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University of Illinois at Chicago

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The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) is a public, state-supported research university. It is the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois and is the largest university in the Chicago area comprised of 25,000 students, 15 colleges, and the nation’s largest medical school. Annual research expenditures exceed $290 million.

An estimated one in 10 Chicagoans with a college degree is a UIC alumnus. UIC’s student body is recognized as one of the nation’s most diverse; there is no racial or ethnic majority among UIC students. The undergraduate numbers in 2005 were: Total 15,448; Native American 34 0.2%; African American 1,377 8.9%; Asian American 3,849 24%.

One program is its Great Cities Commitment through which UIC faculty, staff and students engage in hundreds of programs with community, corporate, government and civic partners. The Great Cities Institute serves as the focal point of the Commitment and is devoted to interdisciplinary, high impact urban research. One of UIC's 15 colleges, the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, was formed in 1995 to support the Great Cities Commitment through innovative education and engaged research. Playing a critical role in Illinois healthcare, UIC operates the state’s major public medical center and serves as the principal educator of Illinois’ physicians, dentists, pharmacists, nurses and other healthcare professionals.

History

The beginnings of the medical school component of UIC can be traced back to the founding of the private Chicago Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary in 1858 and the private Chicago College of Pharmacy in 1859. These units, along with the private College of Physicians and Surgeons, which opened in 1882, were absorbed by the University of Illinois in the 1890s.

In 1946, the University of Illinois opened the Chicago Undergraduate Division at Navy Pier, as a two-year temporary campus. The G.I. Bill was the catalyst for creating undergraduate instruction in Chicago—the University of Illinois pledged to admit all qualified students and established the two-year branch campus at Navy Pier to handle the staggering number of students.

University Hall building on East Campus
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University Hall building on East Campus

Chicago’s Mayor Richard J. Daley answered the call for a four-year campus in the city by leading the drive for creation of the University of Illinois Circle Campus (UICC) in 1965, a cause he had championed from his earliest days in the Illinois General Assembly in the 1930s. Italian Americans who lived nearby were not pleased that the large stretch of vacant land they hoped would become commercial became a campus. The campus for years was officially "The University of Illinois at Chicago Circle," and known simply as the "Circle campus." The Circle referred to the nearby intersection of three major expressways. The modern UIC was formed in 1982 by the consolidation of the two U. of I. campuses: the Medical Center campus and the Chicago Circle campus. The university has phased out the use of "Circle" as a result of consolidation and expansion. "UIC" is the preferred shortened name today.

Academics

UIC offers 74 bachelor’s, 77 master’s and 60 doctoral degree programs in its 15 colleges.

Awards

UIC’s faculty have been recognized with many prestigious awards including the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, Fulbright Distinguished Professorship, Guggenheim Foundation grant, National Science Foundation’s CAREER grant, Jonas Salk Lifetime Achievement Award, Society of Women Engineers’ Achievement Award, and the United States Capitol Historical Society’s Freedom Award. Two faculty members in the College of Architecture and the Arts have won MacArthur Fellowships, also known as “genius grants.”

UIC students win major national competitive awards, including a Rhodes Scholarship, Gates Cambridge Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships, Fulbright Fellowships, Harry S. Truman Scholarships, among others.

Rankings

UIC's pharmacy, nursing, applied health sciences, public health, social work, and urban planning programs are consistently ranked among the top in the nation. The college of dentistry is one of only two such programs offered in the state of Illinois. UIC's finance program is making strides by placing itself within the top 20 programs in the nation at the graduate level, surpassing that of its sister college at Urbana-Champaign, through utilizing the advantage of being located in a major financial center.

As a university, UIC tied for 56th place in the best academic universities in North America by an annual listing of the Top 500 World Universities, published the Institute of Higher Education in Shanghai, China.http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2004/Top%20100%20North%20&%20Latin%20American%20Universities.htm

The neighborhood

East Campus in October
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East Campus in October

UIC's campus is located in the Little Italy/University Village neighborhood of Chicago, just west of the downtown financial district. The neighborhood is home to scores of shops, restaurants, bars, bookstores, cafe's and museums. It is currently in a stage of transition with several large-scale developments creating thousands of new residences. While the majority of UIC's 25,000 students commute from the city and surrounding suburbs, University Village is home to nearly 5,000 students, 3,100 of which live in UIC's 9 residence halls.

The Chicago Transit Authority's Blue Line, part of the Chicago 'L', runs in the median of the Eisenhower Expressway along the north side of the campus. Four stations are close to the university and its medical campus: Medical Center, Polk, Racine, and UIC-Halsted.

The West Campus is the university's home for the health sciences. The Colleges of Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing, Dentistry, Applied Health Sciences and Public Health, as well as the Library of the Health Sciences are all located on the West Campus. The West Campus is in the heart of the Illinois Medical District, where the University of Illinois Medical Center is located.

Sports and traditions

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UIC’s sports teams are called the Flames and their colors are blue and red. The Flames participate in the NCAA’s Division I as part of the Horizon League. The team mascot is Sparky D. Dragon.

The UIC Flames consist of 300 student athletes competing in 18 varsity sports. The men's basketball team competed in the NCAA tournament in 2004, 2002 and 1998, and appeared in the NIT tournament in 2003. UIC's women's tennis team has won the conference championship ten years in a row, and the women's softball team won the conference championship in six of seven years between 1999 and 2005. UIC field Men's Ice Hockey but the program folded in the early 1990's.

The Fury is the official student booster club of the University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Athletics. Jenny McCarthy's two younger sisters played basketball for the UIC Flames. She was often seen cheering at their games.

Notable UIC people

Faculty

Alumni

Note

- The University of Illinois at Chicago is sometimes confused with the University of Chicago, a private university.

External links

 


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