Projects

• As part of the celebration of the sesquicentennial of the University of Illinois, two of the most historic divisions of the University's School of Music (Band and Choral) have commissioned a new musical work, entitled "Gathering", to be performed in the spring of 2018.
  
  The work is being created by the writer Richard Powers, who crafted the libretto, and the composer Dominick DiOrio. Powers is a National Book Award winner who has also served on the faculty of the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), and Dr. DiOrio is on the music faculty at Indiana University.
  
  "Gathering" sets the words of three illustrious U of I alums - the poet Mark Van Doren, Rosalyn Yalow (Nobel laureate in Medicine/Physiology), and Fazlur Khan (one of the most influential architects and engineers of the 20th century, who created the modern Chicago skyline). Powers describes the three as "a downstate farm boy, a New York Jew, and a Muslim immigrant; Pulitzer, Nobel, AIA winners; all Illinois undergrads and all champions of liberal education" and the libretto as "touching broadly on education, aspiration, inclusivity, the links between art and science, and the centrality of imagination."
  
  The new work will be performed at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, in New York City, and at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana by the University of Illinois Wind Symphony (conducted by Dr. Stephen Peterson, Director of Bands) and the University of Illinois Chamber Singers (conducted by Dr. Andrew Megill, Director of Choral Activities).

• The University of Illinois Welcome Center at the Alice Campbell Alumni Center will demonstrate how the University of Illinois has transformed and enriched lives for the past 150 years.  The Welcome Center will be a destination for alumni, students and campus visitors as it highlights the history and traditions of the University, celebrates the achievements of our alumni, and serves as a gateway to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Visit https://illinoisalumni.org/welcome-center/ for more information.

• The Illinois Distributed Museum will be an online resource that ties objects, locales, markers, exhibits, documents, and information currently dispersed across time and space together into one virtual location at distributedmuseum.illinois.edu. The Illinois Distributed Museum will help to tell University of Illinois stories in ways that will highlight the historical and ongoing impacts and synergies that university research, teaching and public service have produced at home and abroad. The online resource will engage various publics and inspire them to learn, participate, and contribute to the university’s mission.

• The Sesquicentennial exhibit will be held in the Campbell Gallery of the Spurlock Museum, a 1200-square-foot venue, with additional components appearing in parts of the permanent galleries, where some University of Illinois stories can be told.

 

The exhibit will look at ways the University has, over its history, been an active participant in dialogues with community voices locally, across the state and country, and internationally. The ways the University serves the people of Illinois and responds to changing educational philosophies and priorities have been—and remain—critical to issues of access and equity. Our curator has researched three distinct time periods in the first century of the University’s history in which far-researching decisions shaped the institution we value today. The exhibit team continues to collaborate with campus units to identify artifacts that document these stories.

• Please watch the video here: http://go.illinois.edu/homeoftheirown

 

• A HOME OF THEIR OWN: Sharing memories of a time at the University of Illinois when African American students were not allowed to live on campus and local black families and the African American community stepped up to help and support these students.

 

“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”  - Maya Angelou

There was a time in the history of the University of Illinois, when African American students were not allowed to live in university housing or enter certain university buildings. It has been said that black students were at the University, but not of the University.

The story of African American students who attended the University of Illinois in the 1940’s and the local black community who supported them is one that validates a long standing collaboration between campus and community. Local African American families, area churches, and community leaders joined forces to provide meals, housing and a sense of community for the black students who yearned for a college education and were not going to let housing obstacles deter them from pursuing their degrees.

African American students lived in boarding houses, black fraternities and sororities and with black families during this time. Through reflective interviews and insightful memories along with sharing of photographs from days gone by, this documentary will preserve and promote an era on campus when the African American community laid the groundwork for encouraging higher education and advancement of black students, regardless of obstacles and objections.

J.C. Caroline, African American halfback for the University of Illinois football team, had many first hand experiences regarding a different set of standards for whites and blacks when he was a University of Illinois student. J.C. could not get his hair cut in a Champaign barber shop for whites only. Ironically, in the window of that barber shop was a picture of Caroline, blasting the opposing football team’s line in All-American style. J.C. couldn’t crash that color-line in the barber shop, however.