University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Encyclopedia
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (U of I, UIUC, or simply Illinois) is a large public
research-intensive university in the state
of Illinois
, United States
. It is the flagship campus
of the University of Illinois system
. The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is the second oldest public university in the state, second to Illinois State University
, and is a founding member of the Big Ten Conference
. It is considered a Public Ivy
and is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities
. The university is designated as a RU/VH Research University (very high research activities). The campus library system is one of the largest public academic collections in the world. It possesses the third-largest university library in the United States (only the collections of Harvard and Yale are larger), and the sixth-largest in the country overall.
The university comprises 17 colleges that offer more than 150 programs of study. Additionally, the university operates an extension that serves 2.7 million registrants per year around the state of Illinois and beyond. The campus holds 286 buildings on 1468 acres (594 ha) in the twin cities of Champaign
and Urbana
; its annual operating budget in 2011 was over $1.7 billion.
The undergraduate program was ranked 45th among national universities and 13th among public universities by U.S. News & World Report
in their 2012 rankings, According to the 2010 Academic Ranking of World Universities, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign ranked 25th out of the more than 1,000 international institutions recognized. U of I is also home to many top-flight graduate programs; the graduate programs in College of Engineering
, Accounting, Library Science
, Psychology, and Computer Science
are all ranked by US News in the top five programs in the United States, and the Urban Planning
program is ranked by Planetizen as one of the top five US programs.
.
After a fierce bidding war between a number of Illinois cities, Urbana
was selected in 1867 as the site for the new school. From the beginning, Gregory's desire to establish an institution firmly grounded in the liberal arts
tradition was at odds with many State residents and lawmakers who wanted the university to offer classes based solely around "industrial education" The University finally opened for classes on March 2, 1868, with only two faculty members and a small group of students. The debate between the liberal arts curriculum and industrial education continued in the University's inaugural address, as Dr. Newton Bateman outlined the various interpretations of the Morrill Act in his speech. Gregory's thirteen year tenure would be marred by this debate. Clashes between Gregory and legislators and lawmakers forced his resignation from his post as president in 1880, saying "[I am] staggering under too heavy a load of cares, and irritated by what has sometimes seemed as needless opposition." Today, Gregory is largely credited with establishing the University and forming it into the major interdisciplinary university it is today. Gregory's grave is still located on the Urbana campus, situated between Altgeld Hall and the Henry Administration Building. His marker (mimicking the epitaph of British architect Christopher Wren
) reads, "If you seek his monument, look about you."
The university experienced rapid growth following World War II under president David Henry, under whom the university doubled enrollment and significantly improved its academic standing. This period was also marked by large growth in the Graduate College and increased federal support of scientific and technological research. The state of Illinois supplied roughly two-thirds of the university's budget while the federal government funded 90% of research. 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 strongly shifted away from relying on state support with nearly 84% of the budget now coming from other sources.
The main research and academic facilities are divided almost exactly between the twin cities of Urbana
and Champaign
. The College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences'
research fields stretch south from Urbana and Champaign into Savoy
and Champaign County
. The university maintains formal gardens and a conference center in nearby Monticello
at Allerton Park
.
U of I is one of the few educational institutions to own an airport. Willard Airport
, named for former University of Illinois president Arthur Cutts Willard, is located in Savoy. It was completed in 1945 and began service in 1954. Willard Airport is home to University research projects and the University's Institute of Aviation
, along with flights from American Airlines.
The campus is based on the quadrangle
design popular at many universities. Four main quads compose the center of the university and are arranged from north to south. The Beckman Quadrangle and the John Bardeen
Quadrangle occupy the center of the Engineering Campus
. Boneyard Creek
flows through the John Bardeen Quadrangle, paralleling Green Street. The Beckman Quadrangle 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.
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 comprise of 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.
In his remarks on the creation of the Office of Sustainability in September, 2008, Chancellor Richard Herman 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."
, Illinois offers a wide range of disciplines in undergraduate and postgraduate programs. It is also listed as one of the Top 25 American Research Universities by The Center for Measuring University Performance. Beside annual influx of grants and sponsored projects, the university manages an extensive modern research infrastructure. The university has been a leader in computer based education and hosted the PLATO
project, which was a precursor to the internet and resulted in the development of the plasma display
.
The university hosts the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
(NCSA), which created Mosaic
, the first graphical Web
browser, the foundation upon which Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer are based, the Apache HTTP server
, and NCSA Telnet
. The Parallel@Illinois program hosts several programs in parallel computing
, including the Universal Parallel Computing Research Center
. The university is currently collaborating with IBM
and the National Science Foundation
to build the world's fastest supercomputer. This supercomputer, named "Blue Waters
," aims to be capable of performing one quadrillion calculations per second. If completed, this would make Blue Waters three times faster than today's fastest supercomputer. The university whimsically celebrated January 12, 1997 as the "birthday" of HAL 9000
, 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.
In 1952, the university built the ILLIAC
(Illinois Automatic Computer), the first computer built and owned entirely by an educational institution. U of I is also the site of the Department of Energy
's Center for the Simulation of Advanced Rockets
, an institute which has employed graduate and faculty researchers in the physical sciences and mathematics. It performs materials science
and condensed matter physics
research, and is home to Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory as well as the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory. Two complexes for research and teaching recently opened, Siebel Center for Computer Science in 2004 and the Institute for Genomic Biology in 2006. The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, however, is still the largest interdisciplinary facility on campus with 313000 square feet (29,078.7 m²). Both the Illinois Natural History Survey
and Illinois State Geological Survey are located on campus and affiliated with the university. The university also conducts agricultural
and horticultural
research.
Since 1957 the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program (ITARP) has conducted archaeological and historical compliance work for the Illinois Department of Transportation. ITARP serves as a repository for a large collection of Illinois archaeological artifacts now numbering over 17,000 boxes. One of the major collections is from the Cahokia Mounds, for which ITARP has over 550 boxes. An on-line database will soon be mounted for the Cahokia collection, funded by a 2008–2010 National Endowment for the Humanities grant.
In the 24 February 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," Bill Gates
has mentioned that Microsoft hires more graduates from the University of Illinois than from any other university in the world. Alumnus William M. Holt, a Senior Vice-President of Intel, also mentioned in a campus talk in 27 September 2007 entitled "R&D to Deliver Practical Results: Extending Moore's Law" that Intel hires more PhD graduates from the University of Illinois than from any other university in the country.
In 2007, the university-hosted research Institute for Condensed Matter Theory
(ICMT) was launched, with the director Paul Goldbart and the chief scientist Anthony Leggett. ICMT is currently located at the Engineering Science Building on campus.
score of 27 or higher, 31% had an SAT
combined Math & Critical Reading score above 1,400 (excludes Writing), and 59% of the incoming students were top 10% of their high school class. Some of the university's colleges admit students at an even more competitive level. For incoming freshmen in 2008, the College of Engineering
reported an ACT score interquartile range
of 30–33, the College of Business
reported an ACT score IQR of 28–32, and the College of Media, in 2008, the first year it accepted freshmen, reported an ACT IQR of 27–32, higher than the overall campus median (though still lower than that of the College of Engineering). Of graduates, Illinois ended up as one of the top 12 (percentage) and top 6 (numerical) feeder state colleges to elite professional schools.
in both Urbana and Champaign.
All undergraduates within the University housing system are required to purchase some level of meal plan, although they are free to eat elsewhere if they choose. Graduate housing is usually offered through two graduate dormitories, restricted to those over twenty years of age, and through two university-owned apartment complexes. However, the recent record-sized freshman class has forced the housing division to convert one of the graduate dormitories into undergraduate housing. Students with disabilities are provided special housing options to accommodate their needs.
There are a number of private dormitories around campus, as well as a few houses that are outside of the Greek system and offer a more communal living experience. The private dorms tend to be more expensive to live in compared to other housing options. Private, certified residences maintain reciprocity agreements with the University, allowing students to move between the public and private housing systems if they are dissatisfied with their living conditions.
Most undergraduates choose to move into apartments or the Greek houses after their first or second year. The University Tenant Union offers advice on choosing apartments and the process of signing a lease.
, was installed at the university in 1913. The Epsilon chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi was the fifth chapter chartered in the United States after its first incorporation at New York University
in 1904. As of 2011, the Epsilon chapter is only one of eight chapters internationally to receive membership awards. Notable alumni from the Epsilon chapter include former Illinois Senator Paul Douglas
, Governor Otto Kerner
, U.S. Steel President Leslie Worthington. Other business fraternities at the university include Delta Sigma Pi (Upsilon), Phi Chi Theta (Zeta Gamma) and Phi Gamma Nu (Beta Pi chapter).
are larger. Currently, the University of Illinois' main library and 40 other departmental libraries and divisions hold more than 22 million
items, including more than 12 million volumes. As of 2006, it had also the largest "browsable" university library in the United States, with 7.5 million volumes directly accessible in stacks in a single location. UIUC also has the largest public engineering library (Grainger Engineering Library
) in the country.
The online catalog is used by over one million people monthly. In addition to the main library building, which houses nearly 20 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
on the John Bardeen Quad
.
The University of Illinois 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, including undergraduate and graduate students, and university faculty and staff.
All together there are more than 40 departmental or school libraries on campus.
(ARC, formerly known as IMPE), were upgraded. The campus also has more than a thousand clubs and organizations, ranging from cultural and athletic to subject area to philanthropic. Students can create their own Registered Student Organization if the pursuing interest/concern is not addressed by the current entities.
. The MTD receives a student-approved transportation fee from the university, which provides unlimited access
for university students. In addition, the university pays for universal access for all its faculty and staff. As part of this arrangement, the MTD also runs a bus line between Willard Airport and Illinois Terminal, a multi-modal transportation facility which includes Amtrak
and Greyhound
– making it the focal point of Champaign-Urbana's
public transportation systems.
The university maintains an extensive system of off-street bike paths and on-street bike lanes on campus. All students are expected to register their bicycles with the campus public safety
department.
's Division 1. The university's athletic teams are known as the Fighting Illini
. The university operates a number of athletic facilities, including Memorial Stadium
for football
, the Assembly Hall
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
in the national championship game
.
Illinois is a member of the Big Ten Conference
.
On October 15, 1910, the Illinois football team defeated the University of Chicago
Maroons with a score of 3–0 in a game that Illinois claims was the first homecoming
game, though several other schools claim to have held the first homecoming as well.
On November 10, 2007, the unranked Illinois football team defeated the #1 ranked Ohio State football team in Ohio Stadium
, the first time that the Illini beat a #1 ranked team on the road.
The University of Illinois Ice Arena
is home to the university's club college ice hockey team competing at the ACHA Division I
level and is also available for recreational use through the Division of Campus Recreation. It was built in 1931 and designed by Chicago architecture firm Holabird and Root, the same firm that designed the University of Illinois Memorial Stadium and Chicago's Soldier Field. It is located on Armory Drive across from the Armory. The structure features 4 rows of bleacher seating in an elevated balcony that runs the length of the ice rink on either side. These bleachers provide seating for roughly 1,200 fans, with standing room and bench seating available underneath. Because of this set-up the team benches are actually directly underneath the stands.
Chief Illiniwek
, or 'The Chief', was the university's official athletic symbol from 1926 until February 21, 2007. Use of the Chief garnered criticism for the university starting in the mid-1970s from Native Americans
and others as a misappropriation and inaccurate portrayal of indigenous culture. The university officials announced the end of the Chief Illiniwek era on February 16, 2007.
Notable among a number of songs commonly played and sung at various events such as commencement
and convocation
, and athletic games are: Illinois Loyalty
, the school song, Oskee Wow Wow, the fight song
, and Hail to the Orange, the alma mater
, which was based on "Sammy,"a song from Williston Northampton School
, a prep School in Easthampton, Massachusetts.
of summa cum laude. Graduating students awarded University Honors 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.
.
laureates and 20 have won a Pulitzer Prize
. In particular,
John Bardeen
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 of Illinois.
In 2003, two faculty members won Nobel prizes in different disciplines:
Paul C. Lauterbur for physiology or medicine, and Anthony Leggett for
physics. Most recently, in 2007, Don Wuebbles, Atul Jain, John Walsh and Michael Schlesinger, professors in the Department of Atmospheric Science, were awarded a share of the Nobel Peace Prize for their contributions and collaboration with the IPCC
.
Fazlur Rahman Khan, considered to be the Einstein
of structural engineering
and the Greatest Structural Engineer of the of the 20th Century
Alumni have created companies and products such as Netscape Communications, AMD, PayPal
, Playboy
, National Football League
, Siebel Systems
, Mortal Kombat
, CDW
, YouTube
, THX
, Oracle
, Lotus
, Mosaic
, Safari
, Firefox, W. W. Grainger
, Delta Air Lines
, BET
, and Tesla Motors
.
Alumni and faculty have invented the LED
, JavaScript
, the integrated circuit
, the quantum well laser
, the transistor
, MRI, and the plasma screen, and are responsible for the structural design of such buildings as the Willis Tower, the John Hancock Center
, and the Burj Khalifa.
Alumni founded the Susan G. Komen for the Cure
, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Project Gutenberg
, and have served in a wide variety of government and public interest roles.
Rafael Correa
, re-elected President of The Republic of Ecuador
in April 2009 secured his M.S.
and Ph.D 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 degree in Architecture. Mary L. Page, the first woman to obtain a degree in architecture, also graduated from U of I.
Philanthropic giving to the university comes in the form of annual giving, major gifts, and estate planning. Annual giving is generally unrestricted by the donor and can be spent by the campus to meet immediate needs to maintain basic operations. Major gifts are typically put into an endowment at the donor's wishes, where the principal of the gift is invested while the interest is distributed to the campus department in which the donor designated their gift to be used. This practice of investing the principal in an endowment and only spending the interest, is done to secure the gift in perpetuity. In some cases, major gifts are used immediately for building campaigns such as the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
, The Beckman Institute
, or The Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science. Estate planning is another type of giving whereby a donor makes provisions in their will or estate documents which identifies the University of Illinois as a beneficiary.
Alumni play the largest role in philanthropic giving to the university. The most notable donors are Thomas M. Siebel
and his wife Stacey who recently gave a $100 million estate gift to the university after they had given $36 million to build the Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science, $10 million to endow the Siebel Scholars program, $2 million to endow the Thomas M. Siebel Chair in Computer Science and $2 million to endow the Thomas M. Siebel Chair in the History of Science. Other notable donors include Sohaib Abbasi and his wife, Sara, who established the Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Professorship to enable the CS department to maintain its stature as one of the nation's premiere departments and give students the opportunity to learn from a world-renowned computer scientist and educator. They have also endowed the Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Fellowship to allow up to 5 graduate students each year, the opportunity to study computer science at one of the nation's top ranked computer science departments.
Stanley O. and Judith L. Ikenberry were the 14th President and First Lady of the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois from 1979–1995. The Ikenberrys established the Stanley O. and Judith L. Ikenberry Endowment for Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. This gift supports the presentation of guest artists at the Center as part of the Marquee Endowment.
.
The University of Illinois is considered a "Public Ivy
" and is measured comprehensively as one of the top 20 major research universities in the United States by a Graham-Diamond Report.
International rankings by The Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University
suggest that Illinois is the 19th best university in North America, and 25th best university in the world. The Academic Ranking of World Universities by Broad Subject Fields from the same research center in 2008 positions Illinois in 3rd for Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences in the world. It is ranked 19th for Life and Agriculture Sciences, 20th for Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and 51st for Social Sciences.
In 2011, Illinois was ranked 61st in the world by QS World University Rankings
, increasing its position from the 2009 THE-QS World University Rankings (in 2010, Times Higher Education World University Rankings
and QS World University Rankings
parted ways to produce separate rankings). However, Illinois had been ranked within the top 40 in the past. The THE-QS rankings have been criticized due to their volatility: it stressed international popularity and ranks fluctuated tens of places from one year to the next. The WSJ ranking of business schools also has this inherited anomaly, attributable to its survey method.
The Institute for Labor and Industrial Relations has been recognized consistently as one of the top three programs for Human Resources and Labor Relations studies in the United States.
In the 2008 release of Webometrics Ranking of World Universities
by Cybermetrics Lab, which is a research unit of the National Research Council of Spain, the University was ranked 9th. In 2006, G-Factor, another academic list trying to measure social network efficacy of universities, has ranked Illinois within the top eight.
A human competitiveness index and analysis by the Human Resources & Labor Review, and published in Chasecareer Network, ranked the university 25th internationally in 2010.
As of 2007, Washington Monthly ranks Illinois as the 11th best university in the nation, and 9th among public universities.
The methodology of the ranking includes "how well it performs as an engine of social mobility," "how well it does in fostering scientific and humanistic research," and "how well it promotes an ethic of service to country."
Newsweek International listed Illinois as one of Top 100 Global Universities, which "takes into account openness and diversity, as well as distinction in research." Kiplinger's Personal Finance
also listed Illinois in its 100 Best Values in Public Colleges, which "measures academic quality, cost and financial aid."
The Princeton Review has elected Illinois one of the 366 best colleges out of nearly 5,000 degree-granting institutions of higher education in the United States. Nonetheless, the university has come under criticism for its use of graduate teaching assistants in teaching undergraduate courses, including upper-level undergraduate courses. For two consecutive years, the Urbana–Champaign campus topped this review's category of "teaching assistants teach too many upper level courses." However, the Princeton Review's ranking has been scrutinized for its lack of accountability as the Review's ranking categorical data rely mainly upon student random sampling.
noted that between 2005 and 2009 university trustees, president, chancellor, and other administrators pressured admissions officials into admitting under-qualified but politically well-connected applicants into the university. Although University officials initially denied, then downplayed the existence of a "clout list", the university later announced it would form a panel of internal and external representatives to review the past admissions process and determine possible changes.
. The Alliance Defense Fund
has taken up Dr. Howell's case, stating that his dismissal is a violation of academic freedom
and the First Amendment
. The University's position, as stated by Ann Mester, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, is that Dr. Howell's comments "violate university standards of inclusivity, which would then entitle us to have him discontinue his teaching arrangement with us."
Dr. Howell was reinstated by the University of Illinois as an adjunct instructor for the fall 2010 term to teach "Introduction to Catholicism", resolving the situation for the time being. The university announced on July 28 that it would follow the recommendation of the Academic Senate's General University Policy Committee to begin paying the salary of instructors teaching Catholic studies courses. St. John's Catholic Newman Center previously paid instructor salaries. The matter is currently under review by the Academic Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure.
Public university
A public university is a university that is predominantly funded by public means through a national or subnational government, as opposed to private universities. A national university may or may not be considered a public university, depending on regions...
research-intensive university in the state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
of Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It is the flagship campus
Campus
A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls and park-like settings...
of the University of Illinois system
University of Illinois system
The University of Illinois is a system of public universities in Illinois consisting of three campuses: Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, and Springfield. Across its three campuses, the University of Illinois enrolls about 70,000 students. It had an operating budget of $4.17 billion in 2007.-System:The...
. The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is the second oldest public university in the state, second to Illinois State University
Illinois State University
Illinois State University , founded in 1857, is the oldest public university in Illinois; it is located in the town of Normal. ISU is considered a "national university" that grants a variety of doctoral degrees and strongly emphasizes research; it is also recognized as one of the top ten largest...
, and is a founding member of the Big Ten Conference
Big Ten Conference
The Big Ten Conference is the United States' oldest Division I college athletic conference. Its twelve member institutions are located primarily in the Midwestern United States, stretching from Nebraska in the west to Pennsylvania in the east...
. It is considered a Public Ivy
Public Ivy
Public Ivy is a term coined by Richard Moll in his 1985 book Public Ivies: A Guide to America's best public undergraduate colleges and universities to refer to universities which "provide an Ivy League collegiate experience at a public school price." Public Ivies are considered, according to the...
and is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities
Association of American Universities
The Association of American Universities is an organization of leading research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education...
. The university is designated as a RU/VH Research University (very high research activities). The campus library system is one of the largest public academic collections in the world. It possesses the third-largest university library in the United States (only the collections of Harvard and Yale are larger), and the sixth-largest in the country overall.
The university comprises 17 colleges that offer more than 150 programs of study. Additionally, the university operates an extension that serves 2.7 million registrants per year around the state of Illinois and beyond. The campus holds 286 buildings on 1468 acres (594 ha) in the twin cities of Champaign
Champaign, Illinois
Champaign is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, in the United States. The city is located south of Chicago, west of Indianapolis, Indiana, and 178 miles northeast of St. Louis, Missouri. Though surrounded by farm communities, Champaign is notable for sharing the campus of the University of...
and Urbana
Urbana, Illinois
Urbana is the county seat of Champaign County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 41,250. Urbana is the tenth-most populous city in Illinois outside of the Chicago metropolitan area....
; its annual operating budget in 2011 was over $1.7 billion.
The undergraduate program was ranked 45th among national universities and 13th among public universities by U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
in their 2012 rankings, According to the 2010 Academic Ranking of World Universities, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign ranked 25th out of the more than 1,000 international institutions recognized. U of I is also home to many top-flight graduate programs; the graduate programs in College of Engineering
UIUC College of Engineering
The College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign was first established in 1868, and is considered one of the original units of the school. The presence of a steam engine on the University's seal is a good clue as to the importance of the engineering program to the...
, Accounting, Library Science
Library science
Library science is an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, and other areas to libraries; the collection, organization, preservation, and dissemination of information resources; and the...
, Psychology, and Computer Science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
are all ranked by US News in the top five programs in the United States, and the Urban Planning
Urban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
program is ranked by Planetizen as one of the top five US programs.
History
The Morrill Act of 1862 granted each state in the United States a portion of land on which to establish a major public state university, one which could teach agriculture, mechanic arts, and military training, "without excluding other scientific and classical studies." This phrase would engender controversy over the University's initial academic philosophies, polarizing the relationship between the people of Illinois and the University's first president, John Milton GregoryJohn Milton Gregory
John Milton Gregory was elected Superintendent of Public Instruction in Michigan in 1858, after several years spent as editor of the Michigan Journal of Education. After leaving office in 1864 he became the second president of Kalamazoo College from 1864 until 1867...
.
After a fierce bidding war between a number of Illinois cities, Urbana
Urbana, Illinois
Urbana is the county seat of Champaign County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 41,250. Urbana is the tenth-most populous city in Illinois outside of the Chicago metropolitan area....
was selected in 1867 as the site for the new school. From the beginning, Gregory's desire to establish an institution firmly grounded in the liberal arts
Liberal arts
The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...
tradition was at odds with many State residents and lawmakers who wanted the university to offer classes based solely around "industrial education" The University finally opened for classes on March 2, 1868, with only two faculty members and a small group of students. The debate between the liberal arts curriculum and industrial education continued in the University's inaugural address, as Dr. Newton Bateman outlined the various interpretations of the Morrill Act in his speech. Gregory's thirteen year tenure would be marred by this debate. Clashes between Gregory and legislators and lawmakers forced his resignation from his post as president in 1880, saying "[I am] staggering under too heavy a load of cares, and irritated by what has sometimes seemed as needless opposition." Today, Gregory is largely credited with establishing the University and forming it into the major interdisciplinary university it is today. Gregory's grave is still located on the Urbana campus, situated between Altgeld Hall and the Henry Administration Building. His marker (mimicking the epitaph of British architect Christopher Wren
Christopher Wren
Sir Christopher Wren FRS is one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history.He used to be accorded responsibility for rebuilding 51 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710...
) reads, "If you seek his monument, look about you."
The university experienced rapid growth following World War II under president David Henry, under whom the university doubled enrollment and significantly improved its academic standing. This period was also marked by large growth in the Graduate College and increased federal support of scientific and technological research. The state of Illinois supplied roughly two-thirds of the university's budget while the federal government funded 90% of research. 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 strongly shifted away from relying on state support with nearly 84% of the budget now coming from other sources.
Evolution of name
The original proposed name in 1867 was "Illinois Industrial University." In 1885, the Illinois Industrial University officially changed its name to the University of Illinois, reflecting its holistic agricultural, mechanical, and liberal arts curricula. This remained the official name for nearly 100 years, until it was changed to The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1982, ostensibly to establish a separate identity for the campus within the University of Illinois system. However, after a century's use, UIUC continues to be known and referred to as "The University of Illinois", or just "Illinois"; this is true in both the media, and on many of UIUC's web pages. Starting in 2008, the university began strongly rebranding itself as "Illinois" rather than UIUC, changing the website URL from uiuc.edu to Illinois.edu as well as all email addresses.Colleges and schools
UIUC offers study through 16 colleges. Advanced undergraduate students may participate in a rigorous course of study through the James Scholar Honors Program and earn highest distinctions with University Honors.Campus
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.Urbana, Illinois
Urbana is the county seat of Champaign County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 41,250. Urbana is the tenth-most populous city in Illinois outside of the Chicago metropolitan area....
and Champaign
Champaign, Illinois
Champaign is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, in the United States. The city is located south of Chicago, west of Indianapolis, Indiana, and 178 miles northeast of St. Louis, Missouri. Though surrounded by farm communities, Champaign is notable for sharing the campus of the University of...
. The College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences'
UIUC College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences is part of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is considered by some to be the top school of agriculture-related sciences in the world...
research fields stretch south from Urbana and Champaign into Savoy
Savoy, Illinois
Savoy is a village in Champaign County, Illinois, United States, and a suburb of the city of Champaign, Illinois. The population was 7,280 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Savoy is located at ....
and Champaign County
Champaign County, Illinois
Champaign County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 201,081, which is an increase of 11.9% from 179,669 in 2000.. It is the 10th most populous county in Illinois...
. The university maintains formal gardens and a conference center in nearby Monticello
Monticello, Illinois
Monticello is a city in Piatt County, Illinois, United States. The population was 5,138 at the 2000 census, and 5,374 at a 2009 estimate. It is the county seat of Piatt County.-Geography:Monticello is located at ....
at Allerton Park
Robert Allerton Park
The Robert Allerton Park is a 1,517 acre park, nature center, and conference center located near Monticello, Illinois on the upper Sangamon River...
.
U of I is one of the few educational institutions to own an airport. Willard Airport
University of Illinois Willard Airport
University of Illinois Willard Airport is an airport owned and operated by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign located south of Savoy in Tolono Township, Champaign County, Illinois. It serves the greater Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Area in East Central Illinois...
, named for former University of Illinois president Arthur Cutts Willard, is located in Savoy. It was completed in 1945 and began service in 1954. Willard Airport is home to University research projects and the University's Institute of Aviation
University of Illinois Institute of Aviation
The University of Illinois Institute of Aviation is an aviation institute affiliated with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Founded in 1946, it is located at the university-owned Willard Airport in Savoy, Illinois...
, along with flights from American Airlines.
The campus is based on the quadrangle
Quadrangle (architecture)
In architecture, a quadrangle is a space or courtyard, usually rectangular in plan, the sides of which are entirely or mainly occupied by parts of a large building. The word is probably most closely associated with college or university campus architecture, but quadrangles may be found in other...
design popular at many universities. 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
John Bardeen was an American physicist and electrical engineer, the only person to have won the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the transistor; and again in 1972 with Leon Neil Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer for a...
Quadrangle occupy the center of the Engineering Campus
UIUC Engineering Campus
The Engineering Campus is the colloquial name for the Bardeen Quadrangle and the Beckman Quadrangle at the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.-Bardeen Quadrangle:...
. Boneyard Creek
Boneyard Creek
Boneyard Creek is a waterway that drains much of the cities of Champaign and Urbana, Illinois. It is a tributary of the Saline Branch of the Salt Fork Vermilion River, which is a tributary of the south-flowing Vermilion River and the Wabash River. The creek flows through the northern sections of...
flows through the John Bardeen Quadrangle, paralleling Green Street. The Beckman Quadrangle 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
UIUC College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is the largest college in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, created in 1913 through the merger of the College of Literature and Arts and the College of Science. It has nationally ranked programs in chemistry, psychology and speech communications...
portion of the campus, while the latter comprises many of the buildings of the College of ACES
UIUC College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences is part of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is considered by some to be the top school of agriculture-related sciences in the world...
spread across the campus map.
Sustainability
In October, 2010, 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 LEEDLeadership in Energy and Environmental Design
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design consists of a suite of rating systems for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings, homes and neighborhoods....
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 comprise of 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.
In his remarks on the creation of the Office of Sustainability in September, 2008, Chancellor Richard Herman 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."
Research
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is often regarded as a world-leading magnet for engineering and sciences (both applied and basic). Having been classified into the category comprehensive doctoral with medical/veterinary and very high research activity, by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of TeachingThe Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered in 1906 by an act of the United States Congress, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is an independent policy and research center, whose primary activities of research and writing have resulted in published reports on every level...
, Illinois offers a wide range of disciplines in undergraduate and postgraduate programs. It is also listed as one of the Top 25 American Research Universities by The Center for Measuring University Performance. 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
PLATO was the first generalized computer assisted instruction system, and, by the late 1970s, comprised several thousand terminals worldwide on nearly a dozen different networked mainframe computers...
project, which was a precursor to the internet and resulted in the development of the plasma display
Plasma display
A plasma display panel is a type of flat panel display common to large TV displays or larger. They are called "plasma" displays because the technology utilizes small cells containing electrically charged ionized gases, or what are in essence chambers more commonly known as fluorescent...
.
The university hosts the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications is an American state-federal partnership to develop and deploy national-scale cyberinfrastructure that advances science and engineering. NCSA operates as a unit of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign but it provides high-performance...
(NCSA), which created Mosaic
Mosaic (web browser)
Mosaic is the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web. It was also a client for earlier protocols such as FTP, NNTP, and gopher. Its clean, easily understood user interface, reliability, Windows port and simple installation all contributed to making it the application that opened...
, the first graphical Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
browser, the foundation upon which Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer are based, the Apache HTTP server
Apache HTTP Server
The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million website milestone...
, and NCSA Telnet
NCSA Telnet
NCSA Telnet is an implementation of the TELNET protocol created at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign National Center for Supercomputing Applications in 1986 and continuously developed until 1995...
. The Parallel@Illinois program hosts several programs in parallel computing
Parallel computing
Parallel computing is a form of computation in which many calculations are carried out simultaneously, operating on the principle that large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which are then solved concurrently . There are several different forms of parallel computing: bit-level,...
, including the Universal Parallel Computing Research Center
UPCRC Illinois
UPCRC Illinois is one of two Universal Parallel Computing Research Centers launched in 2008 by Microsoft Corporation and Intel Corporation to accelerate the development of mainstream parallel computing for consumer and business applications such as desktop and mobile computing...
. The university is currently collaborating with IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
and the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
to build the world's fastest supercomputer. This supercomputer, named "Blue Waters
Blue Waters
Blue Waters is the name of a petascale supercomputer to be deployed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign...
," aims to be capable of performing one quadrillion calculations per second. If completed, this would make Blue Waters three times faster than today's fastest supercomputer. The university whimsically celebrated January 12, 1997 as the "birthday" of HAL 9000
HAL 9000
HAL 9000 is the antagonist in Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction Space Odyssey saga. HAL is an artificial intelligence that interacts with the astronaut crew of the Discovery One spacecraft, usually represented as a red television-camera eye found throughout the ship...
, 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.
In 1952, the university built the ILLIAC
ILLIAC
ILLIAC was a series of supercomputers built at a variety of locations, some at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In all, five computers were built in this series between 1951 and 1974...
(Illinois Automatic Computer), the first computer built and owned entirely by an educational institution. U of I is also the site of the Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
's Center for the Simulation of Advanced Rockets
Center for the Simulation of Advanced Rockets
The Center for Simulation of Advanced Rockets is an interdisciplinary research group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and is part of the United States Department of Energy's Advanced Simulation and Computing Program...
, an institute which has employed graduate and faculty researchers in the physical sciences and mathematics. It performs materials science
Materials science
Materials science is an interdisciplinary field applying the properties of matter to various areas of science and engineering. This scientific field investigates the relationship between the structure of materials at atomic or molecular scales and their macroscopic properties. It incorporates...
and condensed matter physics
Condensed matter physics
Condensed matter physics deals with the physical properties of condensed phases of matter. These properties appear when a number of atoms at the supramolecular and macromolecular scale interact strongly and adhere to each other or are otherwise highly concentrated in a system. The most familiar...
research, and is home to Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory as well as the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory. Two complexes for research and teaching recently opened, Siebel Center for Computer Science in 2004 and the Institute for Genomic Biology in 2006. The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, however, is still the largest interdisciplinary facility on campus with 313000 square feet (29,078.7 m²). Both the Illinois Natural History Survey
Illinois Natural History Survey
The Illinois Natural History Survey , 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 the largest State-operated museums in the United States, with collections...
and Illinois State Geological Survey are located on campus and affiliated with the university. The university also conducts agricultural
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
and horticultural
Horticulture
Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant breeding and genetic...
research.
Since 1957 the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program (ITARP) has conducted archaeological and historical compliance work for the Illinois Department of Transportation. ITARP serves as a repository for a large collection of Illinois archaeological artifacts now numbering over 17,000 boxes. One of the major collections is from the Cahokia Mounds, for which ITARP has over 550 boxes. An on-line database will soon be mounted for the Cahokia collection, funded by a 2008–2010 National Endowment for the Humanities grant.
In the 24 February 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," Bill Gates
Bill Gates
William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
has mentioned that Microsoft hires more graduates from the University of Illinois than from any other university in the world. Alumnus William M. Holt, a Senior Vice-President of Intel, also mentioned in a campus talk in 27 September 2007 entitled "R&D to Deliver Practical Results: Extending Moore's Law" that Intel hires more PhD graduates from the University of Illinois than from any other university in the country.
In 2007, the university-hosted research Institute for Condensed Matter Theory
Institute for Condensed Matter Theory
The Institute for Condensed Matter Theory is an institute for the research of condensed matter theory hosted by and located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign....
(ICMT) was launched, with the director Paul Goldbart and the chief scientist Anthony Leggett. ICMT is currently located at the Engineering Science Building on campus.
Competition
According to the statistics of the 2008 admitted freshmen, 77% of incoming students had ACTACT (examination)
The ACT is a standardized test for high school achievement and college admissions in the United States produced by ACT, Inc. It was first administered in November 1959 by Everett Franklin Lindquist as a competitor to the College Board's Scholastic Aptitude Test, now the SAT Reasoning Test...
score of 27 or higher, 31% had an SAT
SAT
The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a nonprofit organization in the United States. It was formerly developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service which still...
combined Math & Critical Reading score above 1,400 (excludes Writing), and 59% of the incoming students were top 10% of their high school class. Some of the university's colleges admit students at an even more competitive level. For incoming freshmen in 2008, the College of Engineering
UIUC College of Engineering
The College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign was first established in 1868, and is considered one of the original units of the school. The presence of a steam engine on the University's seal is a good clue as to the importance of the engineering program to the...
reported an ACT score interquartile range
Interquartile range
In descriptive statistics, the interquartile range , also called the midspread or middle fifty, is a measure of statistical dispersion, being equal to the difference between the upper and lower quartiles...
of 30–33, the College of Business
UIUC College of Business
The College of Business is the business school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It offers programs in accountancy, business administration, and finance....
reported an ACT score IQR of 28–32, and the College of Media, in 2008, the first year it accepted freshmen, reported an ACT IQR of 27–32, higher than the overall campus median (though still lower than that of the College of Engineering). Of graduates, Illinois ended up as one of the top 12 (percentage) and top 6 (numerical) feeder state colleges to elite professional schools.
Residences
University Residence Halls and University Private-Certified Housing are administered by the University's housing division. University housing for undergraduates is provided through twenty-two residence hallsDormitory
A dormitory, often shortened to dorm, in the United States is a residence hall consisting of sleeping quarters or entire buildings primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people, often boarding school, college or university students...
in both Urbana and Champaign.
All undergraduates within the University housing system are required to purchase some level of meal plan, although they are free to eat elsewhere if they choose. Graduate housing is usually offered through two graduate dormitories, restricted to those over twenty years of age, and through two university-owned apartment complexes. However, the recent record-sized freshman class has forced the housing division to convert one of the graduate dormitories into undergraduate housing. Students with disabilities are provided special housing options to accommodate their needs.
There are a number of private dormitories around campus, as well as a few houses that are outside of the Greek system and offer a more communal living experience. The private dorms tend to be more expensive to live in compared to other housing options. Private, certified residences maintain reciprocity agreements with the University, allowing students to move between the public and private housing systems if they are dissatisfied with their living conditions.
Most undergraduates choose to move into apartments or the Greek houses after their first or second year. The University Tenant Union offers advice on choosing apartments and the process of signing a lease.
Greek life
The university has the largest Greek system in the world by membership. There are currently sixty-eight fraternities and thirty-six sororities on the campus. Of the approximately 31,180 undergraduates, about 3,330 are members of sororities and about 3,370 are members of fraternities. The Greek system at the University of Illinois has a system of self-government. While there are staff advisors and directors in charge of managing 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. Many of the fraternity and sorority houses on campus are on the National Register of Historic Places.Business Fraternities
There are four business fraternities at the university. The largest and oldest, Alpha Kappa PsiAlpha Kappa Psi
ΑΚΨ is the oldest and largest professional business fraternity. The Alpha Kappa Psi Fraternity was founded on October 5, 1904 at New York University, and was incorporated on May 20, 1905...
, was installed at the university in 1913. The Epsilon chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi was the fifth chapter chartered in the United States after its first incorporation at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
in 1904. As of 2011, the Epsilon chapter is only one of eight chapters internationally to receive membership awards. Notable alumni from the Epsilon chapter include former Illinois Senator Paul Douglas
Paul Douglas
Paul Howard Douglas was an liberal American politician and University of Chicago economist. A war hero, he was elected as a Democratic U.S. Senator from Illinois from in the 1948 landslide, serving until his defeat in 1966...
, Governor Otto Kerner
Otto Kerner
Otto Kerner is the name of two political figures from Illinois:*Otto Kerner, Sr. , Attorney General of Illinois & judge on U.S. Court of Appeals for Seventh Circuit...
, U.S. Steel President Leslie Worthington. Other business fraternities at the university include Delta Sigma Pi (Upsilon), Phi Chi Theta (Zeta Gamma) and Phi Gamma Nu (Beta Pi chapter).
Student Government
The current university student government, created in 2005, 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 on a variety of faculty and administrative committees, and are led by an internally elected executive board consisting of a President, External Vice-President, Internal Vice-President, and a treasurer.Libraries
The campus library system is one of the largest public academic collections in the world. Among universities in North America, only the collections of Harvard and YaleYALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
are larger. Currently, the University of Illinois' main library and 40 other departmental libraries and divisions hold more than 22 million
Million
One million 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 , from mille, "thousand", plus the augmentative suffix -one.In scientific notation, it is written as or just 106...
items, including more than 12 million volumes. As of 2006, it had also the largest "browsable" university library in the United States, with 7.5 million volumes directly accessible in stacks in a single location. UIUC also has the largest public engineering library (Grainger Engineering Library
Grainger Engineering Library
The Grainger Engineering Library is a library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of Engineering dedicated to all disciplines of engineering at the University...
) in the country.
The online catalog is used by over one million people monthly. In addition to the main library building, which houses nearly 20 subject-oriented libraries, the Isaac Funk Family Library on the South Quad serves the College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences
UIUC College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences is part of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is considered by some to be the top school of agriculture-related sciences in the world...
and the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center serves the College of Engineering
UIUC College of Engineering
The College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign was first established in 1868, and is considered one of the original units of the school. The presence of a steam engine on the University's seal is a good clue as to the importance of the engineering program to the...
on the John Bardeen Quad
UIUC Engineering Campus
The Engineering Campus is the colloquial name for the Bardeen Quadrangle and the Beckman Quadrangle at the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.-Bardeen Quadrangle:...
.
The University of Illinois 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, including undergraduate and graduate students, and university faculty and staff.
All together there are more than 40 departmental or school libraries on campus.
Recreation
The Urbana–Champaign campus has a modern recreation infrastructure. Recently, the two main recreation facilities, CRCE and the Activities and Recreation CenterActivities and Recreation Center
The Activities and Recreation Center, more commonly known as the ARC, is an athletic facility at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign for students and members completed in 2008...
(ARC, formerly known as IMPE), were upgraded. The campus also has more than a thousand clubs and organizations, ranging from cultural and athletic to subject area to philanthropic. Students can create their own Registered Student Organization if the pursuing interest/concern is not addressed by the current entities.
Transportation
The bus system that operates throughout the campus and community is operated by the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit DistrictChampaign-Urbana Mass Transit District
The Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District is a mass transit system that is part of the Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Area in which property taxes are levied to support a local transit system operating buses and the Illinois Terminal intermodal facility in downtown Champaign...
. The MTD receives a student-approved transportation fee from the university, which provides unlimited access
Universal Transit Pass
In North America,Universal Transit Pass is a program that gives students enrolled in participating post-secondary institutions unlimited access to local transit. Programs are typically funded through mandatory fees that eligible students pay in each term in which they are registered. Fees are...
for university students. In addition, the university pays for universal access for all its faculty and staff. As part of this arrangement, the MTD also runs a bus line between Willard Airport and Illinois Terminal, a multi-modal transportation facility which includes Amtrak
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union...
and Greyhound
Greyhound Lines
Greyhound Lines, Inc., based in Dallas, Texas, is an intercity common carrier of passengers by bus serving over 3,700 destinations in the United States, Canada and Mexico, operating under the well-known logo of a leaping greyhound. It was founded in Hibbing, Minnesota, USA, in 1914 and...
– making it the focal point of Champaign-Urbana's
Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Area
The Champaign-Urbana metropolitan area, also known as Champaign-Urbana, is a metropolitan area in east-central Illinois. It is the 191st largest metropolitan area in the U.S. It is composed of three counties, Champaign, Ford, and Piatt...
public transportation systems.
The university maintains an extensive system of off-street bike paths and on-street bike lanes on campus. All students are expected to register their bicycles with the campus public safety
Public Safety
Public safety involves the prevention of and protection from events that could endanger the safety of the general public from significant danger, injury/harm, or damage, such as crimes or disasters .-See also:* By nation...
department.
Athletics and sports
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 NCAANational Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
's Division 1. The university's athletic teams are known as the Fighting Illini
Illinois Fighting Illini
The Fighting Illini are the intercollegiate athletic teams of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The University offers 10 men's and 11 women's varsity sports....
. The university operates a number of athletic facilities, including Memorial Stadium
Memorial Stadium (Champaign)
thumb|right|300px|Original plan for Memorial Stadium circa 1921. Caption from [[Popular Mechanics]] Magazine, 1921Memorial Stadium is a football stadium located in Champaign, Illinois, in the United States, on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The stadium is dedicated as...
for football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
, the Assembly Hall
Assembly Hall (Champaign)
Assembly Hall is a large dome-shaped indoor arena, located in Champaign, Illinois, and is part of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign....
for men's and women's basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
, and the Atkins Tennis Center for men's and women's tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
. The men's NCAA basketball team had a dream run in the 2005 season
2005 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
The 2005 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 65 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 15, 2005, and ended with the championship game on April 4 at the Edward Jones Dome in St...
, with Bruce Weber
Bruce Weber (coach)
Bruce Brett Weber is an American college basketball coach. Weber is the head coach of the University of Illinois men's basketball team...
'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
North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball
The North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball program is the intercollegiate men's basketball of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and is considered one of the most successful programs in NCAA history...
in the national championship game
NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship
The NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship is a single-elimination tournament held each spring in the United States, featuring 68 college basketball teams, to determine the national championship in the top tier of college basketball...
.
Illinois is a member of the Big Ten Conference
Big Ten Conference
The Big Ten Conference is the United States' oldest Division I college athletic conference. Its twelve member institutions are located primarily in the Midwestern United States, stretching from Nebraska in the west to Pennsylvania in the east...
.
On October 15, 1910, the Illinois football team defeated the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
Maroons with a score of 3–0 in a game that Illinois claims was the first homecoming
Homecoming
Homecoming is the tradition of welcoming back alumni of a school. It most commonly refers to a tradition in many universities, colleges and high schools in North America...
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 #1 ranked Ohio State football team in Ohio Stadium
Ohio Stadium
Ohio Stadium is the home of the Ohio State Buckeyes football team and is located on the campus of The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. The stadium was added to the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service on March 22, 1974...
, the first time that the Illini beat a #1 ranked team on the road.
The University of Illinois Ice Arena
University of Illinois Ice Arena
University of Illinois Ice Arena, also known as the Big Pond, is an ice arena and recreational sport facility located in Champaign, Illinois and owned and operated by the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. The arena serves as the home for the Illinois Fighting Illini men's and women's...
is home to the university's club college ice hockey team competing at the ACHA Division I
American Collegiate Hockey Association
The American Collegiate Hockey Association is the national governing body of non-varsity college ice hockey in the U.S. The organization provides structure, regulations, promotes the quality of play, sponsors National Awards and National Tournaments....
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.
Chief Illiniwek
Chief Illiniwek
Chief Illiniwek was the mascot and the official symbol of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign associated with the University's intercollegiate athletic programs from 1926 to February 21, 2007. The mascot was portrayed by a student dressed in Sioux regalia to honor the Illiniwek, the...
, or 'The Chief', was the university's official athletic symbol from 1926 until February 21, 2007. Use of the Chief garnered criticism for the university starting in the mid-1970s from Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
and others as a misappropriation and inaccurate portrayal of indigenous culture. The university officials announced the end of the Chief Illiniwek era on February 16, 2007.
Notable among a number of songs commonly played and sung at various events such as commencement
Graduation
Graduation is the action of receiving or conferring an academic degree or the ceremony that is sometimes associated, where students become Graduates. Before the graduation, candidates are referred to as Graduands. The date of graduation is often called degree day. The graduation itself is also...
and convocation
Convocation
A Convocation is a group of people formally assembled for a special purpose.- University use :....
, and athletic games are: Illinois Loyalty
Illinois Loyalty
Illinois Loyalty is the main school song of the University of Illinois.First performed March 3, 1906, 'Illinois Loyalty' is one of the oldest songs of its kind in the United States...
, the school song, Oskee Wow Wow, the fight song
Fight song
A fight song is primarily an American and Canadian sports term, referring to a song associated with a team. In both professional and amateur sports, fight songs are a popular way for fans to cheer for their team...
, and Hail to the Orange, the alma mater
Alma mater
Alma mater , pronounced ), was used in ancient Rome as a title for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele, and in Christianity for the Virgin Mary.-General term:...
, which was based on "Sammy,"a song from Williston Northampton School
Williston Northampton School
The Williston Northampton School, or "Williston," is a private co-educational preparatory school for boarding and day students in seventh grade through postgraduate year located in Easthampton, Massachusetts. The campus offers a range of extra-curricular activities in the arts and athletics...
, a prep School in Easthampton, Massachusetts.
University Honors
University Honors is an academic distinction awarded to high achieving students at UIUC. It is comparable to the Latin honorsLatin honors
Latin honors are Latin phrases used to indicate the level of academic distinction with which an academic degree was earned. This system is primarily used in the United States, Canada, and in many countries of continental Europe, though some institutions also use the English translation of these...
of summa cum laude. Graduating students awarded University Honors 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.
James Scholars
"James Scholars" are undergraduate students invited to pursue a specialized course of study for no less than two years of their undergraduate course work. Each student must have a minimum grade point average of 3.3/4.0 (3.5 for ECE majors) to become a James Scholar. James Scholars who graduate with "University Honors" are also awarded the Latin honors of In cursu honorumIn cursu honorum
In cursu honorum is a Latin phrase that translates to "in a course of honors." It refers to specialized study at the undergraduate level. Generally, a small percentage of a student body will be invited to pursue a more rigorous course of study, and be required to maintain a high average...
.
Chancellor's Scholars
"Chancellor's Scholars" is a campus scholarship program which focuses on both academic excellence and leadership. Unlike the James Scholars Program, the Campus Honors Program may only have about 125 members at any given time. Chancellor's scholars must have a grade point average of 3.3/4.0, successfully complete a total of five CHP sponsored courses, and participate in a specified number of CHP co-curricular events and activities.Senior 100 Honorary
"Senior 100 Honorary" is an award from the Student Alumni Ambassadors and the University of Illinois Alumni Association that recognizes outstanding seniors. Recipients of this award are honored for their outstanding achievements in leadership, academics and campus involvement throughout their undergraduate education.Notable faculty and alumni
As of 2007, 21 alumni and faculty members are NobelNobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
laureates and 20 have won a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
. In particular,
John Bardeen
John Bardeen
John Bardeen was an American physicist and electrical engineer, the only person to have won the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the transistor; and again in 1972 with Leon Neil Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer for a...
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 of Illinois.
In 2003, two faculty members won Nobel prizes in different disciplines:
Paul C. Lauterbur for physiology or medicine, and Anthony Leggett for
physics. Most recently, in 2007, Don Wuebbles, Atul Jain, John Walsh and Michael Schlesinger, professors in the Department of Atmospheric Science, were awarded a share of the Nobel Peace Prize for their contributions and collaboration with the IPCC
IPCC
IPCC may refer to:*Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, of the United Nations*Independent Police Complaints Commission, of England and Wales*Irish Peatland Conservation Council...
.
Fazlur Rahman Khan, considered to be the Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
of structural engineering
Structural engineering
Structural engineering is a field of engineering dealing with the analysis and design of structures that support or resist loads. Structural engineering is usually considered a specialty within civil engineering, but it can also be studied in its own right....
and the Greatest Structural Engineer of the of the 20th Century
Alumni have created companies and products such as Netscape Communications, AMD, PayPal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
, Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. 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. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
, National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
, Siebel Systems
Siebel Systems
Siebel CRM Systems, Inc. was a software company principally engaged in the design, development, marketing, and support of customer relationship management applications. The company was founded by Thomas Siebel in 1993. At first known mainly for its sales force automation products, the company...
, Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat (series)
Mortal Kombat, commonly abbreviated MK, is a science fantasy series of fighting games created by Ed Boon and John Tobias. The first four renditions and their updates were developed by Midway Games and initially released on arcade machines. The arcade titles were later picked up by Acclaim...
, CDW
CDW
CDW Corporation, headquartered in Vernon Hills, Illinois, is a reseller of computer hardware, software and supplies. Along with its warehouse-attached showroom in Illinois, CDW takes orders from its catalog via mail order, telephone and the Internet....
, YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, THX
THX
THX is a trade name of a high-fidelity audio/visual reproduction standard for movie theaters, screening rooms, home theaters, computer speakers, gaming consoles, and car audio systems. The current THX was created in 2001 when it spun off from Lucasfilm Ltd...
, Oracle
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
, Lotus
Lotus Software
Lotus Software is a software company with headquarters in Westford, Massachusetts...
, Mosaic
Mosaic (web browser)
Mosaic is the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web. It was also a client for earlier protocols such as FTP, NNTP, and gopher. Its clean, easily understood user interface, reliability, Windows port and simple installation all contributed to making it the application that opened...
, Safari
Safari (web browser)
Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the...
, Firefox, W. W. Grainger
W. W. Grainger
W. W. Grainger, Inc. is a Fortune 500 industrial supply company founded in 1927 in Chicago, Illinois. Grainger's catalog includes such offerings as motors, lighting, material handling, fasteners, plumbing, tools, and safety supplies. Revenue is generally from business to business sales rather than...
, Delta Air Lines
Delta Air Lines
Delta Air Lines, Inc. is a major airline based in the United States and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The airline operates an extensive domestic and international network serving all continents except Antarctica. Delta and its subsidiaries operate over 4,000 flights every day...
, BET
Black Entertainment Television
Black Entertainment Television is an American, Viacom-owned cable network based in Washington, D.C.. Currently viewed in more than 90 million homes worldwide, it is the most prominent television network targeting young Black-American audiences. The network was launched on January 25, 1980, by its...
, and Tesla Motors
Tesla Motors
Tesla Motors, Inc. is a Silicon Valley-based company that designs, manufactures and sells electric cars and electric vehicle powertrain components. It was the only automaker building and selling a zero-emission sports car, the Tesla Roadster, in serial production...
.
Alumni and faculty have invented the LED
LEd
LEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....
, JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
, the integrated circuit
Integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...
, the quantum well laser
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. The wavelength of the light emitted by a quantum well laser is determined by the width of the active region rather than just the bandgap of the material from which it is...
, the transistor
Transistor
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals and power. It is composed of a semiconductor material with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current...
, MRI, and the plasma screen, and are responsible for the structural design of such buildings as the Willis Tower, the John Hancock Center
John Hancock Center
John Hancock Center at 875 North Michigan Avenue in the Streeterville area of Chicago, Illinois, is a 100-story, 1,127-foot tall skyscraper, constructed under the supervision of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, with chief designer Bruce Graham and structural engineer Fazlur Khan...
, and the Burj Khalifa.
Alumni founded the Susan G. Komen for the Cure
Susan G. Komen for the Cure
Susan G. Komen for the Cure, formerly known as The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, often referred to as simply Komen, is the most widely known, largest and best-funded breast cancer organization in the US....
, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
, and have served in a wide variety of government and public interest roles.
Rafael Correa
Rafael Correa
Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado born is the President of the Republic of Ecuador and was the president pro tempore of the Union of South American Nations. An economist educated in Ecuador, Belgium and the United States, he was elected President in late 2006 and took office in January 2007...
, re-elected President of The Republic of Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
in April 2009 secured his M.S.
Master of Science
A Master of Science is a postgraduate academic master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is typically studied for in the sciences including the social sciences.-Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay:...
and Ph.D degrees from the University's Economics Department in 1999 and 2001 respectively.
Nathan C. Ricker
Nathan Clifford Ricker
Nathan Clifford Ricker, D.Arch was a professor and architect known for his work at the University of Illinois. He was born on a farm near Acton, Maine June 24, 1843. In 1875, he was married to Mary Carter Steele of Galesburg, Illinois. His only child, Ethel, was born in 1883...
attended U of I and in 1873 was the first person to graduate in the United States with a degree in Architecture. Mary L. Page, the first woman to obtain a degree in architecture, also graduated from U of I.
Philanthropy
Philanthropy is playing an increasingly significant role in supporting the Land Grant mission of the University of Illinois. The portion of the university's annual $1.5 billion budget which is state funds has diminished drastically over the past two decades. Currently the university receives only 16.4% of its budget from state tax dollars compared to 20 years ago when it received 44.5% of its budget from state tax dollars. Gifts, grants, and contracts to the university comprise 19% of the annual budget.Philanthropic giving to the university comes in the form of annual giving, major gifts, and estate planning. Annual giving is generally unrestricted by the donor and can be spent by the campus to meet immediate needs to maintain basic operations. Major gifts are typically put into an endowment at the donor's wishes, where the principal of the gift is invested while the interest is distributed to the campus department in which the donor designated their gift to be used. This practice of investing the principal in an endowment and only spending the interest, is done to secure the gift in perpetuity. In some cases, major gifts are used immediately for building campaigns such as the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
Krannert Center for the Performing Arts was built in 1969 in Urbana, Illinois, USA, on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an educational and performing arts complex. Herman C...
, The Beckman Institute
The Beckman Institute
The Beckman Institute is an interdisciplinary-research institute named after scientist and philanthropist Arnold O. Beckman . It is famous for imaging and other research...
, or The Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science. Estate planning is another type of giving whereby a donor makes provisions in their will or estate documents which identifies the University of Illinois as a beneficiary.
Alumni play the largest role in philanthropic giving to the university. The most notable donors are Thomas M. Siebel
Thomas Siebel
Thomas Siebel is a business executive. He is the chairman of First Virtual Group, a diversified holding company with interests in commercial real estate, agribusiness, global investment management, and philanthropy.-Education and Work:...
and his wife Stacey who recently gave a $100 million estate gift to the university after they had given $36 million to build the Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science, $10 million to endow the Siebel Scholars program, $2 million to endow the Thomas M. Siebel Chair in Computer Science and $2 million to endow the Thomas M. Siebel Chair in the History of Science. Other notable donors include Sohaib Abbasi and his wife, Sara, who established the Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Professorship to enable the CS department to maintain its stature as one of the nation's premiere departments and give students the opportunity to learn from a world-renowned computer scientist and educator. They have also endowed the Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Fellowship to allow up to 5 graduate students each year, the opportunity to study computer science at one of the nation's top ranked computer science departments.
Stanley O. and Judith L. Ikenberry were the 14th President and First Lady of the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois from 1979–1995. The Ikenberrys established the Stanley O. and Judith L. Ikenberry Endowment for Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. This gift supports the presentation of guest artists at the Center as part of the Marquee Endowment.
Rankings
In its 2012 listings, U.S. News & World Report ranked the undergraduate program 45th among nationally accredited universities and 13th among nationally accredited public universities. The graduate program had 60 disciplines ranked within the top 30 nationwide, including 23 within the top five. U.S. News & World Report ranked the undergraduate and graduate Accounting programs 2nd and 4th respectively in the United States in their 2011 rankings; both programs had been ranked 1st at the same time in previous years. The College of Business as a whole was ranked 12th nationally. The College of Engineering was ranked 5th at the graduate level, with 14 disciplines ranked within the top ten. Chemistry and Physics were also ranked within the top ten at the graduate level. The College of Education had six programs ranked within the top ten. The Graduate School of Library and Information Science was ranked 1st, with five programs ranked within the top ten. Many arts programs were ranked within the first quartile, such as Architecture and Fine Arts. However, Computer Science, Material Science, Agricultural Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Accounting, Finance, and Psychology are the university's most visibly distinguished departments among others. The School of Labor and Employment Relations is ranked consistently within the top two in the nation, behind only Cornell UniversityCornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
.
The University of Illinois is considered a "Public Ivy
Public Ivy
Public Ivy is a term coined by Richard Moll in his 1985 book Public Ivies: A Guide to America's best public undergraduate colleges and universities to refer to universities which "provide an Ivy League collegiate experience at a public school price." Public Ivies are considered, according to the...
" and is measured comprehensively as one of the top 20 major research universities in the United States by a Graham-Diamond Report.
International rankings by The Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University or SJTU), sometimes referred to as Shanghai Jiaotong University , is a top public research university located in Shanghai, China. Shanghai Jiao Tong University is known as one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China...
suggest that Illinois is the 19th best university in North America, and 25th best university in the world. The Academic Ranking of World Universities by Broad Subject Fields from the same research center in 2008 positions Illinois in 3rd for Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences in the world. It is ranked 19th for Life and Agriculture Sciences, 20th for Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and 51st for Social Sciences.
In 2011, Illinois was ranked 61st in the world by QS World University Rankings
QS World University Rankings
The QS World University Rankings is a ranking of the world’s top 500 universities by Quacquarelli Symonds using a method that has published annually since 2004....
, increasing its position from the 2009 THE-QS World University Rankings (in 2010, Times Higher Education World University Rankings
Times Higher Education World University Rankings
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings is an international ranking of universities published by the British magazine Times Higher Education in partnership with Thomson Reuters, which provided citation database information...
and QS World University Rankings
QS World University Rankings
The QS World University Rankings is a ranking of the world’s top 500 universities by Quacquarelli Symonds using a method that has published annually since 2004....
parted ways to produce separate rankings). However, Illinois had been ranked within the top 40 in the past. The THE-QS rankings have been criticized due to their volatility: it stressed international popularity and ranks fluctuated tens of places from one year to the next. The WSJ ranking of business schools also has this inherited anomaly, attributable to its survey method.
The Institute for Labor and Industrial Relations has been recognized consistently as one of the top three programs for Human Resources and Labor Relations studies in the United States.
In the 2008 release of Webometrics Ranking of World Universities
Webometrics Ranking of World Universities
The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, also known as Ranking Web of World Universities, is ranking system for the world's universities based on a composite indicator that takes into account both the volume of the Web contents and the visibility and impact of these web publications...
by Cybermetrics Lab, which is a research unit of the National Research Council of Spain, the University was ranked 9th. In 2006, G-Factor, another academic list trying to measure social network efficacy of universities, has ranked Illinois within the top eight.
A human competitiveness index and analysis by the Human Resources & Labor Review, and published in Chasecareer Network, ranked the university 25th internationally in 2010.
As of 2007, Washington Monthly ranks Illinois as the 11th best university in the nation, and 9th among public universities.
The methodology of the ranking includes "how well it performs as an engine of social mobility," "how well it does in fostering scientific and humanistic research," and "how well it promotes an ethic of service to country."
Newsweek International listed Illinois as one of Top 100 Global Universities, which "takes into account openness and diversity, as well as distinction in research." Kiplinger's Personal Finance
Kiplinger's Personal Finance
Kiplinger's Personal Finance is a magazine that has been continuously published, on a monthly basis, from 1947 to the present day. It was the nation's first personal finance magazine, and claims to deliver "sound, unbiased advice in clear, concise language"...
also listed Illinois in its 100 Best Values in Public Colleges, which "measures academic quality, cost and financial aid."
The Princeton Review has elected Illinois one of the 366 best colleges out of nearly 5,000 degree-granting institutions of higher education in the United States. Nonetheless, the university has come under criticism for its use of graduate teaching assistants in teaching undergraduate courses, including upper-level undergraduate courses. For two consecutive years, the Urbana–Champaign campus topped this review's category of "teaching assistants teach too many upper level courses." However, the Princeton Review's ranking has been scrutinized for its lack of accountability as the Review's ranking categorical data rely mainly upon student random sampling.
2005-2009 century admissions scandal
A series of investigative reports by the Chicago TribuneChicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
noted that between 2005 and 2009 university trustees, president, chancellor, and other administrators pressured admissions officials into admitting under-qualified but politically well-connected applicants into the university. Although University officials initially denied, then downplayed the existence of a "clout list", the university later announced it would form a panel of internal and external representatives to review the past admissions process and determine possible changes.
Howell firing
In July 2010 The News-Gazette reported that Dr. Kenneth Howell, an adjunct professor teaching Introduction to Catholic Thought, was fired for teaching the Roman Catholic positions on homosexualityHomosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
. The Alliance Defense Fund
Alliance Defense Fund
The Alliance Defense Fund is a conservative Christian nonprofit organization with the stated goal of "defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation." ADF was founded in 1994 by the late Bill Bright , the late Larry Burkett , James Dobson The...
has taken up Dr. Howell's case, stating that his dismissal is a violation of academic freedom
Academic freedom
Academic freedom is the belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts without being targeted for repression, job loss, or imprisonment.Academic freedom is a...
and the First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
. The University's position, as stated by Ann Mester, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, is that Dr. Howell's comments "violate university standards of inclusivity, which would then entitle us to have him discontinue his teaching arrangement with us."
Dr. Howell was reinstated by the University of Illinois as an adjunct instructor for the fall 2010 term to teach "Introduction to Catholicism", resolving the situation for the time being. The university announced on July 28 that it would follow the recommendation of the Academic Senate's General University Policy Committee to begin paying the salary of instructors teaching Catholic studies courses. St. John's Catholic Newman Center previously paid instructor salaries. The matter is currently under review by the Academic Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure.
Points of interest
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See also
- List of University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign people - List of notable University of Illinois People
- Daily IlliniDaily IlliniThe Daily Illini, commonly known as the DI, is an independent, student-run newspaper that has been published for the community of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign since 1871...
– independent student newspaper - WPGUWPGUWPGU 107.1 is the fully commercial student-run College radio station located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It is operational 24-7, broadcasting alternative music and other programming throughout Champaign-Urbana and surrounding communities...
– student-run commercial radio station - Illinois LoyaltyIllinois LoyaltyIllinois Loyalty is the main school song of the University of Illinois.First performed March 3, 1906, 'Illinois Loyalty' is one of the oldest songs of its kind in the United States...
– school song - Fighting Illini – University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign sports
- Marching IlliniMarching IlliniThe Marching Illini is the marching band of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Marching Illini is a close-knit organization which annually includes approximately 350 students enrolled in the University of Illinois...
– marching band of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign