delivering academic excellence
Springfield has always been a place where excellence in academics and innovation intersect, and academic excellence remains our highest priority.
If you are interested in supporting academic excellence, please use the How You Can Help link at left which will lead you to a page where we recommend several funds which will do exactly that.
An Intimate Learning Environment
During our earliest days as Sangamon State, a small group of passionate professors cultivated an atmosphere that was flexible, informal, and intimate, but one distinguished also by rigorous instruction and cutting-edge research.
And since then, we’ve carefully cultivated a learning environment that’s much more like a small, independent liberal arts school than a large public university:
- classes are small;
- students and professors eat lunch together,
conduct research together, and
truly get to know one another.
In fact, an unusual number of alumni fondly recall close relationships with professors and credit them for their personal and professional success.
"Students generally know professors on a first-name basis,” says Dr. Cullom Davis, donor and UIS professor emeritus of history. “They have a long-term mentor, and it’s a huge advantage in their later careers.”
Passionate Professors
We consider our professors to be true teacher-scholars--world-class experts like Dr. Barbara Burkhardt and Dr. Rassule Hadidi (pictured below), Dr. Karl McDermott and Dr. Michael Lemke—who are making important research contributions in their fields, but who also apply their knowledge to real-world initiatives and enjoy 
the give-and-take and extra time with students.
Award-Winning Programs
This is not just how we do things on campus. Under the leadership of Dr. Ray Schroeder, another world-class leader in his field, this excellence is part of our online classrooms as well. Indeed, the quality and methodology of our award-winning online programs—one of the nation’s first online programs, and consistently one of the best—is redefining what higher education can be and making a University of Illinois degree possible for many bright, non-traditional students who are already working or raising a family or for whom a disability or other personal situation makes it difficult to be on campus.
Achieving an even higher degree of academic excellence is the top priority of our Brilliant Futures Campaign. Our growth—new four-year programs and a larger freshman class—demands more resources. But we are committed to finding a balance between our expansion and the need to maintain a personal learning environment
Our Academic Challenges...and Opportunities
- Adding more committed, passionate faculty
At the heart of this challenge, of course, is finding and keeping
great faculty such as Missy Thibodeaux-Thompson, at right, one of our outstanding theater professors. We are relying on the Campaign to help us expand faculty in multiple academic departments, centers, and programs. With more endowed chairs and professorships, we can attract the best faculty even in the increasingly competitive recruitment environment. Endowed chairs also generate internal pride and help us develop a body of senior, long-term faculty
- Providing faculty growth opportunities
Nearly 70 highly distinguished scholars and scientists have recently joined our faculty, along with several prominent visiting scholars and scholars-in-residence. While they do the work that benefits our students and our society, we need to ensure support for activities that will keep them at UIS. The Campaign can fund the kind of incentives—professional awards, research and conference funding—that draw and retain the best professors. This support also helps our faculty stay current in their fields and gives our students, the next generation of leaders, the chance to participate in research, presentations, and exchange.
- Making new scholarships available
We also hope to develop 100 or more new scholarships, especially for our Capital Steps program—a flexible, multidisciplinary scholarship program that is known for attracting exceptionally bright and committed students. More scholarships
and graduate assistantships and fellowships will grow our talented and diverse student body.
- Enhancing our library
An additional key goal for the Campaign is taking our library to an even higher level of excellence: we hope to make long-overdue renovations, build more common spaces for students to do group work, and create an endowment for essential book and journal purchases.
- New science instruments for student research
We also seek to invest in new or upgraded facilities in many departments, including laboratory equipment for our science departments.
