Profiles
A Community of Poets
First appeared in in January 2010
Janice Harrington’s recent success as a poet, author and college professor is deeply rooted in her more than two decades as children’s librarian and storyteller, where her work fostered a powerful ear for vivid rhythm and imagery. You could say Harrington’s latest incarnation as a professor in the University’s creative...
What Lies Beneath
First appeared in Illinois Alumni in January 2010
If Michael B. Johnson ‘88 ENG were a Pixar movie character he would be Sully, the large, furry, green-with-blue-spots star of Monsters, Inc. Like Sully (voiced by actor John Goodman), Johnson’s voice is deep and resonant; he is a hail-fellow-well-met; modest in an “aw-shucks-just-doing-my-job” way; and he is all about...
Laurie Halse Anderson:Human Beings Need Stories
First appeared in NCTE Council Chronicle in November 2009
The way Laurie Halse (rhymes with waltz) Anderson sees it, her main job is to tell stories that young people will read. “More than anything that’s my job, to tell stories so that kids will keep reading and developing their literacy skills. If I can do that then I...
A Civil Engineer Takes on Biological Systems
First appeared in Institute of Genomic Biology in October 2009
Civil engineering is not the most traditional route to tissue regeneration research, but that is how chemical and biomolecular engineering professor and IGB researcher Hyun Joon Kong began his journey. Kong’s original interest was colloidal rheology, the study of the effect of colloidal interaction on the deformation and flow of...
The Friends of Dick Russell club
First appeared in Illinois Alumni in March 2009
How do you tell the story of a man whose career with the CIA is classified information? A man who subsequently suffered from locked-in syndrome, a condition in which the patient retains all cognitive function but cannot move most of his muscles, not even to speak? You tell the...
Broken by the Blacklist
First appeared in Illinois Alumni in December 2008
“‘Ma, … how do you really feel about the blacklist? Angry? Frustrated? How?’” “That needed to be answered, and I thought about it a lot. Angry? No. To me, anger is a futile emotion. I think I can sum it up in two words: deep sorrow. Not for myself -...
Language of Love
First appeared in Illinois Alumni in May 2008
Eyamba Bokamba joined the University of Illinois Department of Linguistics 34 years ago, and since then he’s made it resound with the intonations of a continent. Bokamba has grown the African languages program from one language to five and developed more than 35 African language courses, as well as more...
Charles Simic
First appeared in Council Chronicle: National Council of Teachers of English in March 2008
As a child, poet Charles Simic played in the bombed-out buildings of his Belgrade neighborhood. His earliest memories include being thrown out of bed and across the room by the impact of a bomb, and seeing flames and dust and smoke so thick it was like nighttime at noon. Perhaps...
By the Book
First appeared in Illinois Alumni magazine in February 2008
Tall, slim, and perky, dressed in a turtleneck, tailored pants and sensible shoes, Betty Burch Mohlenbrock ‘62 ED, EDM ‘64, could be a woman who merely lunches with friends, entertains in her home and dotes on her grandchildren. Except for the grandchildren part, the rest couldn’t be more wrong....
The Strengths of Sampson
First appeared in Illinois Alumni magazine in January 2008
The first time Henry T. Sampson Jr., MS ‘65 ENG, PHD ‘67 ENG, lost himself in the microfiche room of the UCLA library, it was to blunt the trauma of his recent divorce. Little did he know that out of that misery would emerge his “passionate obsession,” a decades-long quest...
Rethinking an Axiom
First appeared in Arts & Sciences newsletter of Washington University in St. Louis in December 2007
Physics professor Carl Bender embodies that good old Missouri saying, “show me.” His knack for questioning things often taken for granted has led to exciting results. Quantum physics is formulated in terms of a set of axioms that are physical and have an experimental basis. All axioms, it turns out,...
Jonathan Kozol: Bearing Witness
First appeared in NCTE Council Chronicle in November 2007
As a young teacher in the 1960s, all Jonathan Kozol wanted to do was to share his passion for great literature with his students. So he read them poems. He read poems by William Butler Yeats, and he read poems by Robert Frost. The principal applauded him. But then Kozol...
Chris Crutcher’s Stories Resonate with Young Readers
First appeared in NCTE Council Chronicle in September 2007
Nothing much surprises Chris Crutcher, author of numerous young adult novels, including Ironman, Whale Talk, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, and Stotan!. Having worked extensively as a therapist for those experiencing child abuse and neglect, Crutcher has seen the dark underbelly of life. “Working in the field of child...
The Tao of Fu
First appeared in Illinois Alumni magazine in July 2007
In the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism, followers strive to bring harmony to the universe through the balance of opposites. So too has Ping Fu, MS ‘90 ENG, carefully negotiated a balancing act in the course of her life. Moving from the violence of China’s Cultural Revolution to the positivity...
Elie Wiesel: Indifference is Not an Option
First appeared in NCTE’s Council Chronicle in June 2007
For more than half a century, Nobel Prize-winner and concentration camp survivor Elie Wiesel (pronounced EH-lee vee-ZEL), has used his voice and his influence to make sure the world never forgets the atrocities committed by the Nazis during World War II. “There may be times when we are powerless to...
Raising a Joyful Voice
First appeared in Illinois Alumni magazine in June 2007
The day I meet her, Ollie Watts Davis MMUS ‘82 FAA, AMUSD’88 FAA, wears an ivory pants suit, rings on four of her fingers, piles of bracelets on each wrist, red nail polish and matching lipstick. There is just no other way to say this: she is gorgeous. She exudes...
Acts Of Faith
First appeared in Illinois Alumni Magazine in June 2007
Eboo Patel ‘96 LAS has the radical idea that people from other religions shouldn’t kill each other. “Why are religious extremists getting to young people before we do?” he asked. “Why don’t we build a different pattern, a pattern of religious pluralism?” Patel, a Muslim, founded the Interfaith Youth...
Faculty Feature: Martha Gillette
First appeared in University of Illinois School of Molecular and Cellular Biology in April 2007
Martha Gillette’s grin can easily light up a room, but behind that thousand-watt grin is a determination that could stop a freight train. Although Gillette knew from a young age that she would be a scientist, she faced more than her share of obstacles in the course of her career....
Poet Laureate Donald Hall Applauds Resurgence of Poetry
First appeared in National Council of Teachers of English, Council Chronicle in March 2007
Poet Laureate Donald Hall’s love of poetry grew from his fascination with horror movies. “I enjoyed the morbidity of them,” says Hall of his favorite flicks. Hall, who was named poet laureate last year, was born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut. When he was just a school boy,...
Bebe Moore Campbell
First appeared in NCTE Council Chronicle in March 2006
Although novelist Bebe Moore Campbell started out as a teacher, she always knew she would end up as a writer. That knowledge was about all she had to sustain herself in the beginning. She struggled for five years in the wilderness of rejection letters before her first short story...
There’s No Place Like Home
First appeared in Illinois Alumni magazine in January 2006
First, you should know that architect Lori Naritoku ‘82 FAA, MARCH ‘84 FAA, was not too keen on this whole idea of talking about herself. What she does, she said, is not interesting. “I just kind of like doing my own little thing,” Naritoku said. “It’s not a big deal.”...
Frank McCourt Is Forever a Teacher Man
First appeared in National Council of Teachers of English Chronicle in November 2005
Frank McCourt has become rich writing about being grindingly poor. Arriving in America as a teen, having survived a harrowing, poverty-stricken childhood in Ireland, McCourt, who never went to high school, enrolled in college to become a teacher. Many people will be familiar with at least part of his story,...
Isabel Allende
First appeared in National Council of Teachers of English Chronicle in September 2005
Anyone who has read Isabel Allende’s novels will not be surprised that she has what she describes as “an ear for stories.” “I can’t remember my children’s names, but I never forget a good story,” she says with her deep, warm belly laugh. And the world is a richer...
Purchasing Power
First appeared in in September 2005
When Mindy Conover Meads ‘74 ACES looks at a shirt, she’s probably not thinking about how it will look on her but how it will look on you. That’s because Meads, recent president and CEO of the clothing chain Lands’ End, has spent her entire career in the retail clothing...
Against the Odds
First appeared in Illinois Times in October 2003
It is a late September afternoon. Eighteen-year-old Johniesha Deberry is in labor. Her child wasn’t growing as expected, so birth is being induced. A fine-boned woman, with beautiful clear, black skin, Deberry wears a well-worn hospital gown. Her black hair, tinged with red, is tied in a high ponytail with...
A Telling Effect
First appeared in Illinois Alumni magazine in March 2003
Barry Bearak, MS ‘75 COM, doesn’t like to talk about himself. “It makes me self-conscious,” he said. “I get flustered.” On the other hand, he is very good at telling other people’s stories. Bearak, a New York Times staff writer who received the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for...
Looking for the Edge
First appeared in Illinois magazine in December 2002
The dawn is dull, the day trying to decide if it will be spring or remain winter. The houses in this Champaign neighborhood are faded and worn, the sidewalks cracked and dingy and in this gray, muddy, early spring day there is little vegetation to enliven the scene. Photographer Larry...
A Place To Belong
First appeared in Illinois Alumni magazine in May 2002
Once upon a time, Lynn Schreiber Price ‘77 COM was like every other kid in her Skokie, Ill., neighborhood. She attended Miss Kurzweg’s second-grade class at Middleton Elementary. She had two best friends, Barb and Darleen. Price’s mother, Jackie, was a homemaker. Price’s father, Alex, worked as a glazier, and...
Magnificent Obsession
First appeared in in December 2001
It is 9:30 a.m. when archaeologist John Kelly’s pine-green Jeep Cherokee lumbers across the grassy field and comes to a stop at two tarp-covered trenches blocked by barricades and yellow tape. It’s quiet except for the whirring and buzzing of crickets and the distant, dull whine of traffic from Highway...
Count Her In
First appeared in Illinois Alumni magazine in January 2001
Suze Orman, ‘77 LAS, once limited her career goals to a single area: waitressing. “My grades were never great. I had a speech defect, so I couldn’t speak, and I had mild dyslexia, so I couldn’t read. I thought I was dumb,” she said. Now Orman, a Certified Financial Planner®,...
Like Magic: 1997 Beckman Institute Fellow Brendan Frey
First appeared in Beckman Institute Annual Newsletter in January 2001
In some ways, Brendan Frey, 1997 Beckman Fellow, became interested in machine learning because it appealed to his sense of magic. “To know the secrets of how something that is beautiful and magical works is, to me, like being a magician,” says Frey, who even as a child was interested...
David Becker, Little in Life More Valuable than Friendship
First appeared in Washington University Record in January 2001
It was a beautiful fall evening when David Becker threw out the first pitch at the St. Louis Cardinals game against the Dodgers. Fred Hanser, J.D. ‘66, chair of the St. Louis Cardinals and one of Becker’s first students, was behind the plate catching—at Becker’s insistence. Hanser signaled for a...
Mark Smith: Providing the Tools for Success
First appeared in Washington University Record in January 2001
From the first day the law school students arrive on campus, Mark Smith, J.D. ‘86, associate dean of student services, works to get to know each one. He introduces himself at the welcoming assembly; he wanders the hall checking in with students as they change classes; he talks to them...
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! How the Brain Processes Auditory Information
First appeared in University of Illinois Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology newsletter in January 2001
How do frogs in a pond resemble people at a cocktail party? In both cases communication is possible only if frogs and people focus in on a particular voice… or croak… and tune out other, extraneous sounds. Albert S. Feng, professor of physiology, biophysics, bioengineering and neuroscience, has spent the...
Sharing Space
First appeared in in January 2001
Like most people, astronaut Joe Tanner ‘73 ENG puts his pants on one leg at a time, but in his case, those pants belong to a space suit and weight 60 pounds. Last February, Tanner joined an elite group of astronauts — one of only 19 on active duty who...