Cars lining the street with students unloading their belongings.Cars lining the street with students unloading their belongings.

FLASHBACK: 1984

Being a student in 1984 meant midnight movies at the Co-Ed and browsing vinyl at Record Service. Let’s travel back in time for a look at life on campus in the eighties.

By Nicole Cazley

Photographs courtesy of Illinois Archives and Illinois Athletics

Welcome Home

Two students smile, standing next to moving boxes. A man steadies a bike.
Proud and often exhausted parents and guardians arrive at Illinois each year ready to move in their loved ones. The suitcases, what’s packed in them, and maybe a few fashion choices have changed, but the thrill of arriving at your first-year residence hall remains.

Move-in day for first-year students is an unforgettable milestone, no matter what decade it occurred. The anticipation builds as students receive their room assignment notice in the mail, and for months, they picture what life as a college student will be like. In 1984, that meant rolling into campus, possibly in your parents’ Country Squire station wagon, taking you to your residence hall with all your belongings. Move-in carts were loaded up with black-and-white televisions, stereo systems, posters, and crates—sometimes even a carton or two of cigarettes.

A desk, tv, and bed in a 1980s residence hall
Room interiors in the residence halls in the 1980s.

Now, students descend, possibly in a hybrid vehicle, onto a smoke-free campus with their laptops safely tucked into backpacks. Some are headed toward the familiar cinder-block-walled residence halls that have housed thousands over the decades. Others arrive to newly built spaces, but wherever they live, all students have heard the stampede down the hall of those returning from late nights.

Garner Hall, Forbes Hall, and the Orange are only memories, but the southwest corner of campus is still home to thousands of students. You might still recognize the mid-century architecture of Snyder, Scott, Hopkins, and Weston, but they are now surrounded by modern, taller dorms like Nugent, Wassaja, and Bousfield. All of these together make up the shiny new Ikenberry Commons, where convenience is king.

Sign Me up

Students stand in line waiting to register for classes
Registration of years past saw students lined up in the sweltering Armory resignedly waiting to secure a spot in their desired class.

Registration is always stressful, whether in 1984 or today. Forty years ago, signing up for classes or making schedule changes was done in person.
Sweaty and red-faced students stood in the swampy August heat at the Armory with no way to know if room in the class was available until they got to the table. If they were unlucky and stuck without a class, it was time to negotiate with the students around them. In an Alumni Association magazine article from 2012, Becky Wauthier (LAS ’82) remembers that “people tried to [trade] class cards.” Among the chaos, she recalls hearing students yelling out, “I have an 8 a.m. English; does anybody have a 9 a.m.?”

While it may seem as if students today have it easy because they register from the luxury of their laptops, they are still sweating and red-faced while registering for classes. Students must log on at their precise time ticket—even one second of lagging wi-fi could mean someone else has grabbed the last seat in the class you need.

Students at a table fill out paperwork to register for classes.
Students were guided through the registration process, reviewed the course catalog, and each student’s schedule was
recorded.

Logging On

Students in the 1980s work in the computer lab.
Students in the 1980s work in the computer lab. An Illinois education has always been sought after. In 1984, there were 26,112 undergrads. Today Illinois can boast 35,467 undergrads, with the largest first-year class ever of 8,325 students entering in fall of 2023.

While students still rub Lincoln’s nose for luck and pack into Foellinger for a lecture, today they might also attend class in their pajamas over Zoom or bug their TA with questions over chat. In the last forty years, technology has changed dramatically. Floppy disks, Walkmans, VHS, and the boxy, bulky computers of the eighties are ancient artifacts to a first-year student in 2024. And while computers were a staple for getting work done in the eighties, students still had to make the trek across campus to an actual computer lab and save their work on floppy disks. Others click-clacked all night on electric typewriters in their rooms. And for those procrastinating on a big assignment, they may have plugged in the Atari and played a game of Pole Position, Jungle Hunt, or Ms. Pac Man.

Today, it is easy for students to sneak a game on their phone when sitting in class and hand in their paper online, forgoing the computer lab altogether.

Winning Seasons

Hall of Fame Coach Lou Henson and Co-Big TenPlayer of the Year Bruce Douglas talk on the court.
Hall of Fame Coach Lou Henson and Co-Big Ten Player of the Year Bruce Douglas led their 1984 team to the Sweet Sixteen.

Our 1984 and 2024 men’s basketball teams have something in common: a big, shiny trophy and a strong postseason run. As Illini fans know well, 2024 saw a quirky, big, and talented team win the Big Ten Tournament and go on to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen in a season characterized by a team of “Every Day Guys.” Coach Brad Underwood encourages players to live by this principle, to put forth the maximum effort every day. The1984 team could relate. Under the Illini great coach Lou Henson, those Every Day Guys had their first twenty-win season since the 1950s, brought the twelfth Big Ten Championship to Champaign, and made a stellar postseason run.

A gymnast flips on the balance beam
The accolades won by Karen Brems Kurreck marked a new era in women’s sports at Illinois. Garnering the Big Ten Medal of Honor and Illinois Athlete of the Year in 1984, she kicked off an elite dual honor, one that only four additional female Fighting Illini athletes can tout to this day.

Illini gymnast Karen Brems Kurreck (GRAINGER ’84) also made history during the 1984 season. She was the first female athlete to simultaneously earn the Big Ten Medal of Honor and Illinois Athlete of the Year. One male and one female student-athlete are selected from each Big Ten school to receive the Medal of Honor, the conference’s most prestigious award, which celebrates their success both on and off the field.
Though the accolade has been awarded since 1915, it was only in 1982 that women began to be recognized.The Illinois Athlete of the Year, now known as the Dike Eddleman Illinois Athlete of the Year award, is granted to students who distinguish themselves in athletic achievement. The group of student-athletes who have been awarded both honors in the same year comprise an elite club. Only ten male athletes and five female athletes in Illinois history can claim membership.

After graduation, Kurreck built a career in software development while remaining a dedicated and award-winning athlete. She switched sports and went on to compete in the 2000 Olympics in cycling.

This story was published .