Making a Difference in Our Community, Our World
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.
We Begin With Location
Just minutes from our campus is the historic Old State Capitol, where Abraham Lincoln cut his political teeth and grew into the leader who would later 
preserve the Union. At UIS, we take full advantage of our location at the heart of Illinois government.
In our College of Public Affairs and Administration, students can intern in our governor’s office, the state legislature, or with the many government bodies that do their work here.
Through our Center for State Policy and Leadership, our students also have access to a wide range of additional learning opportunities—summits, research initiatives, and other public projects.
Programs that make a difference in people’s lives are part of our daily business here in Springfield and an integral part of a UIS education.
“There’s university-wide support for public affairs at UIS,” says Paul Horning, donor and UIS alum.
We Move Forward through Civic Participation
In all of our colleges, our legacy of civic participation drives our research and instruction. We’ve embraced an increasingly broad notion of social action:
- it includes strengthening the judicial process,
- jump starting local business,
- restoring critical natural environments.
In our business college, the Center for Entrepreneurship provides support for Illinois business owners.
Scientists and naturalists from all over the world come to our Emiquon Field Station to study our wetlands restoration efforts along the Illinois River.
And in our Center for State Policy and Leadership, we’re improving our political system and deepening knowledge about public affairs with our Lincoln Legacy Lecture Series, policy summits, and an array of research and outreach projects.
Making a Difference
Our diligent study of democratic processes often leads to concrete differences: just ask the people we’ve helped in our 
acclaimed Downstate Illinois Innocence Project, which helps exonerate inmates wrongly convicted and exposes students to the realities of criminal justice reform.
Added to programs like these are new classes that address the latest political and environmental threats to our freedom and well-being. These include programs in Homeland Security and Natural Resources and Sustainability.
Our faculty, students, and supporters are helping us take the lead in citizen participation.
Online Learning
Online learning is another bright spot at UIS. Non-traditional and special-needs students – commuters, single parents, working people, and people 
with disabilities, to name only some – have access to learning. UIS is at the leading edge of online learning, having recently received significant Sloan Foundation grants to further our efforts. Our hopes for the future include the building of a Center for Online Learning, Research, and Service (COLRS) that will become a national repository of expertise for successful online learning methodologies.
An Abiding Cornerstone
Our goal of becoming a recognized leader in civic participation starts by making sure that our outstanding current programs—like the Lincoln Legacy Lecture Series—have the support necessary to continue. Civic engagement
will remain the cornerstone of our undergraduate general education, and students will have the opportunity to develop their leadership skills in the new Leadership in Public Service program.
To heighten our students' civic engagement, we incorporate an ongoing Engaged Citizenship Common Experience (ECCE) component into our curriculum. The ECCE brings topics like comparative societies and global awareness more deeply into our students’ general education and expand experiential learning opportunities that promote informed social action.
Community Support
Generous supporters and friends of Springfield have helped us create and sustain programs in our College of Business and Management, the Emiquon Field Station, the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project, the Center for Geographic Information Systems, and many other civic and multi-disciplinary projects on campus. As a result, great work is being done in these areas, and these projects are poised for national recognition.
We now look to the Campaign to sustain and expand these projects: increased faculty, student support, and facilities improvements will allow us to make these programs stronger and more visible.
