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Story category: University of Illinois
Incoming U of I President Optimistic About University's Future
Story air date: Sunday, March 25, 2012
Robert Easter takes the helm as president of the University of Illinois on July 1, when the resignation of current President Michael Hogan takes effect. Easter earned his doctorate at the U of I in the early 1970s before taking a faculty position there. He recently served as Dean of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, and then interim Provost and Chancellor on the Urbana campus. The university has gone through a rough period over the last few years marked by an embarrassing admissions scandal, and the resignations of two presidents.
Easter will stay on as president for two years, and he tells Illinois Public Media’s Sean Powers that he’s ready to help move the university forward.
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- UI Trustees Accept Hogan’s Resignation, Appoint Easter (Related)
- The University of Illinois' Partnership with India (Related)
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education • people • University of IllinoisUI Professor Tackles Obesity, Diabetes in Immigrant Communities
Story air date: Friday, January 06, 2012
Obesity is hitting Latino children in the United States harder than any other demographic, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Angela Wiley, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is trying to curb that trend in immigrant communities living in Illinois. She heads the Up Amigos project, which looks at how biological, social, and environmental factors affect rates of obesity and diabetes. Illinois Public Radio's Rachel Otwell talks with Wiley about her research.
(Photo courtesy of the University of Illinois)
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community life • health • people • University of IllinoisPhyllis Wise Named UI Vice-President, UIUC Chancellor
Story air date: Wednesday, August 03, 2011
For the first time in its history, all of the leaders of the University of Illinois’ three individual campuses will be women. A search committee has picked University of Washington provost and vice president Phyllis Wise to head the Urbana-Champaign campus starting in October, if the board of trustees gives its likely approval. She will receive a $500,000 annual salary with another $100,000 set aside each of the next five years. She will receive that money if she remains at the U of I’s Urbana campus that long.
Wise spoke to Illinois Public Media’s Tom Rogers. She said her role as a researcher will inform her administrative decisions.
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U of I President Michael Hogan praises Phyllis Wise's record:
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education • people • University of IllinoisA Decade After TeraGrid, U of I Heads Up Digital Network
Story air date: Saturday, July 30, 2011
The University of Illinois is the lead researcher for a $121 million digital network funded by the National Science Foundation. The Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment, or XSEDE for short, is seen as an expansion of the TeraGrid project, which started in the late 1990s.
Illinois Public Media’s Jeff Bossert spoke with project leader John Towns about how the focus has shifted to a larger partnership with more top-research universities.
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technology • University of IllinoisChampaign Grade School Students Learn English Through Poetry
Story air date: Monday, July 11, 2011
Over the last year, Illinois Public Media's Sean Powers has visited a third grade class at Booker T. Washington Elementary School in Champaign. Just about all of these students are native Spanish speakers, and they are learning English as a second language through self expression. Shortly before they left for the summer, Sean checked out their final class project.
(Photo by Sean Powers/WILL)
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- Students Adopt StoryCorps Model to Learn English (Related Story)
- StoryCorps' David Isay on the Importance of Keeping Traditions Alive (Related Story)
