We tell stories that
Inspire
Meet Illini who travel the world in service to humankind, and help communities prosper and thrive. Who dive deep into the oceans and set their sights on the moon. These individual stories compose our collective one.
Inform
Our storytelling shows a fresh side of Illinois, one where different viewpoints and perspectives teach us something new every day. Unafraid to push boundaries, Illini embrace change and innovation.
Illuminate
At the core of the Illinois experience is compassion and strength. Our stories acknowledge and show gratitude for Illini voices and experiences—whether on campus or around the world.
Recent Reads
Updated September 5, 2023
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Illinois Storytellers: Heather Dowdy
Heather Dowdy (GRAINGER ’06), Netflix’s first director of product accessibility, sees a future where accessibility is a fundamental step in achieving equity.
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Revolution at the Five and Dime
Known as the Queen of Lesbian Pulp Fiction, Ann Thayer Weldy (LAS '54), helped readers find comfort—and themselves—in her books.
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Curiosities: Series 8
From illustrating fictional lands to helping you find your way home, these colorful way finders tell us as much about where we are as who we are.
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Rooted in the Game
For Coleman Hawkins, Fighting Illini power forward, family is at the heart of everything.
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Home is where the robot is
Professor Wendy Rogers and other leading Illinois faculty are using the McKechnie Family LIFE Home to define the future of independent living for all ages and abilities.
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Illinois Storytellers: Nariah Romero-Rudy
The Illinois Commitment scholarship program made an Illinois education possible for Nariah Romero-Rudy (LAS ’23).
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Hand in Hand
As University Laboratory High School, also known as Uni, celebrates its one hundred year anniversary, we take the time to marvel at an enduring tradition.
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Bold
The Grainger College of Engineering honors the legacy of Nobel laureate Rosalyn Yalow (Grainger ’45) while supporting the noteworthy work of physics professor Nadya Mason.
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Terrell Jermaine Starr
Armed with a U.S. passport, an intellectual curiosity, and a willingness to help, journalist Terrell Jermaine Starr (LAS '09, MEDIA '09) shares a rarely told perspective of the war in Ukraine.
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The Attitude of Gratitude
Barry L. Houser, director of the Marching Illini, answers the Proust Questionnaire.
Editor's Choice
History will record the grief the coronavirus pandemic has caused. One day we will look back at the enormous loss and our complicated response, as well as the joyful and hopeful moments when we came together with compassion. Over centuries, other pandemics have swept across the globe and changed our lives forever. These stories take us back.
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1918: The year without a Homecoming
On the hundredth anniversary of the 1918 influenza pandemic, we look back at a campus that prepared soldiers for war, tended to the sick, and came together in a spirit of selflessness and compassion.
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Pandemics and fear
Historians and anthropologists see parallels between past outbreaks and today's crisis.
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Chasing the flu
One hundred years after the deadly 1918 influenza pandemic, scientists are still trying to understand the virus.
