The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a
public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...
land-grant
A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants ...
research university
A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are the most important sites at which knowledge production occurs, along with "intergenerational kn ...
in
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...
in the
twin cities
Twin cities are a special case of two neighboring cities or urban centres that grow into a single conurbation – or narrowly separated urban areas – over time. There are no formal criteria, but twin cities are generally comparable in sta ...
of
Champaign
Champaign ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 88,302 at the 2020 census. It is the tenth-most populous municipality in Illinois and the fourth most populous city in Illinois outside the Chicago metropo ...
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 ...
institution of the
University of Illinois system
The University of Illinois System is a system of public universities in Illinois consisting of three universities: Chicago, Springfield, and Urbana-Champaign. Across its three universities, the University of Illinois System enrolls more than ...
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
The Association of American Universities (AAU) is an organization of American research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. Founded in 1900, it consists of 63 universities in the United States ( ...
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 ro ...
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
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
. The university also hosts the
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) is a state-federal partnership to develop and deploy national-scale computer infrastructure that advances research, science and engineering based in the United States. NCSA operates as a ...
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 instructio ...
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
The following is a list of science park, technology parks and biomedical parks of the world, organized by continent.
Asia
ASEAN Economic Community
Report listing all the Economic Zones in the ASEAN Economic Community froUNIDO Viet Nam China ...
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 ...
winners, two Fields medalists, and two
Turing Award
The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...
winners. Illinois athletic teams compete in
Division I of the
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...
and are collectively known as the
Fighting Illini
The Illinois Fighting Illini () are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The university offers 10 men's and 11 women's varsity sports.
The University operates a number of athletic facil ...
. They are members of the
Big Ten Conference
The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...
and have won the
second-most conference titles.
Illinois Fighting Illini football
The Illinois Fighting Illini football program represents the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) level. The Fighting Illini are a founding member of ...
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 Ro ...
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, 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
Liberal arts education (from Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as La ...
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
Lorado Zadok Taft (April 29, 1860, in Elmwood, Illinois – October 30, 1936, in Chicago) was an American sculptor, writer and educator. His 1903 book, ''The History of American Sculpture,'' was the first survey of the subject and stood for deca ...
, 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
The Illini Union, located at 1401 West Green Street in Urbana, Illinois, on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, is the student union for the University.
The building was dedicated on November 1, 1941, as the campus's ...
. 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
The University of Illinois System is a system of public universities in Illinois consisting of three universities: Chicago, Springfield, and Urbana-Champaign. Across its three universities, the University of Illinois System enrolls more than ...
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)
*Universi ...
) 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 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) 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 engineeri ...
. 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 a ...
.
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
Champaign ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 88,302 at the 2020 census. It is the tenth-most populous municipality in Illinois and the fourth most populous city in Illinois outside the Chicago metropo ...
, which form part of the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area
The Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, also known as Champaign–Urbana and Urbana–Champaign as well as Chambana (colloquially), is a metropolitan area in east-central Illinois. As defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), t ...
. 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 tra ...
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
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 ...
, 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.
Sa ...
and Champaign County. The university also maintains formal gardens and a conference center in nearby Monticello
Monticello ( ) was the primary plantation of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 26. Located just outside Charlottesville, V ...
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 ...
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 labo ...
, 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. H ...
, Louise Freer Hall, 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 es ...
. The University of Illinois 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 presid ...
is one of the few airports owned by an educational institution.
Sustainability
The Sustainable Endowments Institute 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 organizat ...
.
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
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'' 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 acceptanc ...
.
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
Coursera Inc. () is a U.S.-based massive open online course provider founded in 2012 by Stanford University computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. Coursera works with universities and other organizations to offer online courses ...
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
''Washington Monthly'' is a bimonthly, nonprofit magazine of United States politics and government that is based in Washington, D.C. The magazine is known for its annual ranking of American colleges and universities, which serves as an alternat ...
'' 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
''Kiplinger's Personal Finance'' ( ) is an American personal finance magazine published by Kiplinger since 1947. It claims to be the first American personal finance magazine and to deliver "sound, unbiased advice in clear, concise language". It ...
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
The Princeton Review is an education services company providing tutoring, test preparation and admission resources for students. It was founded in 1981. and since that time has worked with over 400 million students. Services are delivered by 4 ...
'' 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 Universi ...
'' (ARWU) and the university 38th in 2019; the university was also ranked 48th globally by the ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings
The ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'' (often referred to as the THE Rankings) is an annual publication of university rankings by the ''Times Higher Education'' (THE) magazine. The publisher had collaborated with Quacquarel ...
'' in 2020 and 75th in the world by the ''QS World University Rankings
''QS World University Rankings'' is an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). The QS system comprises three parts: the global overall ranking, the subject rankings (which name the world's top universities for th ...
'' for 2020. The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) 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
''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The Thes''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education.
Ownership
TPG Capital acquired TSL 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 National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
, 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
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
project, which was a precursor to the internet and resulted in the development of the plasma display
A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display that uses small cells containing plasma: ionized gas that responds to electric fields. Plasma televisions were the first large (over 32 inches diagonal) flat panel displays to be rele ...
. Illinois was a 2nd-generation ARPAnet
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...
site in 1971 and was the first institution to license the UNIX
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, ...
operating system from Bell Labs.
Research Park
Located in the southwest part of campus, Research Park
The following is a list of science park, technology parks and biomedical parks of the world, organized by continent.
Asia
ASEAN Economic Community
Report listing all the Economic Zones in the ASEAN Economic Community froUNIDO Viet Nam China ...
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
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) is a state-federal partnership to develop and deploy national-scale computer infrastructure that advances research, science and engineering based in the United States. NCSA operates as a ...
(NCSA), which created Mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
, the first graphical web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...
, 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 S ...
, 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 f ...
, 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 i ...
to build the National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
-funded supercomputer Blue Waters
Blue Waters was a petascale supercomputer operated by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. On August 8, 2007, the National Science Board approved a resolution which auth ...
. 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 Illinoi ...
is located on campus and is the home of the Illinois Natural History Survey
The Illinois Natural History Survey (abbreviated as INHS), located on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in Champaign, Illinois, is an active research institution with over 200 staff members, and it maintains one of th ...
, 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
The Illinois Natural History Survey (abbreviated as INHS), located on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in Champaign, Illinois, is an active research institution with over 200 staff members, and it maintains one of th ...
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, electron
The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family,
and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have n ...
s, and energetic atoms generated in plasmas and the surfaces of materials. CPMI encompasses fusion plasmas in its research.
Accolades
In Bill Gates
William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...
' 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
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
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
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 ser ...
, 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
The Institute for Condensed Matter Theory (ICMT) is an institute for the research of condensed matter theory hosted by and located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
ICMT was founded in 2007. The first director of the institute w ...
(ICMT) was launched, with the director Paul Goldbart
Paul Mark Goldbart (born August 1960 in Barnet, Hertfordshire, England) is a physicist and author, and was the first director of the Institute for Condensed Matter Theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. His research range ...
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-temperatu ...
. 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
BCS theory or Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory (named after John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and John Robert Schrieffer) is the first microscopic theory of superconductivity since Heike Kamerlingh Onnes's 1911 discovery. The theory describes sup ...
– 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 tra ...
, in collaboration with Leon Cooper and his doctoral student John Robert Schrieffer
John Robert Schrieffer (; May 31, 1931 – July 27, 2019) was an American physicist who, with John Bardeen and Leon Cooper, was a recipient of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing the BCS theory, the first successful quantum theor ...
, 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
BCS theory or Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory (named after John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and John Robert Schrieffer) is the first microscopic theory of superconductivity since Heike Kamerlingh Onnes's 1911 discovery. The theory describes sup ...
. They shared the Nobel Prize in Physics
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...
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
The ILLIAC I (Illinois Automatic Computer), a pioneering computer in the ILLIAC series of computers built in 1952 by the University of Illinois, was the first computer built and owned entirely by a United States educational institution.
Compute ...
– Illinois Automatic Computer, a pioneering computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...
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 H ...](_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
''Illiac Suite'' (later retitled String Quartet No. 4)Andrew St ...
, programmed the ILLIAC I
The ILLIAC I (Illinois Automatic Computer), a pioneering computer in the ILLIAC series of computers built in 1952 by the University of Illinois, was the first computer built and owned entirely by a United States educational institution.
Compute ...
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 t ...
– 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 violinist ...
which is generally agreed to be the first score composed by an electronic
Electronic may refer to:
*Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor
* ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal
*Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device
*Electronic co ...
computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...
.[Denis L. Baggi,]
The Role of Computer Technology in Music and Musicology
", ''lim.dico.unimi.it'' (December 9, 1998).
*LLVM
LLVM is a set of compiler and toolchain technologies that can be used to develop a front end for any programming language and a back end for any instruction set architecture. LLVM is designed around a language-independent intermediate repre ...
– 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 CE ...
started development as a research assistant and M.Sc. student.
*Mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
– The first successful consumer web browser was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) is a state-federal partnership to develop and deploy national-scale computer infrastructure that advances research, science and engineering based in the United States. NCSA operates as a ...
at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1993.
*PLATO
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
– Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations was the first generalized computer assisted instruction
Educational technology (commonly abbreviated as edutech, or edtech) is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning. When referred to with its abbreviation, edtech, it often refer ...
system. Starting in 1960, it ran on the University of Illinois' ILLIAC I
The ILLIAC I (Illinois Automatic Computer), a pioneering computer in the ILLIAC series of computers built in 1952 by the University of Illinois, was the first computer built and owned entirely by a United States educational institution.
Compute ...
computer. By the late 1970s, it supported several thousand graphics terminal
A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing data from, a computer or a computing system. The teletype was an example of an early-day hard-copy terminal and ...
s 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, enterprise ...
s. Many modern concepts in multi-user computing were developed on PLATO, including forums, message boards, online testing, e-mail
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
, 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 la ...
s, instant messaging
Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and tri ...
, remote screen sharing, 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.
*Touchscreen
A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is ofte ...
s and Plasma display
A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display that uses small cells containing plasma: ionized gas that responds to electric fields. Plasma televisions were the first large (over 32 inches diagonal) flat panel displays to be rele ...
s – 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 productivit ...
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
Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet that offers a real-time transmission of text messages from sender to receiver. Chat messages are generally short in order to enable other participants to respond quickly. Ther ...
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
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institut ...
.
* Synchronized Sound-on-film
Sound-on-film is a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying a picture is recorded on photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog ...
– 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
Mainland Chinese or Mainlanders are Chinese people who live in or have recently emigrated from mainland China, defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (PRC) except for Hong Kong ( SAR of the PRC), Macau (SAR of the PRC), ...
.[Illinois launches Chinese-language broadcasts of football games]
." ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
''. 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; c ...
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 Champa ...
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, ...
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
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of ...
.
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 (s ...
. It often worked with the Graduate Student Association to work on various projects
In 1967, Bruce A. Morrison 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
A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm) is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or universit ...
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 a ...
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 engineeri ...
) 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, 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
The William R. and Clarice V. Spurlock Museum, better known as the Spurlock Museum, is an ethnographic museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Spurlock Museum's permanent collection includes portions of collections from other ...
. 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 indust ...
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 publications.
Recreation
The campus has two main recreation facilities, the Activities and Recreation Center (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
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...
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, 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
American Airlines is a major US-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is the largest airline in the world when measured by fleet size, scheduled passengers carried, and revenue passeng ...
.
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
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...
'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 ...
, 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 college sports in the United States, 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 stat ...
in the national championship game. Illinois is a member of the Big Ten Conference
The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...
. Notable among a number of songs commonly played and sung at various events such as commencement and convocation
A convocation (from the Latin '' convocare'' meaning "to call/come together", a translation of the Greek ἐκκλησία ''ekklēsia'') is a group of people formally assembled for a special purpose, mostly ecclesiastical or academic.
In a ...
, 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 (altho ...
, 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 Ru ...
, the fight song
A fight song is a rousing short song associated with a sports team. The term is most common in the United States and Canada. In Australia, Mexico, and New Zealand these songs are called the team anthem, team song, or games song. First associated ...
; 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 w ...
, the alma mater.
On October 15, 1910, the Illinois football team defeated the University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
Maroons with a score of 3–0 in a game that Illinois claims was the first homecoming
Homecoming is the tradition of welcoming back alumni or other former members of an organization to celebrate the organization's existence. It is a tradition in many high schools, colleges, and churches in the United States, Canada and Liberia.
...
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
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...
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 is home to the university's club college ice hockey
College ice hockey is played principally in the United States and Canada, though leagues exist outside North America.
In the United States, competitive "college hockey" refers to ice hockey played between colleges and universities within the g ...
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
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...
broadcasts of its American football games as a service to its Chinese international students.
Mascot
Chief Illiniwek
Chief Illiniwek was the mascot of the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign (UIUC), associated with the university's intercollegiate athletic programs, from October 30, 1926, to February 21, 2007. Chief Illiniwek was portrayed by a student t ...
, 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 ...
. , 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 tra ...
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-temperatu ...
for physics.
The alumni of the university have created companies and products such as Netscape Communications
Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...
(formerly Mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
) (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
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
( Jerry Sanders), PayPal
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...
(Max Levchin
Maksymilian Rafailovych "Max" Levchin ( uk, Максиміліан Рафаїлович Левчин; born July 11, 1975) is a Ukrainian-American software engineer and businessman. In 1998, he co-founded the company that eventually became PayP ...
), Playboy
''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother.
K ...
(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
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
(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
Thomas M. Siebel (; born November 20, 1952) is an American billionaire businessman, technologist, and author. He was the founder of enterprise software company Siebel Systems and is the founder, chairman, and CEO of C3.ai, an artificial intellig ...
), 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
Edward John Boon (born February 22, 1964) is an American video game programmer, voice actor, and director who was employed for over 15 years at Midway Games and since 2011 has worked for Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in its daughter c ...
), CDW
CDW Corporation, headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois, is a provider of technology products and services for business, government and education. The company has a secondary division known as ''CDW-G'', devoted solely to United States govern ...
( Michael Krasny), YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
(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
Jawed Karim (বাংলাঃ জাওয়াদ করিম) (born October 28, 1979) is an American software engineer and Internet entrepreneur of Bangladeshi and German descent. He is a co-founder of YouTube and the first person to upl ...
), 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
Andreessen Horowitz (also called a16z, legal name AH Capital Management, LLC) is a private American venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.
Andreessen ...
(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
Lawrence Joseph Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American business magnate and investor who is the co-founder, executive chairman, chief technology officer (CTO) and former chief executive officer (CEO) of the American computer technology ...
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 (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!
Yelp Inc. is an American company that develops the Yelp.com website and the Yelp mobile app, which publish crowd-sourced reviews about businesses. It also operates Yelp Guest Manager, a table reservation service. It is headquartered in San Fra ...
(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
David Hyatt (born 28 June 1972) is an American software engineer and a ''Shadowrun'' game expansion author. Employed by Apple starting in 2002, he was part of the Safari web browser and WebKit framework development team. He also helped develop ...
), Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and ...
( Joe Hewitt), W. W. Grainger (William Wallace Grainger), Delta Air Lines
Delta Air Lines, Inc., typically referred to as Delta, is one of the major airlines of the United States and a legacy carrier. One of the List of airlines by foundation date, world's oldest airlines in operation, Delta is headquartered in Atla ...
(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
Beckman Coulter Inc. is a Danaher Corporation company that develops, manufactures, and markets products that simplify, automate and innovate complex biomedical testing. It operates in two industries: Diagnostics and Life Sciences. For more than ...
(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
Black Entertainment Television (acronym BET) is an American basic cable channel targeting African-American audiences. It is owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global via BET Networks and has offices in New York City, Los A ...
( Robert L. Johnson) and Tesla Motors
Tesla, Inc. ( or ) is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Tesla designs and manufactures electric vehicles (electric cars and electric truck, trucks), battery energy storage from ...
(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
Nick Holonyak Jr. ( ; November 3, 1928September 18, 2022) was an American engineer and educator. He is noted particularly for his 1962 invention and first demonstration of a semiconductor laser diode that emitted visible light. This device was t ...
, B.S. 1950, M.S. 1951, Ph.D. 1954), DSL
Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric dig ...
(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
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...
(Brendan Eich
Brendan Eich (; born July 4, 1961) is an American computer programmer and technology executive. He created the JavaScript programming language and co-founded the Mozilla project, the Mozilla Foundation, and the Mozilla Corporation. He served as ...
, 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
Jack St. Clair Kilby (November 8, 1923 – June 20, 2005) was an American electrical engineer who took part (along with Robert Noyce of Fairchild) in the realization of the first integrated circuit while working at Texas Instruments (TI) in 1 ...
, B.S. 1947), the transistor
upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink).
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch e ...
(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 tra ...
, faculty, 1951–1991), the pH meter
A pH meter is a scientific instrument that measures the hydrogen-ion activity in water-based solutions, indicating its acidity or alkalinity expressed as pH. The pH meter measures the difference in electrical potential between a pH electro ...
(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
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio waves ...
(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
A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display that uses small cells containing plasma: ionized gas that responds to electric fields. Plasma televisions were the first large (over 32 inches diagonal) flat panel displays to be releas ...
(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 productivit ...
, B.S. 1955, M.S. 1956, Ph.D. 1960), color plasma display ( Larry F. Weber, 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 statistics, Gibbs sampling or a Gibbs sampler is a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm for obtaining a sequence of observations which are approximated from a specified multivariate probability distribution, when direct sampling is dif ...
in computer vision and the machine learning technique called random forests
Random forests or random decision forests is an ensemble learning method for classification, regression and other tasks that operates by constructing a multitude of decision trees at training time. For classification tasks, the output of th ...
(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 Willis Tower (originally the Sears Tower) is a 108-story, skyscraper in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, United States. Designed by architect Bruce Graham and engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), ...
, the John Hancock Center
The John Hancock Center is a 100-story, 1,128-foot supertall skyscraper located in Chicago, Illinois. Located in the Magnificent Mile district, the building was officially renamed 875 North Michigan Avenue in 2018.
The skyscraper was designed ...
, 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
Richard Wesley Hamming (February 11, 1915 – January 7, 1998) was an American mathematician whose work had many implications for computer engineering and telecommunications. His contributions include the Hamming code (which makes use of a Ha ...
, 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
In information theory, the Hamming distance between two strings of equal length is the number of positions at which the corresponding symbols are different. In other words, it measures the minimum number of ''substitutions'' required to chan ...
, 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
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
, social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
and home cinema
Home cinema, also called home theaters or theater rooms, are home entertainment audio-visual systems that seek to reproduce a movie theater experience and mood using consumer electronics-grade video and audio equipment that is set up in a roo ...
. Structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan
Fazlur Rahman Khan ( bn, ফজলুর রহমান খান, ''Fozlur Rôhman Khan''; 3 April 1929 – 27 March 1982) was a Bangladeshi-American structural engineer and architect, who initiated important structural systems for skyscrape ...
earned two master's degrees, and a PhD in structural engineering from the university.
Alumni have also led several companies, including BitTorrent ( Eric Klinker), 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
Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. is an American ticket sales and distribution company based in Beverly Hills, California with operations in many countries around the world. In 2010, it merged with Live Nation under the name Live Nation Entert ...
, McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...
, 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
The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
, Shell
Shell may refer to:
Architecture and design
* Shell (structure), a thin structure
** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses
** Thin-shell structure
Science Biology
* Seashell, a hard o ...
, 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
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...
, and General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...
.
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
Project Gutenberg (PG) is a Virtual volunteering, volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks."
It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the ...
, and have served in a wide variety of government and public interest roles. Rafael Correa
Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado (; born 6 April 1963), known as Rafael Correa, is an Ecuadorian politician and economist who served as President of Ecuador from 2007 to 2017. The leader of the PAIS Alliance political movement from its foundation ...
, 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, 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
Kenneth Dale Holtzman (born November 3, 1945) is an American former professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as a left-handed pitcher from through , most notably as a member of the Chicago Cubs for whom he pitche ...
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
David Daniel Otunga''Lawyer ' (born April 7, 1980) is an American actor and former professional wrestler. Otunga is best known for his time working with WWE. He was the runner-up on the first season of ''NXT''. He is also an original member of ...
became a two-time WWE Tag Team Champion.
Eta Kappa Nu
Eta Kappa Nu () or IEEE-HKN is the international honor society of the Computer Science and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). "The organization promotes excellence in the profession and in education through an emphasis ...
(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
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...
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 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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