2004-12-01
- Considering the overwhelming amount of time South Korean mothers devote to their children's academic endeavors, for some, it is as though they have never left school.Education traditionally has been valued by South Koreans, but a new generation of mothers have taken this dedication to a whole new level. Out of a desire to improve their children's lot in life, South Korean mothers have become "...
2004-10-01 - Early in Nina Baym's distinguished career she read a quote by Nathaniel Hawthorne that would guide the arc of her writing and research. The 19th-century Massachusetts novelist known for such classics as The Scarlet Letter and Twice-Told Tales, dismissed fiction by women as trivial while describing female writers as a "damned mob of scribbling women." Baym, who came to the U of I...
2004-10-01 - Independence Day has taken on new layers of meaning for a team of archaeologists who've been digging in western Illinois this summer. In fact, nearly everything about the excavation in the rolling farmland near Barry speaks volumes about freedom and liberty, nearly everything adds a chapter to the American Dream. Sponsored by a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation's Research...
2004-10-01 - Recent images of a star-forming "nursery" in a neighboring galaxy are helping scientists better understand how stars came to populate our own Milky Way. You-Hua Chu, an astronomer in LAS, and Yäel Nazé, from the Universite de Liège, Belgium, are analyzing images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of the N11B...
2004-10-01 - Students are discovering how globalization is transforming the world through a new program in LAS, for freshmen, that combines integrated curricula with internationally prominent guest speakers and the chance to travel abroad. The Global Studies program, launched...
2004-10-01 - Negotiating the complex paths of health care is difficult enough under the best circumstances, but it becomes progressively more confusing as we age and our memories become less reliable. Vital daily tasks such as taking required medicine can be simply forgotten. The National Institute on Aging estimates that "medical non-compliance" is around 60 percent. Now, thanks to the research efforts of...
2004-10-01 - History has some good news for the Democrats. In terms of the relative size of their electoral base and its distribution across states, and despite current polling data, which is highly volatile, the Democrats began the 2004 campaign last July "with a distinct electoral advantage." So says Peter Nardulli, author of a new study that is based on 20 years of research on state-level presidential...
2004-10-01 - Old China hands say that after you've been in China for two weeks, you can write a book; after six months, a page; and after two years, not a thing. I'm approaching the 2.5-year mark, but here goes. This wasn't Planned My plan was to retire from Hewitt Associates, a global HR consulting and outsourcing firm, at the end of 1998, and I did. Afterward, I agreed to take on some...
2004-10-01 - Got a major? Need a major? Come see displays on a variety of majors and minors on October 19, 2004, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. in Illini Union Rooms A, B, and C.
2004-10-01 - It all started with a hiking trip to Burma. Scott Eggener (BS, '94, biology) was in medical school in 1999 when he and his wife first traveled to remote villages in the Burmese hills, carrying medical supplies with them. The villages were so isolated, Eggener said, that children asked their parents what these visitors had eaten to make them so white; they had never seen white people before. The...
2004-10-01 - Arthur Galston's (MS, '42; PhD, '43, plant biology) life has been all about light. Galston is one of the country's premier plant biologists, spending much of his career studying the relationship between light and plant development. But he has also spent considerable energy shedding light on some of the toughest ethical issues in science. Galston taught bioethics from 1977 to 2004—an interest...
2004-10-01 - Fortune magazine described Richard Heckert (AM, '47; PhD, '49, chemistry) in 1987 as "gregarious, relaxed and unflappable….a 6-foot-3, friendly bear of a boss." With his people-person skills, plus an understanding of the power of market-oriented research and manufacturing, Heckert had worked his way by then to the pinnacle of the business world. Heckert spent his entire...
2004-09-01 - Carla E. Cáceres, a professor of animal biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is among 57 young researchers named this fall as recipients of the 2003 Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by...
2004-09-01 - Wednesday, September 29, 2004 Levis Faculty Center, Third Floor 7:00 p.m., Reception followsJames D. Wallace Professor of Philosophy Philosophers are deeply divided as to the subject matter of ethics. At the core of the disagreement is this commonly-held assumption: If ethical norms are to serve as objective, authoritative standards of criticism of our institutions and practices, these norms must...
2004-08-01 - Sarah C. Mangelsdorf, head of the department of psychology and a recent associate provost at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been appointed as acting dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.Mangelsdorf succeeds Jesse G. Delia, who has held the position since 1994. Delia was recently appointed acting provost for the campus, filling the position left by Richard Herman,...
2004-07-01 - What can parents do to help children doing poorly in school? Two new studies from the Department of Psychology suggest that supporting their children's autonomy and refraining from being controlling will help kids do better on their homework and raise their grades.The findings, published in the May/June issue of the journal Child Development, send home a poignant message. If parents...
2004-07-01 - A student who hopes to someday explore the solar system is one of 31 U.S. students to receive a Gates Cambridge Scholarship funded by an endowment from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Senior Joannah Metz from Champaign will receive approximately $38,000 to cover the full cost of studies at Cambridge University in England as well as travel and living expenses."This will be the 14th...-
2004-07-01 - While researching the life and career of Jamaican-born poet Claude McKay (1889-1948), LAS English professor William Maxwell found startling evidence of this country's investigation into black radicalism. The "canonically bold poet" who against all odds and his own deleterious tendencies came to inspire such Harlem Renaissance writers as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and James Weldon Johnson...
2004-07-01 - Chemists in LAS have produced a molecule that selectively kills cancerous cells in a desired way and leaves healthy cells virtually untouched.While encouraging, the findings don't mean a new treatment is imminent. The basic laboratory experiments were done in microtiter dishes, where the compound was simply exposed to leukemia and lymphoma cells and healthy white blood cells from mice. "It'...
2004-07-01 - Refocusing the attention of errant students was only one of Robert Copeland's roles during his 27 years as advisor and, eventually, as dean in LAS's Student Academic Affairs Office. When he died this past June, students also said good-bye to a father figure, a therapist, and a friend who kept their needs front and center. Copeland grew up in tiny Hendersonville, North Carolina, where his...-
2004-07-01 - Your parents did it. Even your great-great grandparents did it. The urge to dig at your teeth to dislodge a wedged slivver of food is, researchers say, older than written history. LAS anthropologist Dr Leslea Hlusko claims that ancient man used rudimentary toothpicks, made from grass stalks 1.8 million years ago. Hlusko argues that toothpicking is probably...
2004-07-01 - For those who think that life changes much too quickly, consider the intrepid cicada. In fact, at this time of year it would be hard to ignore it. This 100 percent green-blooded American insect has survived glaciers, predators, farms, and subdivisions. The periodic appearance of the cicada is a resourceful piece of the American experience, writ very slow, 17 years to be exact. Currently, the...-
2004-04-01 - Academic Advising Award Kathryn A. Martensen LAS General Curriculum Center Kathryn Martensen alleviates incoming freshmen's fears by offering a welcoming smile, excellent advice, and genuine concern for their academic career. . She helps make this large university feel welcoming and accessible to freshmen. Because General Curriculum advisors do not work with a student though their entire college...
2004-03-01 - April 1-2, 2004 Illini Union Leaders shape history by transforming followers into leaders. This controversial claim by Pulitzer Prize-winning political scientist James MacGregor Burns will be the subject of debate this April when Burns visits U of I as this year's Cline Symposium keynote speaker. His talk will kick off two days of lively discussion on the democratic challenges and...
2004-03-01 - A white dress, gold bands, lace veil, and white frosted cake are all elements you might see at an American wedding, but this "standard" is not an American tradition. One hundred and sixty years ago, Queen Victoria married Prince Albert wearing a white satin gown, abandoning the velvet robes of her ancestors. Elizabeth Pleck, an LAS professor of history...