and innovative coaching. The...
2014-09-01 - If you were studying the behavior of African American girls, how might you collect your data? You’d watch them, of course. Well, as Ruth Nicole Brown knows, it’s not that simple—and her methods of researching female behavior are gaining attention across the country and recently earned her a slot in...
2014-09-01 - Ryan Foley is an expert at studying the oddballs of the stellar universe. “If it’s exotic or something strange, I’m your guy,” says Foley, a University of Illinois astronomer. “My thing is figuring out the weird ones.”That was certainly the case back in...
2014-09-01 - Nobody can say that members of the Illini 4000 aren’t willing to go the distance for their cause. The group of 20 bicycle riders from the University of Illinois—including eight from the College of LAS—has completed a nearly 4,500-mile cross-country journey from New York City to San Francisco, in...
2014-09-01 - For the past five years, Barbara Wilson has kept on her office wall a photo of Lincoln Hall—the “old” Lincoln Hall, that is, pre-renovation—given to her by the Department of Communication when she left there to work in the Office of the Provost....
2014-09-01 - When Ron McFarland arrived at the University of Illinois in the 1960s, the Floridian looked at the landscape around him—“uncompromising flatness” and “great country for soybeans and corn” were terms that came to mind—and, as he recalls, “my heart sank like a two-ounce sinker in a still pond.” For...
2014-05-01 - It’s hard to know what’s more frightening: invasive fungal infections, which kill half of the 3 million people afflicted with them every year, or amphotericin, the drug that’s been used to fight the infections even though it’s nearly as deadly as the infections themselves....
2014-05-01 - Using the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists have just pulled off one of the oldest carnival tricks in the book: correctly estimating weight by sight alone. It wasn’t your grandmother they just exposed, however—it was the largest known galaxy cluster in the distant universe. By precisely measuring...
2014-05-01 - Three professors from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences have been named 2014 Guggenheim Fellows for their achievement and exceptional promise, according to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.The trio includes Asef Bayat, professor of ...
2014-05-01 - A professor of communication and executive vice provost for faculty and academic affairs at the University of Illinois has been selected to serve as the next Harry E. Preble Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Barbara J. Wilson,...
2014-05-01 - The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has announced a third round of selections for its Centennial Gallery of Excellence, in honor of its 100-year anniversary. Eighteen more entries have been added to the growing list of noteworthy people, events, buildings, and groups in the college since it...
2014-04-01 - According to recent research at Illinois, the goings-on at your state capital and other public offices are more clearly influenced by you and your neighbors’ personality types than we previously knew. Political science professors Jeffery Mondak and Damarys...
2014-04-01 - With his trademark cigar nested between two fingers, Mark Twain once strolled in broad daylight through the heart of London—in a blue bathrobe.The stunt drew a crowd of curious onlookers, as Twain intended, but this wasn’t the first time the famed writer pushed the envelope with regard to his...
2014-04-01 - Feng Sheng Hu, head of the Department of Plant Biology, was greeting new faculty on campus last fall when he met a professor of statistics. He asked politely about her work, expecting a lesson in probability or some other statistical concept, but to his surprise she began talking about something he...
2014-04-01 - If you examine the border counties of southern Texas, as Julie Dowling did, you’ll learn an interesting thing about race. According to the 2010 census, the population there is about 80 percent white, but if you go there, you’ll see something very different. “If you walk into those towns, you would...
2014-03-01 - A researcher at Illinois says that one of the most productive crop plants ever known—sugarcane—can be modified to become even more viable and help reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Stephen Long, professor of plant biology, and other researchers...
2014-03-01 - Chemistry researchers at Illinois have created an “enzyme mimic” that could shorten a key step of the drug discovery process from months to minutes. Professor M. Christina White, who conducted the research with graduate student...
2014-03-01 - Over 800 orange and blue cookies and a table full of cupcakes arranged into the state of Illinois were handed out to students in celebration of the University’s 147th birthday last month, which ended the second annual I Love Illinois Week. The weeklong series of events is the brainchild of the...