Talk:University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Reviewed version: September 26, 2006
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Contents

[edit] School of Communications now School of Media

Yo people idk how to do all the changing and stuff and don't want to mess anything up but someone has to change it soon. the u of i website has school of media now.


[edit] Cleanup

A few sections in this article could use some cleanup. The photos section is pretty big and kinda seems triva-esqe. Perhaps a few of the main quad buildings could be kept and then the rest put in a separate article about the buildings at UIUC? Also I think the notable location section is also another trivia like section. If these were expanded to full sections or sub sections that link to their main article, it would make the UIUC article a bit more specific. Chipotlehero 19:09, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Library

The library, while justifiably famous for its breadth, probably (I say probably) doesn't contain 22MM volumes. I believe the link cited indicates "items". Most libraries carry photographs and other items. Volumes are probably a separate itemization. On that basis, the library is probably 3rd or so, but not as large as the Library of Congress (which the number approximates).


See News-Gazette report. It states that the library got its 10 millionth volume in 2003. About the number 22 million, the report states that:
The library has more than 22 million items. In addition to its 10 million books, those items include manuscripts, pamphlets, maps, microform, computer files, film and video materials, and music scores.
So I guess this settles the matter. Thanks. --Ragib 04:26, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Non-notable photos

I don't think posting the photos of non-notable buildings in the UIUC encyclopedia article is proper. Why not post photos of Lincoln Hall and the Psych building, and... You get the idea. Main quad and engineering quad are notable. --G3pro 14:23, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Very Notable Photos

Beckman and CSL are the two main buildings on the Engineering quad, if you don't believe them notable you don't know anything about the University. I plan on adding articles on them shortly. PDE 16:21, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Good idea. I'm thinking about doing a UIUC engineering article and moving engineering related things all into that. Including the Siebel article. --G3pro 17:32, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Check out UIUC College of Engineering. It's a stub with the info from the Siebel article, but I want to put all engineering info into the article in the future. I am envisioning a course/buildings/history/accomplishments descrition for many UIUC engineering fields. --G3pro 17:39, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
CSL is notable because it employs such a brilliant network admin... -- Jbamb 01:17, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes John, you are awesome! anonymous wikier, 01:16, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notable Alumni

What's wrong with keeping (Max Levchin, B.S. 1997, co-founder of PayPal) in Notable Alumni section? I have seen his name on a wall in Siebel Center. He also gave talks in CS dept some years ago. I do think he can be added to the notable alumni list. --Ragib 22:59, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Poll on University Naming Conventions

A new survey has been created to assess consensus with respect to university naming conventions, specifically regarding the usage of terms like "University of Texas" vs. "University of Texas at Austin". The poll addresses this issue both in the specific case of the "University of Maryland" and proposes an amendment to Wikipedia:Naming conventions which could impact a large number of additional pages, including this one. Dragons flight 17:39, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Transportation Section Off-Topic

The section on Transportation was becoming a mini-article on the MTD, which already has a page: Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District. Awards for the MTD mentioned on this page should be referenced in the main MTD article and actually be for campus. Thesquire 22:40, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Encyclopedic Character

I have removed the "Trivia" section for two reasons. First, there are more famous ghosts, hauntings, stories, legends, etc, on the campus than the one cited. Secondly, the claim was unsourced and out of place when compared to the entries for the rest of the Big Ten.

Also, the "Residence" section as it now stands suffers from poor organization and POV. I will attempt to fix this as best I can, but this will likely need an extended amount of attention.

When adding text to the article, please consider appropriateness and NPOV. Thesquire 15:58, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

I completely agree on the removal of the Trivia section, which was downright non-sense anyway. I am curious about the residence section, though. Do you mean the criticism of the private landlords? In fact, that part on private party residences can be totally removed. --Ragib 16:31, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] School Location

Given that the school is (admittedly in the article) almost equally divided between Champaign and Urbana, is there any value in listing both cities under 'location' in the Univ taxobox? -- RB McLeroy 12:59, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

  • My understanding is that the school itself started in Urbana, which is why that city is usually listed. However, while most of the academic buildings and dorms are in Urbana, a few are in Champaign, along with most of the administrative and athletic buildings. As such, I see no problem with adding Champaign, other than figuring out how to properly format it. Thesquire 03:11, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

If all the campuses of SIU are listed in Category:Universities and colleges in Illinois, there should be no reason that the campuses of the UofI aren't. As such, I'm restoring this article to that category. Thesquire 08:08, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Userbox for UIUC alum

{{User UIUC}} can be added to your user page if you want to put a userbox there that you are a UIUC person. -- Jbamb 01:17, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge of Xtension Chords

Personally, I'm against this, since it'd not only mess up the tone of the article, but also because I have serious doubts as to whether the group passes WP:MUSIC. -- Thesquire (talk - contribs) 18:43, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

  • You're right, I'll withdraw the merger request and tag it as a possible WP:MUSIC problem... though it might be worth considering creating a new, catch-all article titled Student Activities and Clubs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Kevyn 15:52, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] greek life

I don't see why this article would need to be burdened with a huge, irrelevant list of fraternities and a table of their year of establishment. The greek life is already discussed in detail, no need to take a significant part of the article to give the table. Thanks. --Ragib 17:38, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The section could do with a little expanding (not a lot, just a little) but the full list of greek letter organizations is a bit much. -- Thesquire (talk - contribs) 20:30, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone have a cite for the 48% statistic? I am am undergrad at U of I and that number seems awfully high. Atound here the most common number to hear is 20%. Rixnixon 23:55, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I found what the actual numbers are, but I'm not sure how to get the citations to format correctly. For some reason every reference is off by one in the endnotes. Does someone with a bit more experience know how to fix this? Rixnixon 16:58, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gen Upgrade needed

This is a very disappointing article for such a great university, and alma mater of my late Dad. It doesn't do his school justice. You need to dump the list. Add "academics" and "history" sections, to name a few, and focus on the things that make this school great. This article is both thin and short. Might want to check out Michigan State and Michigan articles for guidance (both of these schools had Featured articles). The WikiProject Michigan group is worth emulating.151.197.170.126 05:50, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA nom

This is a very promising article, and I want to give it a pass, but I think several things need to be done.

  • First, get the article format more in line with WikiProject Universities. This really involves moving a couple of sections around. This isn't just for formality's sake ... the very first thing after the table of contents shouldn't be just a linked list (it should be the campus section).
  • The organization section, likewise, shouldn't be just a listing of the university's colleges. As per the project page, explain its governance.
  • The referencing in the article is promising but needs to be more complete. I'd like to see something on the half-million total degrees awarded, for starters.
  • "UIUC is one of the few educational institutions to own an airport. The university owns and operates the Willard Airport" Not only could these two sentences be combined, I'd like to see some citation on the "one of the few". It sounds true, but sounds true isn't good enough.
  • "The university has the largest Greek system in the world." This is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary proof and it isn't in the sources at the other two footnotes. I cannot see a Good Article having such a claim unsupported. Likewise, "Many of the fraternity and sorority houses on campus are on the National Registry of Historic Places." Can we see a link to the appropriate webpage to support this?
  • "The University has the largest public university library in the world" Again, an extraordinary claim ... and one that isn't backed up by the ALA page linked. All that demonstrates is that UIUC has the largest public university library in the United States. Change it or find the appropriate source.
According to the University's web site, http://www.uiuc.edu/overview/explore/library.html, it does claim to have the largest public university library in the world. I've added the citation to the article. Mrquizzical 06:44, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
OK, good, but that should also make clear the university claims this. Daniel Case 20:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Agreed--I've been looking for an independent source but haven't found one yet. I added the "claims" language into the article. If anyone can supply additional verification we can take it back out. Mrquizzical 23:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I would also like to see some sources on the mascot controversy.
      • It should be in here as well. Daniel Case 01:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Lastly, as a general note, some single-sentence grafs could be combined with their neighbors.

Don't take this too hard ... this is a fine article here and those of you who've worked on it have much to be proud of. This has FA potential if you develop it further. I'll check back in a week to see what you've done. Daniel Case 23:03, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Addendum: I have tagged the three spots in the article re sourcing that must be addressed somehow. Daniel Case 03:19, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Failed

After a week on hold, only one of the three unsourced statements in this article has been sourced. I therefore must fail it.

When fixed, it can be renominated at any time. Daniel Case 02:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

A day late and a dollar short. I cited 3 of the statements with various UIUC web pages. I suppose they are not exactly unbiased. The Chief opposition citation I will leave to someone else. --Dual Freq 03:18, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

74.134.238.84 22:49, 9 June 2007 (UTC)


Come on please upate this page more often. I am a graduate of UIUC and would update myself. But am not to skilled at it yet 74.134.238.84 22:49, 9 June 2007 (UTC) Jan

[edit] Most prestigious campus?

I can't believe that anyone would question the statement that UIUC is the most prestigious campus in the UI system. For heavens's sake, the other two or three schools are all cruddy little squatters. Hell, ISU, SIUC, and NIU all have better national standings than the other schools in the UI system.

No, I figure that this is just a case of someone wanting to delete all adjectives that might have a subjective connotation. Well, you know what? The word "prestigious" has a definition, and you can just look it up, and it is obvious to anyone who isn't being obstinate that Champaign meets this definition. Not everything has to be quantifiable in order to be a fact. But since US News has quantified things, and since UIUC is the only public university in the entire state of Illinois (let alone just the UI system) that even ranks in the top 50% of the nationally ranked universities, then I hope you can see what's what. For crimminey's sake. HuskyHuskie 04:28, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] History section

What's with the history section? It contains only one time period. Given all the prestigious people associated with the school I'm sure there would be some things happening there in more modern times. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.82.227.246 (talk) 18:35, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

There were. I was in the process of writing the history before I had to leave for the summer. I will add more as I have time, but help from others in this area would be greatly appreciated.Chiwara 12:43, 15 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Selective Ratings

Some one altered the College of Engineering ratings from "Most Selective" to "More Selective". This is not accurate according to their standings. College ranking breakdowns are as follows: Less selective, selective, more selective, highly selective, and most selective. The University at Urbana-Champaign is classified in it's entirety as a "Highly Selective" University- but it's engineering admittance is classified at the "Most Selective" level. A school like Yale, for example, is classified as being Most Selective for its entire University admittance. Selective ratings should be made clear in accordance to their official rankings. These selective ratings are outlined very clearly for each university in America and are not opinions but facts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.54.97.195 (talk) 15:42, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I understand the anon's point now. But I submit that he (or someone else who knows about this stuff) needs to rewrite this. From what he's written, I'm assuming that there is, somewhere, a formal listing of gradations of selectivity. Without direct reference to this, there is nothing wrong with saying that certain UIUC colleges are "more selective". If this is not directly referred to, I will eventually go in and change this back. HuskyHuskie 19:48, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
    • There are several guides to U.S. colleges that can be found in any typical bookstore that has each college and department ranked according to it's degree of selectivity. I have sited UIUC's by this source which also ranks according to selectivity: The Institute For Higher Education Policy; College and University Ranking Systems: Global Perspectives and American Challenges (www.ihep.org) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.54.154.114 (talk) 21:49, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect to University of Illinois

Good work on redirecting "University of Illinois" to this page. I had wanted that change for a while now.--Gloriamarie 21:31, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Bad work. If the University of Illinois trustees have decided to have a multi-campus system (and they decided that decades ago), then "University of Illinois" should reference the system at large. Or perhaps you have an explanation for why uillinois.edu is the URL for the system and not the campus at Urbana and Champaign? --128.135.149.54 (talk) 15:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
www.uillinois.edu is the system webpage, but the UIUC campus is in the process of transitioning from uiuc.edu to illinois.edu and www.illinois.edu is a redirect to the webpage for the UIUC campus. It is also extremely common for the UIUC athletic teams to be referred to as simply "Illinois" by sports fans and media. -- Upholder (talk) 22:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
It is also extremely common for the UIUC athletic teams to be referred to as simply "Illinois" by sports fans and media. Extremely common? I'd say it's more than that, I have never heard it any other way. These complaints are by people who just don't understand the history. The UIUC "system" is not like the UCal system, nor even like the UW system based out of Madison. The Springfield campus was a struggling school, nay a dying school, and was just given the UI label to try to save it from extinction. The UI "system" is like an Olympic decathalon champion who is later discovered to have one mildly retarded sister and a brother who was kept locked in a closet from age 2 to 33. HuskyHuskie (talk) 03:49, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
It is different from the UW system in that, in Illinois, there are actual serious universities around the state that are not part of the UI system. NIU, ISU, SIU, are all serious research universities, and even EIU and WIU are real colleges with dorms and sports and quads. The other campuses of the UI system are glorified community colleges. HuskyHuskie (talk) 03:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't go so far as to call any of the directional little-sister schools as "serious". Still third-tier, at best. Tool2Die4 (talk) 10:38, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:UIUC.jpg

Image:UIUC.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. BetacommandBot (talk) 21:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


Hi there:

There's somebody just went and delete any images BEFORE read the copyright tag and about the original uploader. Some photos have belonged to this article for years and is a plus (to the article) compared to the others in its kind. If you all understand the copyright so well please respect the photographers by recognizing his credits AND his right to release the photos to the public domain, particularly contribute to this article .

If some are not in fair use and/or violate Wikipedia rules/policy, of course they should be deleted. Please don't delete because you don't like it by your own judgement (trivia-like, etc). People did spend a lot of time editing this article, in the hope of genuinely making it better and more informative. I am sure you heard the proverb "A picture worth a thousand words". If you look back the history of this article within this year and compare it to other "university" articles, you'll see the difference between "dynamic" and "static", "live" and "dead', "grown" and "ungrown".

Be clear, I have no affiliation whatsoever with UIUC. Here is one of the tag from the restored photos. Thanks.

personal photo by Aries Liang [edit]Licensing

I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. This applies worldwide. In case this is not legally possible, I grant any entity the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.173.205.172 (talk) 09:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Steven Kazmierczak

Steven Kazmierczak is reported as a student at U-Ill-Urbana [1] , so, this is a notable UIUC person then... 132.205.44.5 (talk)

True, but he was a student at UIUC for such a short time. Most of his work and education took place at NIU. Paerra (talk) 05:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC)