Faculty and alumni achievements honored with street banners

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor
217-244-1072; slforres@uiuc.edu

Click image to enlarge Banner achievements One of the banners to go on display features Katharine Sharp, who founded the first library science program in the Midwest in 1893 at the Armour Institute in Chicago. In 1897, the school and Sharp moved to the UI’s Urbana campus, where the school was renamed the Illinois State Library School and evolved into the Graduate School of Library and Information Science in 1981. Sharp, who led the school until her retirement in 1907, was the first woman to head a major academic library.

Notable faculty members and alumni and their achievements are being commemorated with a series of orange and blue banners that will be displayed along Green, Sixth and John streets later this spring and summer. The 20 honorees, who were selected by Provost Linda Katehi based upon nominations from each of the colleges, include current, retired and deceased faculty members as well as living and deceased alumni.

The banners celebrate the diversity of scholarship and achievement that is Illinois and are part of the campus branding and identity initiative.

Todd Hearn, supervisor of graphic design in Facilities and Services Division, designed the banners, which are being produced by Dean’s Superior Blueprint Inc., of Champaign.

The first set of 10 banners will be erected before commencement and will be displayed for two or three months before being replaced by the remaining banners. Those being honored:

College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences

• Isabel Bevier, founder of home economics program and for whom Bevier Hall is named

College of Applied Health Sciences

• Mannie Jackson, alumnus, owner of the Harlem Globetrotters

Institute of Aviation

• Stanley Roscoe (deceased), emeritus professor of aviation engineering psychology and aeronautical and astronautical engineering, former head of the Aviation Research Laboratory

College of Business

• John Zeglis, alumnus, retired chairman and CEO of AT&T wireless

College of Media

• Roger Ebert, Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic (1975), author and alumnus

College of Education

• Mildred Griggs, professor emerita, dean of the college from 1995-2000, expert on workplace literacy and diversity

College of Engineering

• John Bardeen (deceased), two-time Nobel Prize-winning physicist (1956 and 1972) and faculty member

• Jack Kilby, alumnus, Nobel laureate in physics (2000) for invention/development of integrated circuit

• Nick Holonyak, faculty member, developer of the quantum-well laser

• Rosalyn Yalow, alumnus, shared 1977 Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology for the discovery/development of radioimmunoassay (second woman to win Nobel in medicine)

College of Fine and Applied Arts

• Ang Lee, alumnus (BFA in theater), Oscar-winning film director

International Programs and Studies

• Rajmohan Gandhi, award-winning journalist and director of Global Crossroads

Graduate School of Library and Information Science

• Katharine Sharp, founder of GSLIS

Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations

• Milton Derber (deceased), faculty member and national labor expert

College of Law

• John Cribbet, former UI chancellor and former law dean, national leader in law research and scholarship

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

• Philip Sharp, shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology for the discovery of split genes

• Richard Powers, Swanlund professor of English, winner of the 2006 National Book Award for fiction

• Carl Woese, the Stanley O. Ikenberry chair, microbiology; winner of the Crafoord Prize and discoverer of the archaea (third form of life)

School of Social Work

• Marietta Stevenson, first UI dean of social work

College of Veterinary Medicine

•   Lloyd Davis, director of first veterinary medical clinical pharmacology residency program

Back to Index