The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a
public land-grant research university in
Illinois in the
twin cities of
Champaign and
Urbana __NOTOC__
Urbana can refer to:
Places Italy
*Urbana, Italy
United States
*Urbana, Illinois
**Urbana (conference), a Christian conference formerly held in Urbana, Illinois
*Urbana, Indiana
* Urbana, Iowa
*Urbana, Kansas
* Urbana, Maryland
*Urbana, ...
. It is the
flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the fi ...
institution of the
University of Illinois system and was founded in 1867. Enrolling over 56,000 undergraduate and graduate students, the University of Illinois is one of the
largest public universities by enrollment in the country.
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a member of the
Association of American Universities and is
classified
Classified may refer to:
General
*Classified information, material that a government body deems to be sensitive
*Classified advertising or "classifieds"
Music
*Classified (rapper) (born 1977), Canadian rapper
*The Classified, a 1980s American roc ...
among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".
In fiscal year 2019, research expenditures at Illinois totaled $652 million.
[ The campus library system possesses the second-largest university library in the United States by holdings after Harvard University. The university also hosts the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and is home to the fastest ]supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructions ...
on a university campus.
The university contains 16 schools and colleges and offers more than 150 undergraduate and over 100 graduate programs of study. The university holds 651 buildings on [ and its annual operating budget in 2016 was over $2 billion. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign also operates a Research Park home to innovation centers for over 90 start-up companies and multinational corporations, including Abbott, AbbVie, Caterpillar, Capital One, Dow, State Farm, John Deere, GSI, and Yahoo, among others.][
, the alumni, faculty members, or researchers of the university include 30 Nobel laureates, 27 ]Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
winners, two Fields medalists, and two Turing Award winners. Illinois athletic teams compete in Division I of the NCAA and are collectively known as the Fighting Illini. They are members of the Big Ten Conference and have won the second-most conference titles. Illinois Fighting Illini football won the Rose Bowl Game
The Rose Bowl Game is an annual American college football bowl game, usually played on January 1 (New Year's Day) at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. When New Year's Day falls on a Sunday, the game is played on Monday, January 2. The Rose ...
in 1947, 1952, 1964 and a total of five national championships. Illinois athletes have won 29 medals in Olympic events
Olympic sports are contested in the Summer Olympic Games and Winter Olympic Games. The 2020 Summer Olympics included 33 sports; the 2022 Winter Olympics included seven sports. Each Olympic sport is represented by an international governing bod ...
, ranking it among the top 50 American universities with Olympic medals.
History
Illinois Industrial University
The University of Illinois, originally named "Illinois Industrial University", was one of the 37 universities created under the first Morrill Land-Grant Act
The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are United States statutes that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges in U.S. states using the proceeds from sales of federally-owned land, often obtained from indigenous tribes through treaty, cession, or se ...
, which provided public land for the creation of agricultural and industrial colleges and universities across the United States. Among several cities, Urbana __NOTOC__
Urbana can refer to:
Places Italy
*Urbana, Italy
United States
*Urbana, Illinois
**Urbana (conference), a Christian conference formerly held in Urbana, Illinois
*Urbana, Indiana
* Urbana, Iowa
*Urbana, Kansas
* Urbana, Maryland
*Urbana, ...
was selected in 1867 as the site for the new school.[Illini Years: A Picture History of the University of Illinois (1950). p. 6] From the beginning, President John Milton Gregory
John Milton Gregory (July 6, 1822October 19, 1898) was an American educator and the first president (regent was his official title) of the University of Illinois, then known as Illinois Industrial University.
Early life
John Milton Gregory was ...
's desire to establish an institution firmly grounded in the liberal arts tradition was at odds with many state residents and lawmakers who wanted the university to offer classes based solely around "industrial education".[Brichford, Maynard. (1983), ]
A Brief History of the University of Illinois
'' The university opened for classes on March 2, 1868, and had two faculty members and 77 students.[McGinty, Alice]
Champaign Public Library
The Library, which opened with the school in 1868, started with 1,039 volumes. Subsequently, President Edmund J. James
Edmund Janes James (May 21, 1855 – June 17, 1925) was an American academic, president of the University of Illinois from 1904 to 1920, and the primary founder, first president and first editor for the American Academy of Political and Social Sc ...
, in a speech to the board of trustees in 1912, proposed to create a research library. It is now one of the world's largest public academic collections. In 1870, the Mumford House was constructed as a model farmhouse for the school's experimental farm. The Mumford House remains the oldest structure on campus. The original University Hall (1871) was the fourth building built; it stood where the Illini Union stands today.
University of Illinois
In 1885, the Illinois Industrial University officially changed its name to the "University of Illinois", reflecting its agricultural, mechanical, and liberal arts curriculum.[
During his presidency, ]Edmund J. James
Edmund Janes James (May 21, 1855 – June 17, 1925) was an American academic, president of the University of Illinois from 1904 to 1920, and the primary founder, first president and first editor for the American Academy of Political and Social Sc ...
(1904–1920) is credited for building the foundation for the large Chinese international student population on campus.[Solberg, Winton U. (2004) "Edmund Janes James Builds a Library: The University of Illinois Library, 1904–1920" ''Libraries & Culture'' 39(1): pp. 36–75 7/ref>][Solberg, Winton U. (2004) "Edmund Janes James Builds a Library: The University of Illinois Library, 1904–1920" ''Libraries & Culture'' 39(1): pp. 36–75 7/ref>][Mary Timmins]
"Enter the Dragon"
, ''Illinois Alumni Magazine'' December 15, 2011. James established ties with China through the Chinese Minister to the United States Wu Ting-Fang
Wu Ting-fang (; 30 July 184223 June 1922) was a diplomat and politician who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and briefly as Acting Premier during the early years of the Republic of China. He was also known as Ng Choy or Ng Achoy ().
Ed ...
.[ In addition, during James's presidency, class rivalries and Bob Zuppke's winning football teams contributed to campus morale.][
''Alma Mater'', a prominent statue on campus created by alumnus Lorado Taft, was unveiled on June 11, 1929. It was established from donations by the Alumni Fund and the classes of 1923–1929.]
The Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
slowed construction and expansion on the campus. The university replaced the original university hall with Gregory Hall and the Illini Union. After World War II, the university experienced rapid growth. The enrollment doubled and the academic standing improved. This period was also marked by large growth in the Graduate College and increased federal support of scientific and technological research. During the 1950s and 1960s the university experienced the turmoil common on many American campuses. Among these were the water fights of the fifties and sixties.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
By 1967, the University of Illinois system consisted of a main campus in Champaign-Urbana and two Chicago campuses, Chicago Circle (UICC) and Medical Center (UIMC), and people began using "Urbana-Champaign" or the reverse to refer to the main campus specifically. The university name officially changed to the "University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign" by 1977. While this was a reversal of the commonly used designation for the metropolitan area ( Champaign-Urbana), most of the campus is located in Urbana. The name change established a separate identity for the main campus within the University of Illinois system, which today includes campuses in Springfield (UIS UIS may refer to:
*Uis, a village in Erongo Region, Namibia
*Underwater Inspection System, a component of the Underwater Port Security System developed for the United States Coast Guard
*Universal Interactive Studios (now Vivendi Games)
*University ...
) and Chicago ( UIC) (formed by the merger of UICC and UIMC).
In 1998, the Hallene Gateway Plaza was dedicated. The Plaza features the original sandstone portal of University Hall, which was originally the fourth building on campus.[ In recent years, state support has declined from 4.5% of the state's tax appropriations in 1980 to 2.28% in 2011, a nearly 50% decline. As a result, the university's budget has shifted away from relying on state support with nearly 84% of the budget coming from other sources in 2012.]
On March 12, 2015, the Board of Trustees approved the creation of a medical school, the first college created at Urbana-Champaign in 60 years. The Carle-Illinois College of Medicine
The Carle Illinois College of Medicine is the medical school of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Called the "World's First Engineering-Based College of Medicine," the school trains physician-innovators by integrating several engineer ...
began classes in 2018.
Philanthropy
Over the last twenty years state funding for the university has fallen. Private philanthropy increasingly supplements revenue from tuition and state funding, providing about 19% of the annual budget in 2012.[ Notable among significant donors, alumnus entrepreneur Thomas M. Siebel has committed nearly $150 million to the university, including $36 million to build the ]Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science
The Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science is a $50 million, integrated research and educational facility designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson located on the Urbana campus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Siebel Cen ...
and $25 million to build the Siebel Center for Design. Further the Grainger Foundation (founded by alumnus W. W. Grainger
W. W. Grainger, Inc. is an American Fortune 500 industrial supply company founded in 1927 in Chicago by William W. (Bill) Grainger. He founded the company in order to provide consumers with access to a consistent supply of motors. The company n ...
) has contributed more than $300 million to the university over the last half-century, including donations for the construction of the Grainger Engineering Library
The Grainger Engineering Library is a library at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign College of Engineering for all disciplines of engineering at the University. It is situated on the north side of the Bardeen Quad on the engineering ...
. Larry Gies and his wife Beth donated $150 million in 2017 to the shortly thereafter renamed Gies College of Business
Gies College of Business is the business school of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a public research university in Champaign, Illinois. The college offers undergraduate program, masters programs, and a PhD program. The college and ...
.
Campus
The main research and academic facilities are divided almost evenly between the twin cities of Urbana __NOTOC__
Urbana can refer to:
Places Italy
*Urbana, Italy
United States
*Urbana, Illinois
**Urbana (conference), a Christian conference formerly held in Urbana, Illinois
*Urbana, Indiana
* Urbana, Iowa
*Urbana, Kansas
* Urbana, Maryland
*Urbana, ...
and Champaign, which form part of the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area. Four main quads compose the center of the university and are arranged from north to south. The Beckman Quadrangle and the John Bardeen
John Bardeen (; May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991) was an American physicist and engineer. He is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the tran ...
Quadrangle occupy the center of the Engineering Campus. Boneyard Creek
Boneyard Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed May 19, 2011 waterway that drains much of the cities of Champaign and Urbana, Illinois. It is a tributary of the ...
flows through the John Bardeen Quadrangle, parallel to Green Street. The Beckman Quadrangle, named after Arnold Orville Beckman, is primarily composed of research units and laboratories, and features a large solar calendar consisting of an obelisk and several copper fountains. The Main Quadrangle and South Quadrangle follow immediately after the John Bardeen Quad. The former makes up a large part of the Liberal Arts and Sciences portion of the campus, while the latter comprises many of the buildings of the College of ACES spread across the campus map.
Additionally, the research fields of the College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences stretch south from Urbana and Champaign into Savoy
Savoy (; frp, Savouè ; french: Savoie ) is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps.
Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south.
Savo ...
and Champaign County. The university also maintains formal gardens and a conference center in nearby Monticello at Allerton Park.
The campus is known for its landscape and architecture, as well as distinctive landmarks. It was identified as one of 50 college or university "works of art" by T.A. Gaines in his book ''The Campus as a Work of Art''. The campus also has a number of buildings and sites on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
including Harker Hall
Harker Hall, also known as the Chemical Laboratory, is a historic building on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in Urbana, Illinois. Built in 1877, the building originally served as the university's chemical labor ...
, Astronomical Observatory
An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysical, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. His ...
, Louise Freer Hall
Louise Freer Hall, also known as the Women's Gymnasium, is a historic building on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Built in 1930, it was the last of the university's buildings designed by Charles A. Platt, who was respons ...
, the Main Library, the Experimental Dairy Farm Historic District, and the Morrow Plots __NOTOC__
The Morrow Plots is an experimental agricultural field at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Named for Professor George E. Morrow, it is the oldest such field in the United States and the second oldest in the world. It was esta ...
. The University of Illinois Willard Airport is one of the few airports owned by an educational institution.
Sustainability
The Sustainable Endowments Institute
The Sustainable Endowments Institute (SEI) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that is engaged in research and education to advance sustainability in operations and endowment practices. Founded in 2005, SEI is a special projec ...
gave the campus a grade of B for sustainability in its 2011 College Sustainability Report Card. Strengths noted in the report included the campus's adoption of LEED
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a
green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating systems for the design, construction ...
gold standards for all new construction and major renovations and its public accessibility to endowment investment information. The university makes a list of endowment holdings and its shareholder voting record available to the public. The weaknesses are areas such as student involvement and investment priorities. The Student Sustainability Committee is empowered to allocate funding from a clean energy technology fee and a sustainable campus environment fee, while the university aims to optimize investment return but has not made any public statements about investigating or investing in renewable energy funds or community development loan funds. However, the biggest weakness of the university's sustainability is its shareholder engagement, as the university has not made any public statements about active ownership or a proxy voting policy.
Currently, the University of Illinois has 11 LEED certified buildings. Three of these are platinum certified (Business Instructional Facility, Lincoln Hall, and Bousfield Hall). Three are gold (National Petascale Computing Facility, Nugent Hall, Wassaja Hall). The rest are silver (Ikenberry Dining Hall, Evers Laboratory, Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory, Illinois Fire Service Institute, and Huff Hall).
In his remarks on the creation of the Office of Sustainability in September 2008, Chancellor Richard Herman
Richard H. Herman is a former mathematician who had served as the Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2005-2009. He previously served there as Provost and Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs since 1998. As provost ...
stated, "I want this institution to be the leader in sustainability." In February 2008, he signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, committing the University of Illinois to take steps "in pursuit of climate neutrality."
Academics
Admissions
Undergraduate
The 2015 annual ranking of '' U.S. News & World Report'' categorizes the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as "more selective." For the Class of 2025 (enrolled Fall 2021), UIUC received 47,593 applications and accepted 28,395 (59.7%). Of those accepted, 8,303 enrolled, a yield rate (the percentage of accepted students who choose to attend the university) of 29.2%. UIUC's freshman retention rate is 93.5%, with 84.9% going on to graduate within six years.[
Of the 43% of the incoming freshman class who submitted SAT scores; the middle 50 percent Composite scores were 1340-1510.][ Of the 24% of enrolled freshmen in 2021 who submitted ACT scores; the middle 50 percent Composite score was between 29 and 34.][ In the 2020–2021 academic year, 28 freshman students were ]National Merit Scholars
The National Merit Scholarship Program is a United States academic scholarship competition for recognition and university scholarships administered by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), a privately funded, not-for-profit organizati ...
.
Admissions differ greatly between the different colleges in the university. While the overall admit rate is 37.5% (first-choice), the most selective college, the College of Engineering
Engineering education is the activity of teaching knowledge and principles to the professional practice of engineering. It includes an initial education (bachelor's and/or master's degree), and any advanced education and specializations that ...
, has an admit rate of 23.2% (for first-choice major). Certain in-demand majors like Computer Science which is known for its Top 5 program in the nation, can be extremely competitive with an acceptance rate of less than 6.8%, and average freshman ACT composite score of 33.7.
In 2009, an investigation by '' The Chicago Tribune'' reported that some applicants "received special consideration" for acceptance between 2005 and 2009, despite having sub-par qualifications. This incident was known was the University of Illinois clout scandal
The University of Illinois clout scandal resulted from a series of articles in the ''Chicago Tribune'' that reported that some applicants to the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC) "received special consideration" for acceptance ...
.
Academic divisions
The university offers more than 150 undergraduate and 100 graduate and professional programs in over 15 academic units, among several online specializations such as Digital Marketing and an online MBA program launched in January 2016. In 2015, the university announced its expansion to include an engineering-based medical program, which would be the first new college created in Urbana-Champaign in 60 years.[ The university also offers undergraduate students the opportunity for graduation honors. University Honors is an academic distinction awarded to the highest achieving students. To earn the distinction, students must have a cumulative grade point average of a 3.5/4.0 within the academic year of their graduation and rank within the top 3% of their graduating class. Their names are inscribed on a Bronze Tablet that hangs in the Main Library.
]
Online learning
In addition to the university's Illinois Online platform, in 2015 the university entered into a partnership with the Silicon Valley educational technology company Coursera to offer a series of master's degrees and specialization courses, currently including more than 70 joint learning classes. In August 2015, the Master of Business Administration program was launched through the platform. On March 31, 2016, Coursera announced the launch of the Master of Computer Science in Data Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. At the time, the university's computer-science graduate program was ranked fifth in the United States by '' U.S. News & World Report''. On March 29, 2017, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign launched their Master's in Accounting (iMSA) program, now called the Master of Science in Accountancy (iMSA) program. The iMSA program is led through live sessions, headed by UIUC faculty.
Similar to the university's on-campus admission policies, the online master's degrees offered by The University of Illinois through Coursera also has admission requirements. All applicants must hold a bachelor's degree, and have earned a 3.0 GPA or higher in the last two years of study. Additionally, all applicants must prove their proficiency in English.
The University of Illinois also offers online courses in partnership with Coursera, such as ''Marketing in a Digital'' ''World,'' which focuses on how digital tools like internet, smartphone and 3D printers are changing the marketing landscape.
Rankings
In the 2021 '' U.S. News & World Report'' "America's Best Colleges" report, UIUC's undergraduate program was ranked tied for 47th among national universities and tied for 15th among public universities, with its undergraduate engineering program ranked tied for 6th in the U.S. among schools whose highest degree is a doctorate.
'' Washington Monthly'' ranked UIUC 18th among 389 national universities in the U.S. for 2020, based on its contribution to the public good as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service. Kiplinger's Personal Finance rated Illinois 12th in its 2019 list of 174 Best Values in Public Colleges, which "measures academic quality, cost and financial aid."
The Graduate Program in Urban Planning at the College of Fine and Applied Arts was ranked 3rd nationally by Planetizen in 2015. The university was also listed as a "Public Ivy" in ''The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public Universities'' (2001) by Howard and Matthew Greene. '' The Princeton Review'' ranked Illinois 1st in its 2016 list of top party schools.
Internationally, UIUC engineering was ranked 13th in the world in 2016 by the ''Academic Ranking of World Universities
The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities'' (''ARWU''), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong University ...
'' (ARWU) and the university 38th in 2019; the university was also ranked 48th globally by the '' Times Higher Education World University Rankings'' in 2020 and 75th in the world by the '' QS World University Rankings'' for 2020. The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR)
College and university rankings order the best institutions in higher education based on factors that vary depending on the ranking. Some rankings evaluate institutions within a single country, while others assess institutions worldwide. Rankings ...
has ranked University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as the 20th best university in the world for 2019–20.
UIUC is also ranked 32nd in the world in '' Times Higher Education'' World Reputation Rankings for 2018
Nature Index
ranks UIUC 33rd among top Academic institutions in the world.
Research
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is often regarded as a world-leading magnet for engineering and sciences (both applied and basic).
According to the National Science Foundation, the university spent $625 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 37th in the nation. It is also listed as one of the Top 25 American Research Universities by The Center for Measuring University Performance
The Center for Measuring University Performance is a research center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. ''The Center'' is best known for an annual report it produces, The Top American Research Universities, that ranks American univers ...
. Beside annual influx of grants and sponsored projects, the university manages an extensive modern research infrastructure. The university has been a leader in computer based education and hosted the PLATO project, which was a precursor to the internet and resulted in the development of the plasma display. Illinois was a 2nd-generation ARPAnet site in 1971 and was the first institution to license the UNIX operating system from Bell Labs.
Research Park
Located in the southwest part of campus, Research Park opened its first building in 2001 and has grown to encompass 13 buildings. Ninety companies have established roots in research park, employing over 1,400 people. Tenants of the Research Park facilities include prominent Fortune 500 companies Capital One, John Deere, State Farm, Caterpillar, and Yahoo, Inc. Companies also employ about 400 total student interns at any given time throughout the year. The complex is also a center for entrepreneurs, and has over 50 startup companies stationed at its EnterpriseWorks Incubator facility.
In 2011, Urbana, Illinois was named number 11 on Popular Mechanics' "14 Best Startup Cities in America" list, in a large part due to the contributions of Research Park's programs. The park has gained recognition from other notable publications, such as inc.com and Forbes magazine. For the 2011 fiscal year, Research Park produced an economic output of $169.5M for the state of Illinois.
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
The university hosts the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), which created Mosaic, the first graphical web browser, the Apache HTTP server
The Apache HTTP Server ( ) is a free and open-source cross-platform web server software, released under the terms of Apache License 2.0. Apache is developed and maintained by an open community of developers under the auspices of the Apache So ...
, and NCSA Telnet. The Parallel@Illinois program hosts several programs in parallel computing
Parallel computing is a type of computation in which many calculations or processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. There are several different fo ...
, including the Universal Parallel Computing Research Center. The university contracted with Cray
Cray Inc., a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, is an American supercomputer manufacturer headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It also manufactures systems for data storage and analytics. Several Cray supercomputer systems are listed ...
to build the National Science Foundation-funded supercomputer Blue Waters. The system also has the largest public online storage system in the world with more than 25 petabytes of usable space. The university celebrated January 12, 1997, as the "birthday" of HAL 9000
HAL 9000 is a fictional artificial intelligence character and the main antagonist in Arthur C. Clarke's ''Space Odyssey'' series. First appearing in the 1968 film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'', HAL ( Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer ...
, the fictional supercomputer from the novel and film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey''; in both works, HAL credits "Urbana, Illinois" as his place of operational origin.
Prairie Research Institute
The Prairie Research Institute
The Prairie Research Institute is a multidisciplinary research institute charged with providing objective research, expertise, and data on the natural and cultural resources of Illinois. It was established as a unit of the University of Illinois ...
is located on campus and is the home of the Illinois Natural History Survey, Illinois State Geological Survey, Illinois State Water Survey, Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, and the Illinois State Archeological Survey. Researchers at the Prairie Research Institute are engaged in research in agriculture and forestry, biodiversity and ecosystem health, atmospheric resources, climate and associated natural hazards, cultural resources and history of human settlements, disease and public health, emerging pests, fisheries and wildlife, energy and industrial technology, mineral resources, pollution prevention and mitigation, and water resources. The Illinois Natural History Survey collections include crustaceans, reptiles and amphibians, birds, mammals, algae, fungi, and vascular plants, with the insect collection is among the largest in North America. The Illinois State Geological Survey houses the legislatively mandated Illinois Geological Samples Library, a repository for drill-hole samples in Illinois, as well as paleontological collections. ISAS serves as a repository for a large collection of Illinois archaeological artifacts. One of the major collections is from the Cahokia Mounds.
Technology Entrepreneur Center
The Technology Entrepreneur Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a permanent center established to provide students with resources for their entrepreneurial ideas. The center offers classes, venture and product competitions, and workshops to introduce students to technology innovation and market adoption.
Events and programs hosted by the TEC include the Cozad New Venture Challenge, Silicon Valley Entrepreneurship Workshop, Illinois I-Corps, and SocialFuse. The campus-wide Cozad New Venture Challenge has been held annually since 2000. Participants are mentored in the phases of venture creation and attend workshops on idea validation, pitching skills, and customer development. In 2019, teams competed for $250,000 in funding. The Silicon Valley Workshop is a week-long workshop, occurring annually in January. Students visit startups and technology companies in the Silicon Valley and network entrepreneurial alumni from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Students are exposed to technology entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership. The trip features corporate leaders, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs in various stages of a startup lifecycle. Illinois I-Corps teaches National Science Foundation grantees how to learn to identify valuable product opportunities that can emerge from academic research, and gain skills in entrepreneurship through training in customer discovery and guidance from established entrepreneurs.
The program is a collaboration between the Technology Entrepreneur Center and EnterpriseWorks, with participation from the Office of Technology Management and IllinoisVentures. The program consists of 3 workshops over 6 weeks, where teams work to validate the market size, value propositions, and customer segments of their innovations.
SocialFuse is a recurring pitching and networking event where students can pitch ideas, find teammates, and network.
Center for Plasma-Material Interactions
The Center for Plasma-Material Interactions was established in 2004 by Professor David N. Ruzic to research the complex behavior between ions, electrons, and energetic atoms generated in plasmas and the surfaces of materials. CPMI encompasses fusion plasmas in its research.
Accolades
In Bill Gates' February 24, 2004, talk as part of his Five Campus Tour (Harvard, MIT, Cornell, Carnegie-Mellon and Illinois) titled "Software Breakthroughs: Solving the Toughest Problems in Computer Science," he mentioned Microsoft hires more graduates from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign than from any other university in the world. Alumnus William M. Holt, a senior vice-president of Intel, also mentioned in a campus talk on September 27, 2007, entitled "R&D to Deliver Practical Results: Extending Moore's Law" that Intel hires more PhD graduates from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign than from any other university in the country.
In 2007, the university-hosted research Institute for Condensed Matter Theory (ICMT) was launched, with the director Paul Goldbart and the chief scientist Anthony Leggett
Sir Anthony James Leggett (born 26 March 1938) is a British-American theoretical physicist and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Leggett is widely recognised as a world leader in the theory of low-temperatur ...
. ICMT is currently located at the Engineering Science Building on campus.
The University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA), which recognizes excellence in both individual and institutional achievements, has awarded two awards to U of I.
Discoveries and innovation
Natural sciences
* BCS theory – John Bardeen
John Bardeen (; May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991) was an American physicist and engineer. He is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the tran ...
, in collaboration with Leon Cooper and his doctoral student John Robert Schrieffer, proposed the standard theory of superconductivity
Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic flux fields are expelled from the material. Any material exhibiting these properties is a superconductor. Unlike ...
known as the BCS theory. They shared the Nobel Prize in Physics 1972 for their discovery.
*Sweet corn
Sweet corn (''Zea mays'' convar. ''saccharata'' var. ''rugosa''), also called sugar corn and pole corn, is a variety of maize grown for human consumption with a high sugar content. Sweet corn is the result of a naturally occurring recessive muta ...
– John Laughnan produced corn with higher-than-normal levels of sugar while he was a professor at the university.
Computer & applied sciences
* ILLIAC I – Illinois Automatic Computer, a pioneering computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
built in 1952 by the University of Illinois, was the first computer built and owned entirely by a US educational institution. Lejaren Hiller
Lejaren Arthur Hiller Jr. (February 23, 1924, New York City – January 26, 1994, Buffalo, New York)[Lejaren Hi ...](_blank)
, in collaboration with Leonard Issacson
Leonard Maxwell Isaacson (born 1925) is an American chemist and composer.
Isaacson collaborated with Lejaren Hiller on the computer-programmed acoustic composition, ''Illiac Suite'' (1957). , programmed the ILLIAC I computer to generate compositional material for his String Quartet No. 4.
*ILLIAC Suite
''Illiac Suite'' (later retitled String Quartet No. 4)Andrew Stiller, "Hiller, Lejaren (Arthur)", ''Grove Music Online'' (reviewed December 3, 2010; accessed December 14, 2014). is a 1957 composition for string quartet which is generally agreed to ...
– is a 1957 composition for string quartet
The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists ...
which is generally agreed to be the first score composed by an electronic computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
.[Denis L. Baggi,]
The Role of Computer Technology in Music and Musicology
", ''lim.dico.unimi.it'' (December 9, 1998).
* LLVM – compiler infrastructure project (formerly ''Low Level Virtual Machine''). Vikram Adve
Vikram Adve (born 28 June 1966) is the Donald B. Gillies professor in the Department of Computer Science and a Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Academia
In 2020, Vikram Adve is ...
and Chris Lattner
Christopher Arthur Lattner (born 1978) is an American software engineer, former Google and Tesla employee and co-founder of LLVM, Clang compiler, MLIR compiler infrastructure and the Swift programming language. , he is the co-founder and CEO ...
started development as a research assistant and M.Sc. student.
* Mosaic – The first successful consumer web browser was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1993.
* PLATO – Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations was the first generalized computer assisted instruction system. Starting in 1960, it ran on the University of Illinois' ILLIAC I computer. By the late 1970s, it supported several thousand graphics terminals distributed worldwide, running on nearly a dozen different networked mainframe computer
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...
s. Many modern concepts in multi-user computing were developed on PLATO, including forums, message boards, online testing, e-mail, chat rooms, picture language In formal language theory, a picture language is a set of ''pictures'', where a picture is a 2D array of characters over some alphabet.
For example, the language L = \left \ defines the language of rectangles composed of the character a. This lan ...
s, instant messaging, remote screen sharing
In computing, the term remote desktop refers to a software- or operating system feature that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely off of one system (usually a PC, but the concept applies equally to a server or a ...
, and multiplayer video game
A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system (couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...
s.
* Touchscreens and Plasma displays – developed by Donald Bitzer
Donald L. Bitzer (born January 1, 1934) is an American electrical engineer and computer scientist. He was the co-inventor of the plasma display, is largely regarded as the "father of PLATO", and has made a career of improving classroom productivity ...
in the 1960s.
*Talkomatic
Talkomatic was an online chat system that facilitates real-time text communication among a small group of people. Each participant in Talkomatic has their own section of the screen, broadcasting messages letter-by-letter as they are typed. This int ...
is an online chat system that facilitates real-time text communication among a small group of people. created by Doug Brown and David R. Woolley in 1973 on the PLATO System.
* Synchronized Sound-on-film – Joseph Tykociński-Tykociner publicly demonstrated for the first time a motion picture with a soundtrack optically recorded directly onto the film June 9, 1922.
Companies & entrepreneurship
UIUC alumni and faculty have founded numerous companies and organizations, some of which are shown below.
Student life
Student body
As of spring 2018, the university had 45,813 students. , over 10,000 students were international students, and of them 5,295 were Mainland Chinese.[Illinois launches Chinese-language broadcasts of football games]
." '' The Guardian''. Saturday September 19, 2015. Retrieved on October 16, 2015. The university also recruits students from over 100 countries among its 32,878 undergraduate students and 10,245[ graduate and professional students.][ The gender breakdown is 55% men, 45% women.][ UIUC in 2014 enrolled 4,898 students from China, more than any other American university. They comprise the largest group of international students on the campus, followed by South Korea (1,268 in fall 2014) and India (1,167). Graduate enrollment of Chinese students at UIUC has grown from 649 in 2000 to 1,973 in 2014.
]
Student organizations
The university has over 1,000 active registered student organizations, showcased at the start of each academic year during Illinois's "Quad Day." Registration and support is provided by the Student Programs & Activities Office, an administrative arm established in pursuit of the larger social, intellectual, and educative goals of the Illini Student Union. The Office's mission is to "enhance ... classroom education," "meet the needs and desires of the campus community," and "prepare students to be contributing and humane citizens." Beyond student organizations, The Daily Illini
''The Daily Illini'', commonly known as the ''DI'', is a student-run newspaper that has been published for the community of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 1871. Weekday circulation during fall and spring semesters is 7,000; co ...
is a student-run newspaper that has been published for the community of since 1871. The paper is published by Illini Media
The Illini Media Company is a nonprofit, student media company based in Champaign, Illinois. The company owns several student-run media outlets associated with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: the general newspaper, the ''Daily Illi ...
Company, a not-for-profit which also prints other publications, and operates WPGU
WPGU (107.1 FM) is a fully commercial, student-run college radio station on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Champaign, Illinois. It broadcasts an alternative rock radio format and other programming throughout Champ ...
107.1 FM, a student-run commercial radio station. The Varsity Men's Glee Club is an all-male choir at the University of Illinois that was founded in 1886. The Varsity Men's Glee Club is one of the oldest glee clubs in the United States as well as the oldest registered student organization at the University of Illinois. As of 2018, the university also has the largest chapter of Alpha Phi Omega
Alpha Phi Omega (), commonly known as APO, but also A-Phi-O and A-Phi-Q, is a coeducational service fraternity. It is the largest collegiate fraternity in the United States, with chapters at over 350 campuses, an active membership of over 25,0 ...
with over 340 active members.
Greek life
There are 59 fraternities and 38 sororities on campus. Of the approximately 30,366 undergraduates, 3,463 are members of sororities and 3,674 are members of fraternities. The Greek system at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has a system of self-government. While staff advisors and directors manage certain aspects of the Greek community, most of the day-to-day operations of the Greek community are governed by the Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Council. A smaller minority of fraternities and sororities fall under the jurisdiction of the Black Greek Council and United Greek Council; the Black Greek Council serves "historically black" Greek organizations while the United Greek council comprises other multicultural organizations. Many of the fraternity and sorority houses on campus are on the National Register of Historic Places.
Student government
U of I has an extensive history of past student governments. Two years after the university opened in 1868, John Milton Gregory and a group of students created a constitution for a student government. Their governance expanded to the entire university in 1873, having a legislative, executive, and judicial branch. For a period of time, this government had the ability to discipline students. In 1883, however, due to a combination of events from Gregory's resignation to student-faculty infighting, the government formally dissolved itself via plebiscite.
It wasn't until 1934, when the Student Senate, the next university-wide student government, was created. A year before, future U of I Dean of Students, Fred H. Turner and the university's Senate Committee on Student Affairs gave increased power to the Student Council, an organization primarily known for organizing dances. A year after, the Student Council created a constitution and became the Student Senate, under the oversight of the Committee on Student Affairs. This Student Senate would last for 35 years. The Student Senate changed its purpose and name in 1969, when it became the Undergraduate Student Association (UGSA). It no longer was a representational government, instead becoming a collective bargaining agency
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (su ...
. It often worked with the Graduate Student Association to work on various projects
In 1967, Bruce A. Morrison
Bruce Andrew Morrison (born October 8, 1944) is a former Congressman from Connecticut and candidate for Governor of Connecticut. He is a lobbyist and immigration lawyer. He is a member of the Democratic Party, and an officer of the National D ...
and other U of I graduate founded the Graduate Student Association (GSA). GSA would last until 1978, when it merged with the UGSA to form the Champaign-Urbana Student Association (CUSA). CUSA lasted for only 2 years when it was replaced by the Student Government Association (SGA) in 1980. SGA lasted for 15 years until it became the Illinois Student Government (ISG) in 1995. ISG lasted until 2004.[
The current university student government, created in 2004, is the Illinois Student Senate, a combined undergraduate and graduate student senate with 54 voting members. The student senators are elected by college and represent the students in the Urbana-Champaign Senate (which comprises both faculty and students), as well as on a variety of faculty and administrative committees, and are led by an internally elected executive board of a President, External Vice President, Internal Vice President, and Treasurer. , the executive board is supported by an executive staff consisting of a Chief of Staff, Clerk of the Senate, Parliamentarian, Director of Communications, Intern Coordinator, and the Historian of the Senate.
]
Residence halls
University housing for undergraduates is provided through twenty-four residence halls in both Urbana and Champaign. Incoming freshmen are required to live in student housing (campus or certified) their first year on campus. Graduate housing is usually offered through two graduate residence halls, restricted to students who are sophomores or above, and through three university-owned apartment complexes. Some undergraduates choose to move into apartments or the Greek houses after their first year. There are a number of private dormitories around campus, as well as 15 private, certified residences that partner with the university to offer a variety of different housing options, including ones that are cooperatives, single-gender or religiously affiliated. The university is known for being one of the first universities to provide accommodations for students with disabilities. In 2015, the University of Illinois announced that they would be naming its newest residence hall after Carlos Montezuma also known as Wassaja. Wassaja is the first Native American graduate and is believed to be one of the first Native Americans to receive a medical degree.
Libraries and museums
Among universities in North America, only the collections of Harvard are larger. Currently, the University of Illinois' 20+ departmental libraries and divisions hold more than 24 million
One million (1,000,000), or one thousand thousand, is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The word is derived from the early Italian ''millione'' (''milione'' in modern Italian), from ''mille'', "thousand", plus the au ...
items, including more than 12 million print volumes.[ , it had also the largest "browsable" university library in the United States, with 5 million volumes directly accessible in stacks in a single location. University of Illinois also has the largest public engineering library (]Grainger Engineering Library
The Grainger Engineering Library is a library at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign College of Engineering for all disciplines of engineering at the University. It is situated on the north side of the Bardeen Quad on the engineering ...
) in the country.[ In addition to the main library building, which houses numerous subject-oriented libraries, the Isaac Funk Family Library on the South Quad serves the College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences and the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center serves the ]College of Engineering
Engineering education is the activity of teaching knowledge and principles to the professional practice of engineering. It includes an initial education (bachelor's and/or master's degree), and any advanced education and specializations that ...
on the John Bardeen Quad.
Residence Hall Library System is one of three in the nation. The Residence Hall Libraries were created in 1948 to serve the educational, recreational, and cultural information needs of first- and second-year undergraduate students residing in the residence halls, and the living-learning communities within the residence halls. The collection also serves University Housing staff as well as the larger campus community. The Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) is one of the Special collections units within the University Library. The RBML is one of the largest special collections repositories in the United States.
The university has several museums, galleries, and archives which include Krannert Art Museum
The Krannert Art Museum (KAM) is a fine art museum located at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Champaign, Illinois, United States. It has of space devoted to all periods of art, dating from ancient Egypt to contemporary photography ...
, Sousa Archives and Center for American Music
The Sousa Archives and Center for American Music (SACAM) documents American music through historical artifacts and archival records in multiple formats. The center is part of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign's library system an ...
and Spurlock Museum. Gallery and exhibit locations include Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
The Krannert Center for the Performing Arts is an educational and performing arts complex located at 500 South Goodwin Avenue in Urbana, Illinois and on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Herman C. Krannert, an industrial ...
and at the School of Art and Design.
The ''Illinois Open Publishing Network'' (IOPN) is hosted and coordinated by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, offering publishing services to members of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign community, to disseminate open access
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
scholarly publication
An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and d ...
s.
Recreation
The campus has two main recreation facilities, the Activities and Recreation Center
The Activities and Recreation Center, more commonly known as the ARC, is an athletic facility at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign for current university students, members and guests. According to the university, Activities and Recr ...
(ARC) and the Campus Recreation Center – East (CRCE). Originally known as the Intramural Physical Education Building (IMPE) and opened in 1971, IMPE was renovated in 2006 and reopened in August 2008 as the ARC. The renovations expanded the facility, adding 103,433 square feet to the existing structure and costing $54.9 million. This facility is touted by the university as "one of the country's largest on-campus recreation centers." CRCE was originally known as the Satellite Recreation Center and was opened in 1989. The facility was renovated in 2005 to expand the space and update equipment, officially reopening in March 2005 as CRCE.
Transportation
The bus system that operates throughout the campus and community is operated by the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District. The MTD receives a student-approved transportation fee from the university, which provides unlimited access
Amalgam Comics was a collaborative publishing imprint shared by DC Comics and Marvel Comics, in which the two comic book publishers merged their characters into new ones (e.g., DC Comics'
Batman and Marvel Comics' Wolverine become the Amalgam ...
for university students, faculty, and staff.
Six daily Amtrak trains connect Champaign-Urbana with Chicago and Carbondale (IL). The City of New Orleans train also serves Memphis, Jackson, Mississippi, and New Orleans.
Willard Airport
University of Illinois Willard Airport is south of Savoy in Tolono Township, Champaign County, Illinois, United States. It is owned and operated by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and is named for former University of Illinois pres ...
, opened in 1954 and is named for former University of Illinois president Arthur Cutts Willard. The airport is located in Savoy. Willard Airport is home to University research projects and the university's Institute of Aviation, along with flights from American Airlines.
Athletics
U of I's Division of Intercollegiate Athletics fields teams for ten men's and eleven women's varsity sports. The university participates in the NCAA's Division I. The university's athletic teams are known as the Fighting Illini. The university operates a number of athletic facilities, including Memorial Stadium for football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
, the State Farm Center
The State Farm Center is a large dome-shaped 15,544-seat indoor arena located in Champaign, Illinois, owned and operated by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The arena hosts games for the Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball, ...
for men's and women's basketball, and the Atkins Tennis Center for men's and women's tennis. The men's NCAA basketball team had a dream run in the 2005 season, with Bruce Weber's Fighting Illini tying the record for most victories in a season. Their run ended 37–2 with a loss to the North Carolina Tar Heels
The North Carolina Tar Heels are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The name Tar Heel is a nickname used to refer to individuals from the state of North Carolina, the ''Tar Heel ...
in the national championship game. Illinois is a member of the Big Ten Conference. Notable among a number of songs commonly played and sung at various events such as commencement and convocation
A convocation (from the Latin ''wikt:convocare, convocare'' meaning "to call/come together", a translation of the Ancient Greek, Greek wikt:ἐκκλησία, ἐκκλησία ''ekklēsia'') is a group of people formally assembled for a speci ...
, and athletic games are: Illinois Loyalty
"Illinois Loyalty", also known as "We're Loyal to You, Illinois" or just "Loyalty", is a song associated with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. It (along with "Hail to the Orange") is the school's alma mater. It is also used (althoug ...
, the school song; Oskee Wow Wow
Oskee Wow-Wow (along with "Illinois Loyalty") is the official fight song of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The song was written in 1910 by two students: Harold Vater Hill '11 (1889–1917), credited with the music, and Howard Rug ...
, the fight song; and Hail to the Orange
"Hail to the Orange" (along with "Illinois Loyalty") is the alma mater of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Its alternate version, "Hail to the Purple," is an official song of the fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon. The song was wri ...
, the alma mater.
On October 15, 1910, the Illinois football team defeated the University of Chicago Maroons with a score of 3–0 in a game that Illinois claims was the first homecoming game, though several other schools claim to have held the first homecoming as well. On November 10, 2007, the unranked Illinois football team defeated the No. 1 ranked Ohio State football team in Ohio Stadium
Ohio Stadium is an American football stadium in Columbus, Ohio, on the campus of Ohio State University. It primarily serves as the home venue of the Ohio State Buckeyes football team and is also the site for the university's Spring Commencement c ...
, the first time that the Illini beat a No. 1 ranked team on the road.
The University of Illinois Ice Arena
University of Illinois Ice Arena, also known as the Big Pond,Daily Illini"Search for 'Big Pond'" Daily Illini website, retrieved February 22, 2011. is an ice arena and recreational sport facility in Champaign, Illinois, and owned and operated by t ...
is home to the university's club college ice hockey team competing at the ACHA Division I level and is also available for recreational use through the Division of Campus Recreation. It was built in 1931 and designed by Chicago architecture firm Holabird and Root, the same firm that designed the University of Illinois Memorial Stadium and Chicago's Soldier Field. It is located on Armory Drive across from the Armory. The structure features 4 rows of bleacher seating in an elevated balcony that runs the length of the ice rink on either side. These bleachers provide seating for roughly 1,200 fans, with standing room and bench seating available underneath. Because of this set-up the team benches are actually directly underneath the stands.
In 2015, the university began Mandarin Chinese broadcasts of its American football games as a service to its Chinese international students.[
]
Mascot
Chief Illiniwek, also referred to as "The Chief," was from 1926 to 2007 the official symbol of the University of Illinois in university intercollegiate athletic programs. The Chief was typically portrayed by a student dressed in Sioux
The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin (; Dakota language, Dakota: Help:IPA, /otʃʰeːtʰi ʃakoːwĩ/) are groups of Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribes and First Nations in Canada, First Nations peoples in North America. The ...
regalia. Several groups protested that the use of a Native American figure and indigenous customs in such a manner was inappropriate and promoted ethnic stereotypes. In August 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association expressed disapproval of the university's use of a "hostile or abusive" image. While initially proposing a consensus approach to the decision about the Chief, the board in 2007 decided that the Chief, its name, image and regalia should be officially retired. Nevertheless, the controversy continues on campus with some students unofficially maintaining the Chief. Complaints continue that indigenous students feel insulted when images of the Chief continue to be present on campus. The effort to resolve the controversy has included the work of a committee, which issued a report of its "critical conversations" that included over 600 participants representing all sides.
Notable alumni and faculty
Twenty-seven alumni and faculty members of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have won a Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
. , the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni, faculty, and researchers include 30 Nobel laureates (including 11 alumni). In particular, John Bardeen
John Bardeen (; May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991) was an American physicist and engineer. He is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the tran ...
is the only person to have won two Nobel prizes in physics, having done so in 1956 and 1972 while on faculty at the university. In 2003, two faculty members won Nobel prizes in different disciplines: Paul C. Lauterbur
Paul Christian Lauterbur (May 6, 1929 – March 27, 2007) was an American chemist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2003 with Peter Mansfield for his work which made the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) poss ...
for physiology or medicine, and Anthony Leggett
Sir Anthony James Leggett (born 26 March 1938) is a British-American theoretical physicist and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Leggett is widely recognised as a world leader in the theory of low-temperatur ...
for physics.
The alumni of the university have created companies and products such as Netscape Communications (formerly Mosaic) (Marc Andreessen
Marc Lowell Andreessen ( ; born July 9, 1971) is an American entrepreneur, investor, and software engineer. He is the co-author of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser; co-founder of Netscape; and co-founder and general partner of Silicon ...
), AMD ( Jerry Sanders),[ PayPal ( Max Levchin),][ Playboy (]Hugh Hefner
Hugh Marston Hefner (April 9, 1926 – September 27, 2017) was an American magazine publisher. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of ''Playboy'' magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles which provoked charges of obsc ...
), National Football League (George Halas
George Stanley Halas Sr. (; February 2, 1895October 31, 1983), nicknamed "Papa Bear" and "Mr. Everything", was an American professional football player, coach, and team owner. He was the founder and owner of the National Football League's Chic ...
), Siebel Systems
Siebel Systems, Inc. () was a software company principally engaged in the design, development, marketing, and support of customer relationship management (CRM) applications—notably Siebel CRM.
The company was founded by Thomas Siebel and Pat ...
( Thomas Siebel),[ ]Mortal Kombat
''Mortal Kombat'' is an American media franchise centered on a series of video games originally developed by Midway Games in 1992. The development of the first game was originally based on an idea that Ed Boon and John Tobias had of making a v ...
( Ed Boon), CDW ( Michael Krasny), YouTube (Steve Chen
Steve Chen (; born August 25, 1978) is a Taiwanese-American Internet entrepreneur who is one of the co-founders and previous chief technology officer of the video-sharing website YouTube. After having co-founded the company AVOS Systems, Inc. a ...
and Jawed Karim),[ ]THX
THX Ltd. is an American company that develops the eponymous high fidelity audio/visual reproduction standards for movie theaters, screening rooms, home theaters, computer speakers, gaming consoles, car audio systems, and video games. Founded ...
(Tomlinson Holman Tomlinson M. Holman (born 1946) is an American film theorist, audio engineer, and inventor of film technologies, notably the Lucasfilm's THX sound system. He developed the world's first 10.2 sound system.Truta, Filip Truta (May 5, 2011)"Apple Hir ...
), Andreessen Horowitz (Marc Andreessen
Marc Lowell Andreessen ( ; born July 9, 1971) is an American entrepreneur, investor, and software engineer. He is the co-author of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser; co-founder of Netscape; and co-founder and general partner of Silicon ...
), Oracle
An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination.
Description
The word '' ...
( Larry Ellison[ and ]Bob Miner
Robert Nimrod Miner (December 23, 1941 – November 11, 1994) was an American businessman. He was the co-founder of Oracle Corporation and the producer of Oracle's relational database management system.
From 1977 until 1992, Bob Miner led prod ...
), Lotus
Lotus may refer to:
Plants
*Lotus (plant), various botanical taxa commonly known as lotus, particularly:
** ''Lotus'' (genus), a genus of terrestrial plants in the family Fabaceae
**Lotus flower, a symbolically important aquatic Asian plant also ...
(Ray Ozzie
Raymond "Ray" Ozzie (born November 20, 1955) is an American software industry entrepreneur who held the positions of Chief Technical Officer and Chief Software Architect at Microsoft between 2005 and 2010. Before Microsoft, he was best known for ...
),[ Yelp! (]Jeremy Stoppelman
Jeremy Stoppelman (born November 10, 1977) is an American business executive. He is the CEO of Yelp, which he co-founded in 2004. Stoppelman obtained a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champai ...
[ and ]Russel Simmons
Russel Simmons is an American businessman. He co-founded Yelp, Inc. with Jeremy Stoppelman and served as CTO from July 2004 until he left in June 2010. Prior to co-founding Yelp, Simmons was a co-founder of PayPal, where he was a Lead Software A ...
), Safari
A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an importa ...
( Dave Hyatt), Firefox ( Joe Hewitt), W. W. Grainger
W. W. Grainger, Inc. is an American Fortune 500 industrial supply company founded in 1927 in Chicago by William W. (Bill) Grainger. He founded the company in order to provide consumers with access to a consistent supply of motors. The company n ...
(William Wallace Grainger), Delta Air Lines (C. E. Woolman
Collett Everman Woolman (October 8, 1889September 11, 1966), commonly known as "Wooly" to his employees, was an airline entrepreneur who led Delta Air Lines from its beginnings as a small, pioneering crop-dusting company to the Jet Age.
Delta Ai ...
), Beckman Instruments (Arnold Beckman
Arnold Orville Beckman (April 10, 1900 – May 18, 2004) was an American chemist, inventor, investor, and philanthropist. While a professor at California Institute of Technology, he founded Beckman Instruments based on his 1934 invention of th ...
), BET (Robert L. Johnson
Robert Louis Johnson (born April 8, 1946) is an American entrepreneur, media magnate, executive, philanthropist, and investor. He is the co-founder of BET, which was acquired by Viacom in 2001. He also founded RLJ Companies, a holding company ...
) and Tesla Motors (Martin Eberhard
Martin Eberhard (born ) is an American inventor, engineer and entrepreneur who co-founded Tesla, Inc. (then Tesla Motors) with Marc Tarpenning in 2003. Eberhard served as Tesla's original chairman, and its CEO until late 2007. In 2015, he was in ...
).[
Alumni and faculty have invented the ]LED
A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor Electronics, device that Light#Light sources, emits light when Electric current, current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy i ...
and the quantum well laser
A quantum well laser is a laser diode in which the active region of the device is so narrow that quantum confinement occurs. Laser diodes are formed in compound semiconductor materials that (quite unlike silicon) are able to emit light efficientl ...
( Nick Holonyak, B.S. 1950, M.S. 1951, Ph.D. 1954), DSL (John Cioffi
John Mathew Cioffi (born November 7, 1956) is an American electrical engineer, educator and inventor who has made contributions in telecommunication system theory, specifically in coding theory and information theory. Best known as "the father of ...
, B.S. 1978), JavaScript ( Brendan Eich, M.S. 1986),[ the ]integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
( Jack Kilby, B.S. 1947), the transistor (John Bardeen
John Bardeen (; May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991) was an American physicist and engineer. He is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the tran ...
, faculty, 1951–1991), the pH meter (Arnold Beckman
Arnold Orville Beckman (April 10, 1900 – May 18, 2004) was an American chemist, inventor, investor, and philanthropist. While a professor at California Institute of Technology, he founded Beckman Instruments based on his 1934 invention of th ...
, B.S. 1922, M.S. 1923), MRI (Paul C. Lauterbur
Paul Christian Lauterbur (May 6, 1929 – March 27, 2007) was an American chemist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2003 with Peter Mansfield for his work which made the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) poss ...
), the plasma screen (Donald Bitzer
Donald L. Bitzer (born January 1, 1934) is an American electrical engineer and computer scientist. He was the co-inventor of the plasma display, is largely regarded as the "father of PLATO", and has made a career of improving classroom productivity ...
, B.S. 1955, M.S. 1956, Ph.D. 1960), color plasma display (Larry F. Weber
Larry F. Weber, is an American electrical engineer and businessman.
Weber has devoted his 30-year professional career to the advancement and promotion of plasma displays. He was a founder of Plasmaco, Inc. in 1987 with Stephen Globus and James K ...
, B.S. 1968 M.S. 1971 Ph.D. 1975), the training methodology called PdEI and the coin counter (James P. Liautaud
James P. Liautaud (October 19, 1936 – October 23, 2015) was an American industrialist, inventor and business theorist. He is the father of Jimmy John's founder Jimmy John Liautaud. Liautaud provided his son with the seed money to start his resta ...
, B.S. 1963), the statistical algorithm called Gibbs sampling in computer vision and the machine learning technique called random forests (Donald Geman
Donald Jay Geman (born September 20, 1943) is an American applied mathematician and a leading researcher in the field of machine learning and pattern recognition. He and his brother, Stuart Geman, are very well known for proposing the Gibbs sampl ...
, B.A. 1965), and are responsible for the structural design of such buildings as the Willis Tower, the John Hancock Center, and the Burj Khalifa
The Burj Khalifa (; ar, برج خليفة, , Khalifa Tower), known as the Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration in 2010, is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is known for being the world’s tallest building. With a total height ...
.
Mathematician Richard Hamming, known for the Hamming code
In computer science and telecommunication, Hamming codes are a family of linear error-correcting codes. Hamming codes can detect one-bit and two-bit errors, or correct one-bit errors without detection of uncorrected errors. By contrast, the sim ...
and Hamming distance, earned a PhD in mathematics from the university's Mathematics Department in 1942. Primetime Emmy Award
The Primetime Emmy Awards, or Primetime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the Primetime ...
-winning engineer Alan Bovik
Alan Conrad Bovik (born June 25, 1958) is an American engineer, vision scientist, and educator. He is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin), where he holds the Cockrell Family Regents Endowed Chair in the Cockrell School of ...
(B.S. 1980, M.S. 1982, Ph.D. 1984) invented neuroscience-based video quality measurement tools that pervade television, social media and home cinema. Structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan earned two master's degrees, and a PhD in structural engineering from the university.
Alumni have also led several companies, including BitTorrent (Eric Klinker
Eric Klinker is an American technology executive and is best known as the former CEO of BitTorrent. Along with Bram Cohen and three other venture capitalists, he is also on the board of governors of BitTorrent. He was instrumental in formulating ...
), Renaissance Technologies
Renaissance Technologies LLC, also known as RenTech or RenTec, is an American hedge fund based in East Setauket, New York, on Long Island, which specializes in systematic trading using quantitative models derived from mathematical and statisti ...
(Robert Mercer
Robert Leroy Mercer (born July 11, 1946) is an American hedge fund manager, computer scientist, and political donor. Mercer was an early artificial intelligence researcher and developer and is the former co-CEO of the hedge fund company Renaissan ...
), Ticketmaster, McDonald's, Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, H ...
, BP, Kodak, Shell, General Motors
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
, AT&T, and General Electric.
Alumni have founded many organizations, including the Susan G. Komen for the Cure
Susan G. Komen (formerly known as Susan G. Komen for the Cure; originally as The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation; often simply as Komen) is a breast cancer organization in the United States.
Komen focuses on patient navigation and advo ...
and Project Gutenberg, and have served in a wide variety of government and public interest roles. Rafael Correa, President of The Republic of Ecuador since January 2006 secured his M.S. and PhD degrees from the university's Economics Department in 1999 and 2001 respectively. Nathan C. Ricker attended U of I and in 1873 was the first person to graduate in the United States with a certificate in architecture. Mary L. Page
Mary Louisa Page (1849–1921) was the first American woman to graduate with an accredited architecture degree in the United States. In 1878, she graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign with a Bachelor of Science in Archite ...
, the first woman to obtain a degree in architecture, also graduated from U of I. Disability rights activist and co-organizer of the 504 Sit-in
The 504 Sit-in was a disability rights protest that began on April 5, 1977. People with disabilities and the disability community occupied federal buildings in the United States in order to push the issuance of long-delayed regulations regarding ...
, Kitty Cone
Kitty Cone (April 7, 1944 – March 21, 2015) was an American disability rights activist. She had muscular dystrophy. She moved to the California Bay Area in 1972, and began working as a community organizer for the disability rights movement in 19 ...
, attended during the 1960s, but left 6 hours short of her degree to continue her activism in New York.
In sports, baseball pitcher Ken Holtzman was a two-time All Star major leaguer, and threw two no-hitter
In baseball, a no-hitter is a game in which a team was not able to record a hit. Major League Baseball (MLB) officially defines a no-hitter as a completed game in which a team that batted in at least nine innings recorded no hits. A pitcher wh ...
s in his career. In sports entertainment, David Otunga became a two-time WWE Tag Team Champion.
Eta Kappa Nu (HKN) was founded at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as the national honor society for electrical engineering in 1904. Maurice LeRoy Carr (B.S. 1905) and Edmund B. Wheeler (B.S. 1905) were part of the founding group of ten students and they served as the first and second national presidents of HKN. The Eta Kappa Nu organization is now the international honor society for IEEE as the IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu (IEEE-HKN). The U of I collegiate chapter is known as the Alpha Chapter of HKN. Lowell P. Hager
Lowell P. Hager (1926 − 15 April 2014) was an internationally known enzymologist and protein chemist. He was head of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Illinois where he was a member of the faculty since 1960 and head of the de ...
was the head of the Department of Biochemistry from 1969 until 1989 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
in 1995.
Notes
References
Further reading
* Hoddeson, Lillian. ''No Boundaries: University of Illinois Vignettes''. (University of Illinois Press, 2004; )
* Hoganson, Kristin L. '' The Heartland: An American History'' (Penguin Random House, 2019
online reviews
* Kanfer, Alaina. ''Illini Loyalty: The University of Illinois''. (University of Illinois Press, 2011; )
* Solberg, Winton U. ''The University of Illinois, 1894–1904: The Shaping of the University''. (University of Illinois Press, 2000; )
External links
*
University of Illinois Athletics website
*
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