RESEARCH General 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

TOPICS: Arts | Children | Education | Government | Health | History | Humanities | Home & Garden | Law | Sociology | Theater |World Affairs

ARTS
Wheelchair: Dribbling, passing and shooting could become much smoother moves for wheelchair basketball players if a student-designed chair featuring a hands-free braking and turning system makes its way to the marketplace. (12/9/04)

World War II memorial: Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Ill., has memorials dedicated to Illinois citizens who served during the Korean and Vietnam wars. Incredibly, there was no similar monument honoring the contributions of the state’s 987,000 World War II veterans.(11/24/04)

Anti-business movies: Why do moviemakers seem to delight in raking big business over the coals, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign asks. (10/20/04)

Community Design: Civitas, the U. of I.'s Community Design Center, will host a grand opening at 112 W. Main St., Urbana, from 6 to 9 p.m. Oct. 1. (9/22/04)

Dance: Africa and Asia were the spiritual compass points for the first two parts of Ralph Lemon’s monumental multimedia work “The Geography Trilogy.” And now, for the last leg of the journey – and the final installment of his trilogy – Lemon puts his American homeland on the map with the world premiere of “Come home Charley Patton” Sept. 21-22 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. (9/8/04)

Public restrooms: Restroom parity is not a frivolous issue, says Kathryn Anthony, a professor of architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The author of “Designing for Diversity: Gender, Race and Ethnicity in the Architectural Profession” (University of Illinois Press, 2001), Anthony has been exploring problems associated with inadequate public restroom facilities for two years as an outgrowth of her research for that book. (8/30/04)

9/11 Observance: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Concert Choir will present a 9/11 observance performance, beginning promptly at 7:46 a.m. on that date, in Smith Hall, 805 S. Mathews Ave., Urbana. (8/26/04)

Poetry: Although frequently ignored by the literary establishment during his lifetime, a self-described “peoples’ poet” and outspoken-but-loyal critic of the United States is celebrated posthumously in a new anthology of his work. (8/23/04)

The new anthology, “Wicked Times: Selected Poems” (University of Illinois Press) brings together for the first time the best poetry of Aaron Kramer (1921-1997), considered by his co-editors to be one of America’s “most compelling and accomplished poets.” The book is the latest title in Illinois’ American Poetry Recovery Series. (8/23/04)

Journalism: Are movies to blame for the public’s low opinion of reporters and journalism? Some in the news media think so, says former reporter Matthew Ehrlich, now a journalism professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the author of an engaging new book on the subject. (6/15/04)

Poet: In a new anthology of Claude McKay’s poems, editor William J. Maxwell traces the peripatetic life and career of the "canonically bold poet" who against all odds and his own deleterious tendencies came to inspire such Harlem Renaissance writers as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and James Weldon Johnson. (6/15/04)

Sensory design: Joy Monice Malnar and Frank Vodvarka hope their new book might help bring mainstream architects to their senses – literally. (5/20/04)

Ebert papers: Roger Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, will give his papers to his alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (4/29/04)

I space: Three projects curated by Chicago arts consultant Lela Hersh will be exhibited April 30 through June 12 at I space, the Chicago gallery of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (4/22/04)

Ninth Letter: In the trade, they’re often called “little” literary magazines. But there is nothing even remotely little about the new literary magazine just published by the Masters in Fine Arts creative writing program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (4/21/04)

Planning cooperation: Although they typically function independently from each other, architects, landscape architects and urban planners sometimes cross paths while engaged in community development or urban renewal projects. (4/20/04)

Sousa: The John Philip Sousa collection at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is marching to the beat of a different drummer, and by all appearances, it is a quick march. (4/13/04)

Christo: More than a quarter of a century after they first proposed outfitting New York’s Central Park with 1,000 fluttering, saffron-colored fabric panels, artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude will at last see an even grander, larger-scale version of their dream realized next February. (4/12/04)

CHILDREN
Children's fitness: University of Illinois researchers have been exploring the health benefits of exercise in children and other related questions in a series of studies during the past two years, and preliminary results indicate a correlation. (10/18/04)

Teen Talk: Those public service ads that advise parents to "just talk to their teenagers about drugs – they’ll listen" should come with a warning label, says the author of a new and path-breaking study. (3/18/04)

Child Care: All low-income working parents in Illinois can get subsidized child care, under one of the most comprehensive programs in the nation, but more than half the parents get that subsidized care from providers exempted from state licensing. (2/9/04)

Delinquency: Children who have experienced maltreatment are significantly more likely to engage in delinquent behavior, according to a unique new study matching child welfare and juvenile court records from Chicago and its Cook County suburbs. (1/13/04)

EDUCATION
Wheelchair: Dribbling, passing and shooting could become much smoother moves for wheelchair basketball players if a student-designed chair featuring a hands-free braking and turning system makes its way to the marketplace. (12/9/04)

Sexuality and schools: Sexuality is not an easy topic for discussion as it relates to schools, but what is left unsaid can cause a lot of harm, says Cris Mayo, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the author of a new book.(10/25/04)

Children's fitness: University of Illinois researchers have been exploring the health benefits of exercise in children and other related questions in a series of studies during the past two years, and preliminary results indicate a correlation. (10/18/04)

Human-subject research: Social science research on university campuses is being stifled by “hyperzealous” rules that bear little relation to the goal of protecting human subjects from unethical or unprofessional behavior, an expert from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign writes. (10/11/04)

Ed Tech Center: High school students in technology education courses will start thinking more like engineers if a new $10 million National Science Foundation grant, involving the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has the desired effect. (9/13/04)

Media Research: Media policy issues will be getting increased attention at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a result of a new research initiative supported by $234,000 from a recording artists organization. (8/31/04)

ADHD: Kids with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) should spend some quality after-school hours and weekend time outdoors enjoying nature, say researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (8/27/04)

Science: Science is not just evidence, but intuition. It is not just procedures, but creativity. Its conclusions are not set in stone, but ever-changing and open to question as part of a dynamic social enterprise. Yet the predominant view in schools and among the general public is that science is completely rational, objective, procedural, authoritative and free of cultural influence – a prescribed and trusted means for finding “the truth,” says Fouad Abd-El-Khalick (FOO-ahd OBD-ell HOLL-ick), an education professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (8/2/04)

Peer Interaction: A comprehensive yearlong study led by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that adolescents who think little of themselves tend to shy away from interactions with peers. This uncertainty and withdrawal then draws negative feedback from other students, prompting even more withdrawal and leaving them with few chances to have close friends and as targets for teasing or bullying. (7/26/04)

Agricultural history: Page by page, America’s rich agricultural history is being ravaged, not by boll weevils, not by locusts, not by critters of any kind, but by time. (7/19/04)

Boren Scholarships: Five students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have earned National Security Education Program (NSEP) Boren Undergraduate Scholarships for study abroad during the 2004-05 academic year. (5/14/04)

Homework help: What can parents do to help children doing poorly in school? Two new studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign suggest that supporting their children’s autonomy and refraining from being controlling will help kids do better on their homework and raise their grades. (5/11/04)

Brain day: Neuroscientists at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign invite children and their families to learn about their brains at the fourth annual Brain Awareness Day from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. May 23 (Sunday) at the Orpheum Children’s Science Museum, 356 N. Neil St., Champaign. (5/11/04)

Campus history: Twenty-one stories – historical vignettes drawn from one university over an entire century – together reveal “how knowledge is produced and how great public universities come to be,” writes Richard Herman, the provost of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in his preface to the new book, “No Boundaries: University of Illinois Vignettes” (University of Illinois Press). (5/4/04)

Teen pregnancy: The Title IX legislation of 1972 has been celebrated for the dramatic benefits it brought to girls in school sports. But another group of girls, also guaranteed educational equality through Title IX, have seen little benefit, says Wanda Pillow, a professor of educational policy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (4/23/04)

African Libraries: International library experts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been awarded a grant that will allow them to work with seven African university libraries.(2/17/04)

Ethnography: Undergraduate students have been conducting research at U.S. universities for years, but what happens when they are encouraged to do research on universities, particularly on their own? (2/3/04)

GOVERNMENT
Pro sports stadiums: If you build it, they will come … with wallets bulging, eager to exchange greenbacks for peanuts, popcorn, hot dogs and beer, and T-shirts and ball caps with team logos. At least that’s the theory embraced – time and time again – by mayors and city council members hoping to lure professional sports teams to their cities by promising to build new arenas for the teams. But one guy who’s not buying it is sports economist Brad Humphreys, a professor of recreation, sport and tourism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (11/17/04)

Missile defense: With the Bush administration poised to announce activation of its missile-defense system by the end of this year, the European community is eyeing the program with equal doses of interest and skepticism, according to Julian Palmore, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign professor who specializes in international security issues. (10/27/04)

Electoral College: While national preference polls are shedding little light on the outcome of the 2004 presidential race, state-level polls and electoral history can yield important insights, including “some unsettling possible outcomes in next month’s election.” (10/25/04)

Saddam: Why were so many Americans, as early as the first anniversary of Sept. 11, convinced that Saddam Hussein was behind the terrorist attacks in the United States? Did their mistaken belief that the Iraqi dictator was responsible for the attacks result from the Bush administration’s information campaign to convince the public to go to war in Iraq, or was something else at work? A new study – the first to investigate U.S. public opinion about who was to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks – finds that there was, indeed, “something else.” (9/9/04)

Bioterrorism: Michael H. LeRoy, a professor of industrial relations and of law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says there is “a disturbing consensus among medical and national security experts” that, three years after the 9-11 attacks, federal policy has failed to prepare the nation for the possibility of bioterrorism through the deliberate spread of the variola (smallpox) virus. (9/7/04)

Presidential election: History has some good news for the Democrats on the eve of their convention next week in Boston. In terms of the relative size of their electoral base and its distribution across states, and despite current polling data, which is highly volatile at this juncture in the race, the Democrats begin the 2004 campaign “with a distinct electoral advantage.” (7/23/04)

Blackouts: As the peak electricity season approaches, little has been done in Washington to prevent a recurrence of last August’s power failure that produced a huge blackout in the Northeast, an expert at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign says. (6/4/04)

Military gambling: The four branches of the armed services operate about 8,000 slot machines located in 94 facilities overseas, and John W. Kindt, a professor of business and legal policy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, wonders about the wisdom of sanctioning gambling among military personnel. (5/13/04)

War rationales: If it seems that there have been quite a few rationales for going to war in Iraq, that’s because there have been quite a few – 27, in fact, all floated between Sept. 12, 2001, and Oct. 11, 2002, according to a new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. All but four of the rationales originated with the administration of President George W. Bush. (5/10/04)

Media Reform: Robert McChesney and other reformers have been talking for years about media politics, but few were listening. In 2003 that all changed, as the public revolted, from across the political spectrum, against Federal Communications Commission rule changes allowing for increased concentration of media ownership. (4/5/04)

HEALTH
Vegetables v. fruits: Health educators and dietitians ought to be more precise the next time they advise Americans that “vegetables and fruit are good for you,” according to a study by a nutritional expert at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (11/12/04)

Children's fitness: University of Illinois researchers have been exploring the health benefits of exercise in children and other related questions in a series of studies during the past two years, and preliminary results indicate a correlation. (10/18/04)

Oral cancer: Oral cancer probably hasn’t been high on the average pot smoker’s list of concerns – despite the fact that marijuana smoke contains known carcinogens. It may be even less of a concern now in light of new research that found no link between marijuana use and risk of developing oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). (6/8/04)

Food: Research by Brian Wansink, a professor of marketing and nutritional science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, challenges the conventional notion that a person’s ability to control eating and stick to a successful diet has solely to do with willpower. (5/10/04)

Elder Abuse: To combat the growing problem of family members mistreating their aged parents, changes are needed in confidentiality laws and guardianship proceedings, according to a scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (4/12/04)

Long-term Medical Care: How to pay for the long-term health-care needs of aging baby boomers will become a major crisis unless steps are taken to rationalize the current hodge-podge of federal regulations and restricted coverage, according to a health-law expert at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (3/30/04)

HISTORY
Roadside Signs: Road warriors of all kinds would benefit from reading “Signs in America’s Auto Age: Signatures of Landscape and Place” (University of Iowa Press) and “Lots of Parking: Land Use in a Car Culture” (University of Virginia Press). The books underscore what people know – or think they know – about signs and parking lots, but also add visual cues and access ramps to what they may have never even considered. (9/1/04)

Journal of Women's History: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the new editorial home of the prestigious Journal of Women’s History (JWH). (3/30/04)

New Philadelphia Dig: Sponsored by a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program and led by staff from one museum and two universities, including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the dig in the pastureland formerly known as New Philadelphia is uncovering “the contours of the daily life of the first town incorporated by an African American before the Civil War.” (7/1/04)

Medieval History: Using Marco Polo, the great Venetian traveler and travel writer, as their guide, the 21 undergraduates in History 201 are engaged in medieval travel and in a few related topics, “cross-cultural exchange and the phenomenon of travel to this day.” (4/6/04)

HOME & GARDEN
Hope: For a small Illinois community dedicated to saving foster children, the Christmas season has been unusually merry and bright. (12/22/04)

Feminism: Feminism needs to end its long obsession with the politics of personal appearance, and get past its dim view of beauty, says author Linda Scott, who describes herself as a feminist. (12/14/04)

Financial education: Personal finance education is a growing trend in schools and workplaces, but it misses many of those who need it most, say social work professors Steve Anderson and Min Zhan. (10/11/04)

Public restrooms: Restroom parity is not a frivolous issue, says Kathryn Anthony, a professor of architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The author of “Designing for Diversity: Gender, Race and Ethnicity in the Architectural Profession” (University of Illinois Press, 2001), Anthony has been exploring problems associated with inadequate public restroom facilities for two years as an outgrowth of her research for that book. (8/30/04)

ADHD: Kids with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) should spend some quality after-school hours and weekend time outdoors enjoying nature, say researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (8/27/04)

'Land Ethic': Bill Stewart believes that everybody – from the
trail-mix-munching hiking enthusiast to the SUV-driving mall-shopper – has what he calls a “land ethic, whether they know it or not.”

Most people, however, “acquiesce to the dominant cultural ethic, which tells us that in the urban, workaday world, we have no connection to nature,” said Stewart, a professor of leisure studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. That connection is there, he maintains, and is reflected in individual lifestyle choices and behaviors. (8/23/04)

Granny cams: The proposed use of Web or video cameras to monitor the care of residents in nursing homes has kicked up a storm.

Proponents of the cameras, dubbed “granny cams,” say their use in nursing homes could weed out abusive employees and document incidents of substandard care, while nursing-home owners term video surveillance an invasion of privacy that could actually decrease care by making it more difficult to attract and retain good staff. (7/27/04)

Teen pregnancy: The Title IX legislation of 1972 has been celebrated for the dramatic benefits it brought to girls in school sports. But another group of girls, also guaranteed educational equality through Title IX, have seen little benefit, says Wanda Pillow, a professor of educational policy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (4/23/04)

Elder Abuse: To combat the growing problem of family members mistreating their aged parents, changes are needed in confidentiality laws and guardianship proceedings, according to a scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (4/12/04)

HUMANITIES
Data-mining software: Using cutting edge “tools of discovery” and a diamond-sharp new process called data-mining, information scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are beginning work that eventually will help scholars carve out new literary knowledge in the works of writers across languages, cultures and time. (10/25/04)

Spanish Civil War exhibit: The Spanish Civil War explodes to life again – in all its heroics and horror – in a new acquisition and exhibit at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (7/22/04)

Railroad journalism: Thanks to a new grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, thousands of endangered pages of American history dealing with railroads will be reclaimed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (7/14/04)

IPRH Fellows: The Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has announced its Fellowship Awards for 2004-2005. (6/15/04)

Underground Railroad: Long-lost stories about one of the most complex, secretive dangerous and successful collaborations among black freemen, slaves and white abolitionists are told in a new book, “Fleeing for Freedom: Stories of the Underground Railroad” (Ivan R. Dee). (2/13/04)

LAW
Restraint of Trade: The lockout of players by the owners of the National Hockey League, expected to begin at midnight today, will harm fans and the sport as owners try to impose cost-saving labor rules. (9/16/04)

Tort Reform: Placing limits on lawsuits and jury awards against nursing homes would improve the quality of care to elderly residents by reducing the skyrocketing cost of liability insurance, an article in the Elder Law Journal argues. (6/17/04)

SOCIOLOGY
Civil Rights: The lineup of speakers for this year’s weeklong Champaign County Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration includes state Sen. Barack Obama, D-Chicago; Erika Harold of Urbana, a former Miss America; Charles Burnett, a movie director; and Christopher Edley Jr., a founding co-director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project. (1/12/04)

THEATER
Acting!: UI law students are learning some of the trade secrets of acting in a new program. Call it creating a persuasive stage presence in the age of “Law & Order.” (2/9/04)

Tennessee Williams: From the recent Broadway revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” to next summer’s Kennedy Center festival featuring “Cat,” “Streetcar Named Desire,” “The Glass Menagerie” and other works, 20th century American playwright Tennessee Williams has once again become a hot property. (2/2/04)

WORLD AFFAIRS
War rationales: If it seems that there have been quite a few rationales for going to war in Iraq, that’s because there have been quite a few – 27, in fact, all floated between Sept. 12, 2001, and Oct. 11, 2002, according to a new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. All but four of the rationales originated with the administration of President George W. Bush. (5/10/04)