University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the founding campus and flagship institution of the University of Illinois System. With over 59,000 students, the University of Illinois is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the United States.

The university contains 16 schools and colleges and offers more than 150 undergraduate and over 100 graduate programs of study. The university holds 651 buildings on 6,370 acres (2,578 ha) and its annual operating budget in 2016 was over $2 billion. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign also operates a research park home to innovation centers for over 90 start-up companies and multinational corporations.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". In fiscal year 2019, research expenditures at Illinois totaled $652 million. The campus library system possesses the fourth-largest university library in the United States by holdings. The university also hosts the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

The alumni, faculty members, or researchers of the university include 24 Nobel laureates, 27 Pulitzer Prize winners, 2 Fields medalists, and 2 Turing Award winners. Illinois athletic teams compete in Division I of the NCAA and are collectively known as the Fighting Illini. They are members of the Big Ten Conference and have won the second-most conference titles. Illinois Fighting Illini football won the Rose Bowl Game in 1947, 1952, 1964 and a total of five national championships. Illinois athletes have won 29 medals in Olympic events.

History

Illinois Industrial University (1867–1885)

The University of Illinois, originally named "Illinois Industrial University", was one of the 37 universities created under the first Morrill Land-Grant Act, which provided public land for the creation of agricultural and industrial colleges and universities across the United States. Among several cities, Urbana was selected in 1867 as the site for the new school. From the beginning, President John Milton 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 opened for classes on March 2, 1868, and had two faculty members and 77 students.

The library, which opened with the school in 1868, started with 1,039 volumes. Subsequently, President Edmund J. James, in a speech to the board of trustees in 1912, proposed to create a research library. It is now one of the world's largest public academic collections. In 1870, the Mumford House was constructed as a model farmhouse for the school's experimental farm. The Mumford House remains the oldest structure on campus. The original University Hall (1871) was the fourth building built; it stood where the Illini Union stands today.

The University of Illinois' Undergraduate Library (UGL) was constructed underground to preserve open space on campus and to prevent casting shadows on the adjacent Morrow Plots, the oldest continually used experimental agricultural fields in the United States. This unique design inspired The Other Guys, a student a cappella group, to create the "Morrow Plots Song," humorously explaining that the library was built underground "'Cause you can't throw shade on the corn".

The song has become a beloved piece among students and alumni, celebrating the university's history and traditions.

University of Illinois (1885–1977)

In 1885, the Illinois Industrial University officially changed its name to the "University of Illinois", reflecting its agricultural, mechanical, and liberal arts curriculum. According to educational historian Roger L. Geiger, Illinois and a few other public and private universities set the standard for what the research university in the United States would become.

During his presidency, Edmund J. James (1904–1920) set the policy of building a massive research library. He also laid the foundation for the large Chinese international student population on campus. James established ties with China through the Chinese Minister to the United States Wu Ting-Fang. Also during James's time in 1916, St. Elmo Brady became the first African American nationally to earn a Ph.D. in Chemistry. Class rivalries and Bob Zuppke's winning football teams contributed to campus morale.

Campus

The main research and academic facilities are divided almost evenly between the twin cities of Urbana and Champaign, which form part of the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area. Some parts are in Urbana Township.

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, parallel to Green Street. The Beckman Quadrangle, named after Arnold Orville Beckman, is primarily composed of research units and laboratories, and features a large solar calendar consisting of an obelisk and several copper fountains. The Main Quadrangle and South Quadrangle follow immediately after the John Bardeen Quad. The former makes up a large part of the Liberal Arts and Sciences portion of the campus, while the latter comprises many of the buildings of the College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences (ACES) spread across the campus map.

Additionally, the research fields of the College of ACES stretch south from Urbana and Champaign into Savoy and Champaign County. The university also maintains formal gardens and a conference center in nearby Monticello at Allerton Park.

The campus is known for its landscape and architecture, as well as distinctive landmarks. It was identified as one of 50 college or university "works of art" by T.A. Gaines in his book The Campus as a Work of Art. The campus also has a number of buildings and sites on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places including Harker Hall, the Astronomical Observatory, Louise Freer Hall, the Main Library, the Experimental Dairy Farm Historic District, and the Morrow Plots. University of Illinois Willard Airport is one of the few airports owned by an educational institution.

Chesterbrook Academy private preschool, which opened in 2007, is located on the campus and serves infants through Pre-K.

Sustainability

In 2008, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign became a signatory of the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment, binding the campus to the goal of carbon neutrality as soon as possible. In 2010, the first Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) was written to chart a path to this goal. The iCAP is a strategic framework for meeting the university's Climate Leadership Commitments to be carbon-neutral by 2050 or sooner and build resilience with its local community. Since then, the iCAP has been rewritten every five years to track the university's progress.

Academics

As of 2024, 87% of students graduate within 8 years of entering, compared to the national median of 58% for all 4-year universities nationwide.

Undergraduate admissions

The overall first-year admit rate for 2025 is 36.6%, which differs among U of I colleges. Certain majors can be extremely competitive, such as computer science (where the university's program is consistently ranked fifth nationwide) with an acceptance rate of 7.4% in 2025.

In 2009, an investigation by The Chicago Tribune reported that some applicants "received special consideration" for acceptance between 2005 and 2009, despite having sub-par qualifications. This incident became known as the University of Illinois clout scandal.

Academic divisions

The university offers more than 150 undergraduate and 100 graduate and professional programs in over 15 academic units, among several online specializations such as Digital Marketing and an online MBA program launched in January 2016. In 2015, the university announced its expansion to include an engineering-based medical program, which would be the first new college created in Urbana-Champaign in 60 years. The university also offers undergraduate students the opportunity for graduation honors. University Honors is an academic distinction awarded to the highest achieving students. To earn the distinction, students must have a cumulative grade point average of a 3.5/4.0 within the academic year of their graduation and rank within the top 3% of their graduating class. Their names are inscribed on a Bronze Tablet that hangs in the Main Library.

Online learning

In addition to the university's Illinois Online platform, in 2015 the university entered into a partnership with the Silicon Valley educational technology company Coursera to offer a series of master's degrees, certifications, and specialization courses, currently including more than 70 joint learning classes. In August 2015, the Master of Business Administration program was launched through the platform. On March 31, 2016, Coursera announced the launch of the Master of Computer Science in Data Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. At the time, the university's computer-science graduate program was ranked fifth in the United States by U.S. News & World Report. On March 29, 2017, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign launched their Master's in Accounting (iMSA) program, now called the Master of Science in Accountancy (iMSA) program. The iMSA program is led through live sessions, headed by Illinois faculty.

Similar to the university's on-campus admission policies, the online master's degrees offered by the U of I through Coursera also has admission requirements. All applicants must hold a bachelor's degree, and have earned a 3.0 GPA or higher in the last two years of study. Additionally, all applicants must prove their proficiency in English.

Philanthropy

Notable among significant donors, alumnus entrepreneur Thomas M. Siebel has committed nearly $150 million to the university, including $36 million to build the Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science, $25 million to build the Siebel Center for Design, and $50 million to support the renamed Department of Computer Science to become Siebel School of Computing and Data Science. Furthermore, the Grainger Foundation (founded by alumnus W. W. Grainger) has contributed more than $300 million to the university over the last half-century, including donations for the construction of the Grainger Engineering Library. Larry Gies and his wife Beth donated $150 million in 2017 to the shortly thereafter renamed Gies College of Business.

Research

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is often regarded as a world-leading magnet for engineering and sciences (both applied and basic). According to the National Science Foundation, the university spent $625 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 37th in the nation. It is also listed as one of the top 25 American research universities by The Center for Measuring University Performance.

Besides the annual influx of grants and sponsored projects, the university manages an extensive modern research infrastructure. The university has been a leader in computer-based education and hosted the PLATO project, which was a precursor to the internet and resulted in the development of the plasma display. Illinois was a 2nd-generation ARPAnet site in 1971 and was the first institution to license the UNIX operating system from Bell Labs. In Bill Gates' 2004 talk as part of his five-university campus tour titled "Software Breakthroughs: Solving the Toughest Problems in Computer Science," he mentioned that Microsoft hired more graduates from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign than from any other university in the world.

Centers and institutes

The university hosts the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), which created Mosaic, the first graphical web browser, 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 contracted with Cray to build the National Science Foundation-funded supercomputer Blue Waters. The system also has the largest public online storage system in the world with more than 25 petabytes of usable space. The university celebrated January 12, 1997, as the "birthday" of HAL 9000, 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.

The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology supports interdisciplinary collaborative research in the broad areas of intelligent systems, neuroscience, molecular science and engineering, and biomedical imaging.

The Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology supports research in genomics and related areas of biology.

The Prairie Research Institute on campus houses several divisions, including the Illinois Natural History Survey, Illinois State Geological Survey, Illinois State Water Survey, Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, and Illinois State Archaeological Survey. Researchers focus on areas such as agriculture, biodiversity, climate, public health, emerging pests, energy, mineral resources, pollution mitigation, and water resources. The Illinois Natural History Survey holds extensive collections, including one of North America's largest insect collections. The Illinois State Geological Survey manages the Illinois Geological Samples Library and paleontological collections. The Illinois State Archaeological Survey preserves a large collection of Illinois archaeological artifacts, including those from the Cahokia Mounds.

Student life

Student body

As of spring 2018, the university had 45,813 students. As of 2015, over 10,000 students were international students, and of them 5,295 were Mainland Chinese. The university also recruits students from over 100 countries among its 32,878 undergraduate students and 10,245 graduate and professional students. The gender breakdown is 55% men, 45% women. Illinois in 2014 enrolled 4,898 students from China, more than any other American university. They comprise the largest group of international students on the campus, followed by South Korea (1,268 in fall 2014) and India (1,167). Graduate enrollment of Chinese students at Illinois has grown from 649 in 2000 to 1,973 in 2014.

Student organizations

The university has over 1,000 active registered student organizations, showcased at the start of each academic year during Illinois's "Quad Day." Registration and support is provided by the Student Programs & Activities Office, an administrative arm established in pursuit of the larger social, intellectual, and educative goals of the Illini Student Union. The office's mission is to "enhance ... classroom education," "meet the needs and desires of the campus community," and "prepare students to be contributing and humane citizens."

The Daily Illini is a student-run newspaper that has been published for the community of since 1871. The paper is published by Illini Media Company, a not-for-profit which also prints other publications, and operates WPGU 107.1 FM, a student-run commercial radio station.

Эх сурвалж: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)