RESEARCH General 2000

TOPICS: Arts | Education | Government | Health | Home & Garden | Illinois | Law | Sociology | World Affairs

ARTS

Voicing His Expertise: A UI vocal teacher has been helping singers and others who use their voices professionally, including coaches, rehabilitate their voices following vocal abuse or injury. (11/1/00)

Music: Internationally acclaimed opera star Jerry Hadley will return to Illinois to perform the world premiere of a song cycle inspired by an epic poem by Carl Sandburg. (10/1/00)

Archtecture: A UI scholar aims to make more people aware of the achievements of Cass Gilbert, the architect who designed the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. (10/1/00)

Literary History: A symposium to be held on the UI campus Oct. 28 will celebrate the life and work of James Jones, the author of the international best-seller "From Here to Eternity." (10/1/00)

Fear of Computers: The fictional home of the world's first diabolical computer and the actual home of one of the top computer science programs is holding a "Computer Fear Film Festival." (9/1/00)

Music and Technology: The continuum fingerboard -- a new breed among electronic instruments -- resembles a piano keyboard, except that it doesn't have discrete pitches. (8/1/00)

Historical Fiction: A new book sheds light on one of the most overlooked slave revolts at sea: the successful commandeering of the ship Creole off the U.S. East Coast in 1841. (8/1/00)

Arts in the Community: The Milwaukee Symphony's Arts in Community Education program is among the most well-regarded efforts to counter the notion that orchestral music is elitist. (7/1/00)

Music History: The UI's Sousa Archives for Band Research is a valuable resource for John Philip Sousa scholars and music researchers as well as visitors who share an interest in musical history. (7/1/00)

Tennessee Williams : A ''forgotten” Tennessee Williams play -- a boy-girl romance that was produced just once, in 1947 -- will be staged again at the UI Nov. 3. (6/1/00)

Music: One of the authors of a new book that traces the history of the piano says the instrument appears to be declining in popularity. (6/1/00)

Poetry: In his new volume of poetry, Laurence Lieberman turns to the mythology of the Caribbean, where daily life offers myriad opportunities for magic, metamorphosis, rebirth. (5/1/00)

At the Movies: The second annual Roger Ebert "Overlooked Film Festival" is set for April 26-30 and features 12 films and at least as many producers, directors and actors. (4/1/00)

Literature: Sixty scholars from around the world will be taking part in an April symposium at the UI devoted to Marcel Proust, one of France's greatest writers. (4/1/00)

Musicology: An invaluable resource for Renaissance music scholars, a new book doubles as a fascinating cultural history of the courts of northern and western Europe in the 16th century. (4/1/00)

Art History: The 1990s are barely behind us, but already the art of the 20th century's final decade has been chronicled in a just-published second edition of a widely used art history text. (3/1/00)

Japanese Art: Thanks to a gift from a Japanese school to the UI's Japan House, students will be able to develop a thorough understanding of the significance of the kimono. (3/1/00)

Music: The UI is staging a performance of Edward Elgar's "The Dream of Gerontius," a piece popular in the composer's homeland, Great Britain, but rarely performed in the United States. (3/1/00)

Television: Library showcases that typically display rare and priceless Bibles now are featuring scriptures of another kind -- the scripture according to daytime television soap opera. (3/1/00)

Insect Fear: "Bee" movie lovers will have a honey of a time Saturday, Feb. 26, at the 17th annual Insect Fear Film Festival at the University of Illinois. (2/1/00)

American Literature: A new anthology of modern American poetry includes Frost, Millay and other icons as well as some formerly marginalized poets and challenging poems. (2/1/00)

EDUCATION

Schools: Learning standards are moving forward in Illinois schools, but slowly, in part because schools are focusing on standards tests rather than on the standards themselves. (11/1/00)

Employee Training: The business world has embraced e-commerce as a valuable selling tool, but it has been slow to develop e-learning as a tool for training, a UI professor says. (11/1/00)

Kindergarten: About one in five kindergartners will have a less than positive reaction to school early on, and it's something parents need to watch for, a psychologist says. (9/1/00)

Schools: A new study indicates that among sixth-grade boys, bullying and popularity often are linked, while the victims of bullying show disturbing signs of depression and anxiety. (8/1/00)

Gifted Education: Gifted programs are providing valuable benefits to students, but such programs also saddle students with undesired labels, according to many such former students. (8/1/00)

Higher Education: A UI department that has specialized in teaching community college educators now is bringing that expertise online. (7/1/00)

Study Abroad: This summer, the UI history department won't just be teaching history, it will be making it, by sending professors and students to Cuba, France, India and Russia. (5/1/00)

The Economics of Education: A student who receives a bachelor's degree at an Illinois college or university will make an average of $590,000 more in earnings than a high school graduate. (4/1/00)

College Teaching: Before presenting new material, teachers should ask students a few questions, to help locate hidden "icebergs" of misinformation, two scholars say. (3/1/00)

Technology: Those who see the computer as a panacea in education place too much faith in the technology, while those who would ignore the computer are making as big a mistake. (2/1/00)

Welfare Reform: Welfare rolls have shrunk, and state surveys show that most of those who have left the rolls have jobs, but the surveys may hide a lot of job instability, a study suggests. (2/1/00)

Elections: The presidential candidates' focus on states with large electoral votes has come at the expense of Latino voters, who are, for the most part, being passed by, a scholar says. (11/1/00)

Taxes: Filling out income-tax forms and filing them has become increasingly easy at the same time as tax planning for college and retirement has grown increasingly complex, a scholar says. (11/1/00)

Welfare Reform: A study of the first 137,000 people to leave welfare in Illinois as a result of reforms three years ago shows that many people found jobs, but wages often were low. (10/1/00)

Politics and Health Care: The presidential candidates’ prescription-drug plans for seniors tell us less about the future of health-care delivery than the clout of large voting bloc. (10/1/00)

Labor Relations: The Taft-Hartley Act, which lets a president seek an injunction ending strikes that "imperil the national health," has outlived its usefulness, two scholars say. (9/1/00)

Public Policy: Presidents' and presidential candidates' claims to the contrary, U.S. presidents have little impact on economic progress, according to a UI scholar. (7/1/00)

Child Welfare: For months America focused on every move of a ward of the state named Elian yet the public knows little about another half-million children in its collective care. (6/1/00)

New Dollar: The "packaging for consumption" of Sacajawea, the American Indian gracing the new dollar coin, has been going on for more than a century, a UI scholar says. (6/1/00)

The Politics of Race: Neoconservative commentators used "an array of tropes," or word games, to package their discourse on urban violence as a racial problem, a UI scholar says. (5/1/00)

Rudy vs. Hillary: The contest between Rudolph Giuliani and Hillary Rodham Clinton "is turning some of the usual logic around" regarding where each political party's strength lies. (3/1/00)

Foster Care: With research-tested outreach to relatives of Illinois' foster children, many more of these children are being placed in permanent homes, a professor of social work says. (3/1/00)

HEALTH

Eating Habits: You not only are what you eat, you also are what you slurp, at least according to a professor who has done a study that links soup choices to personality types. (12/1/00)

Aging and Excercise: Any physical activity is better than none, at any age, even if it doesn't fit common notions of exercise, says a leading advocate of "active aging." (12/1/00)

Diet: People with total cholesterol levels exceeding 240 could benefit substantially by eating 25 to 50 grams of soy protein daily, according to a recent scientific advisory. (12/1/00)

Biology: Estrogen -- even in men -- may join food indulgence and lack of exercise as factors affecting obesity, researchers on two continents say. (12/1/00)

Politics and Health Care: The presidential candidates’ prescription-drug plans for seniors tell us less about the future of health-care delivery than the clout of large voting bloc. (10/1/00)

Technology and Health Care: The failure to commit money and imagination to "e-medicine" has undercut the potential of using technology to deliver health-care services. (8/1/00)

Ritalin: Ritalin appears effective in helping children suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder react as quickly as their peers who don't have the disorder. (8/1/00)

AIDS: A new study finds that for people living with AIDS or HIV, the conventional wisdom about "more information being better than less," doesn't always apply. (6/1/00)

Psychology: Behaviors are influenced by how people perceive the world and how their environments provide opportunities for satisfying their preferences, a scholar says. (5/1/00)

Speech Therapy: People with hypernasal speech may find help by using a device for treating sleep apnea that involves a kind of weight-lifting for the soft palate, a researcher says. (4/1/00)

Mental Health: Improving education about mental health services for Asian Americans can break down cultural barriers that may contribute to delayed treatment, a UI researcher says. (4/1/00)

Food Chemistry: Cholesterol levels may reflect a person's diet, but they say little about cardiac health, a study of people with low cholesterol levels and serious artery blockages shows. (3/1/00)

Leisure Time: The fitness craze sparked by Jane Fonda in the mid-1980s and the "Just Do It" campaign of the '90s never happened and were mainly concoctions of the news media, a scholar says. (3/1/00)

HOME & GARDEN

Christmas: Criticizing Christmas as a consumer holiday is nothing new, says a scholar who maintains that people's Yuletide behavior has come under attack for centuries. (12/1/00)

Community Computing: A new program initiated by the University of Illinois and community organizations will help residents of East St. Louis, Ill., get aboard the Internet. (12/1/00)

Holiday Customs: Baby boomers, not just Madison Avenue, have raised the profile of Halloween to the point where it now pumps $400 million a year into the gross domestic product. (10/1/00)

Landscape Design: Students and faculty members at the UI are engaged in an effort to enhance the landscape around one of the world's most recognizable monuments, the Taj Mahal. (9/1/00)

Eating Habits: People eat foods that trigger fond associations, according to a University of Illinois marketing professor who interviewed consumers around the country. (9/1/00)

Water Usage: Illinois needs a water law to regulate the withdrawal of water from streams before there is a crisis leading to rationing and poor water quality, an engineer recommends. (7/1/00)

GMO corn: In contrast to a study showing genetically modified corn harmed Monarch butterfly larvae, a UI study indicates a GMO corn variety had no adverse effect on swallowtail larvae. (7/1/00)

Cultural Practices: A new volume of child-rearing manuals not only dispels the notion that there is one right way to bring up baby, but also challenges the idea that parents need such advice. (7/1/00)

Soybeans: Putting soy on the table is about to get easier, thanks to soybean scientists at the UI who have developed better-tasting soybeans for growing in home gardens. (6/1/00)

Human Enviroment: Experts will meet in San Francisco this month to talk about research that suggests that better environmental design can reduce the incidence of crime. (5/1/00)

Work and Divorce: Conventional wisdom holds that working long hours contributes to divorce, but new research indicates the evidence is far from conclusive, an economics professor says. (3/1/00)

Molds: News stories about toxic molds in people's homes have caused some homeowners to worry unnecessarily about the presence of any mold in their homes. (2/1/00)

Urban Planning: People typically say they like the idea of having more green space in their community, but they're not quite so enthusiastic about paying for it, a new study found. (2/1/00)

ILLINOIS

University of Illinois: The University of Illinois in 1904 was "poised for take-off" and within a few years, it would become a leading U.S. university, the author of a new UI history says. (11/1/00)

Airports and the Economy: Building an airport at Peotone, Ill., rather than expanding O'Hare, could save travelers $500 million a year and spur economic growth, a scholar says. (7/1/00)

Illinois Budget : The establishment of a "rainy day" fund by the Illinois Legislature is a valuable first step that will need fine-tuning in the future, according to a UI economist. (6/1/00)

Economics: A UI economist predicts that Illinois will end fiscal year 2000 on June 30 with a general fund balance very close to last year's historic high of $1.35 billion. (2/1/00)

Illinois Facts: The new Illinois Statistical Abstract includes data, county by county, on agriculture, livestock, employment, retail sales, health and vital statistics and much, much more. (2/1/00)

Welfare Reform : Welfare rolls have shrunk, and state surveys show that most of those who have left the rolls have jobs, but the surveys may hide a lot of job instability, a study suggests. (2/1/00)

LAW

Relationships: The foremost issue facing family law is how to realign the legal principles governing marriage to the current reality of adult and family relationships, a legal expert says. (12/1/00)

Custody Battles: Courts need to be more clear-headed in controlling the use of wiretapping by parents embroiled in child custody battles, a UI legal researcher says. (9/1/00)

Water Usage: Illinois needs a water law to regulate the withdrawal of water from streams before there is a crisis leading to rationing and poor water quality, an engineer recommends. (7/1/00)

Family Law: The U.S. Supreme Court's decision affirming a mother's right to shield her children from their grandparents may not be the victory for parents observers first thought. (7/1/00)

Legal Reform: Congress is on the brink of passing a bankruptcy "reform" bill that would increase the inconsistencies and unfairness of the present system, a law professor says. (7/1/00)

Legal Ethics: "Pay-to-play," the practice whereby lawyers make contributions to officials who award legal contracts, appears to be growing as the cost of political campaigns escalate. (5/1/00)

International Law: A court composed of officials of diverse national and ideological backgrounds would help depoliticize trials of controversial world leaders, a legal scholar says. (5/1/00)

Law: Rulings by the Supreme Court and several lower courts have eroded the protections afforded to criminal defendants of a right to a lawyer after indictment, a legal scholar argues. (4/1/00)

Adoption: Child-adoption laws should be changed so that caregivers can be made parents through a "non-exclusive adoption" approved by the courts and granting the biological father some rights. (2/1/00)

SOCIOLOGY

Communications: A new study finds that the secrets teens and young adults tell are remarkably similar - regardless of the family structure in which the secret sharers live. (12/1/00)

Personality and Behavior: A new study indicates that people pursue goals that show a strong relationship to their personalities, in essence validating who the people think they are. (11/1/00)

Women's Studies: There is a "feminist" spirit in the Czech Republic characterized by a mixture of strong family values with a firm attachment to the labor market, a scholar says. (11/1/00)

Language: Proficiency in a second language among adults is strongly related to age at immigration, a sociology professor at the UI says. (2/1/00)

WORLD AFFAIRS

Security: An innovative program at the UI and two other universities combines the study of language and culture with an examination of security issues in South Asia. (9/1/00)

Russian Studies: For her extraordinary contributions to Russia in the sphere of Russian culture and education, a UI professor has won Russia's prestigious Pushkin Medal. (9/1/00)