| Technology for Health and Independence (THI) College of Applied Health Sciences and College of Engineering The College of Applied Health Sciences (AHS) and the College of Engineering (Engineering) are developing an interdisciplinary educational, research, and community/industry outreach program in Technology for Health and Independence. The program is aimed at improving the quality of life, health, and independence for older adults, and for individuals living with disabilities or chronic diseases or who are recovering from medical treatment or injury. AHS and Engineering will offer (1) a new joint professional Master of Science in Health Technology degree, and (2) Health Technology Certificates (with rotating topics) for students and professionals seeking continuing educational units (CEUs). |
| iMBA College of Business There is significant demand for business education on campus, nationally, and globally. To meet the demand, funds will be used to invest in additional faculty and technology to support further enrollment growth. The tuition generated by this growth will contribute revenue to the College of Business that exceeds the required up-front investments. The near-term investment provides the College with the working capital needed to support these investments. |
| iMSA College of Business The new online Master of Science in Accountancy integrates the iMBA model concept with the College of Business’s (Business) global reputation as one of the best accountancy programs in the world. The Department of Accountancy is ranked #2 overall (U.S. News & World Report) and is a major global supplier of talent to the accounting profession. Business’s strength in this space dates back many decades, and is one of the reasons that Illinois is consistently one of the top five (and often #1) undergraduate institutions of Chief Financial Officers of Fortune 500 firms. |
| iVenture College of Business Funding from the Investment for Growth initiative will allow the iVenture program to continue to grow as it works to develop a community of donors and create long-term financial sustainability. The initiative will allow students, regardless of academic background, the opportunity to create entrepreneurial ventures by providing seed funding, mentoring and networking opportunities, workshops, seminars, and support staff. It will allow the iVenture Accelerator to continue to grow the University of Illinois entrepreneurship ecosystem and the entrepreneurial legacy of our great university. It will also continue to grow valuable collaborations and synergies among colleges, students, faculty, alumni, corporations, and investors. |
| Professional Master’s Degree in Quantitative Risk Management and Predictive Analytics College of Business, College of Engineering, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, School of Information Sciences Several departments will come together to develop and offer a new professional Master’s Degree in Quantitative Risk Management and Predictive Analytics. The objectives of this program are three-fold. First, the initiative will offer a high-quality professional degree program in professional quantitative risk management for the insurance and financial sectors, and raise revenue from net graduate tuition. Second, the program will include curricular innovations and the capacity to respond to industry changes, allowing us to prepare the next generation of scholarship and academic training in risk management. Third, the program is meant to lay the groundwork for future degree programs in this area. |
| Technology Innovation in Educational Research and Design (TIER-ED) College of Education TIER-ED is a consortium of interdisciplinary researchers and designers at Illinois working on cutting-edge applications of new technologies to the most critical issues in education. The range of applications includes augmented and virtual reality for new approaches to STEM learning, data analytics used to address issues of educational equity, interfaces that support collaborative learning, and transformative online learning platforms. This initiative aims to: (1) significantly increase the pipeline of undergraduate students into academic programs that prepare them to use, design, and research learning technologies; (2) strengthen research capacity for securing large-scale funding; and (3) cultivate industry partnerships that lead to investments in Illinois students and faculty who are developing and assessing educational innovations. |
| Computer Science Programs Growth College of Engineering Undergraduate applications for Computer Science (CS) have grown more than eight-fold in the last eight years, reaching more than 5,000 applications for the 2017-18 academic year – over 13% of all applications campus-wide. The CS Programs Growth initiative is an important step toward meeting this huge demand through systematic growth of both traditional and innovative education programs. First, CS aims to expand enrollment in the CS major by as much as 25% (roughly 275 additional students). Second, the department is working closely with other majors across multiple colleges to expand the number of CS+X programs: six are already underway, two new programs (Crop Sciences and Music) have recently received IBHE approval and are about to be launched, and discussions are at various stages of progress with seven other departments. |
| New Instructional Facility for the College of Engineering College of Engineering The College of Engineering (Engineering) plans to grow undergraduate and graduate enrollment by 10-15% in the next decade. Therefore, Engineering is in urgent need of creating essential spaces in all areas including instruction, research, student engagement, and professional development. The new instructional facility will provide a testbed for education innovations, student engagement, and professional development that underpin the excellence of Engineering with broad and significant impact on the reputation of our campus and the university. Engineering will invest in a centralized instructional facility, while departments and units expand their research and laboratory capacities by remodeling old and obsolete classrooms, providing needed space for expanding Engineering’s sponsored research portfolios. |
| Supporting Growth of Master of Engineering Programs and Professional Education College of Engineering The College of Engineering (Engineering) is launching a Center for Professional and Executive Training and Education that will enable the college and university to capture growth in high-demand, professionally-oriented graduate degree programs; provide career-specific training in technology innovation, management, and entrepreneurship; engage with the Chicago ecosystem for internships and capstone projects; and leverage unique technical expertise in cybersecurity, risk management, and data analytics. The center, a planned future tenant of the proposed new Engineering Instructional Facility, will be designed around team-based experiential learning spaces and C-suite quality meeting rooms and communication resources. It will also provide shared spaces for co-op and capstone coordination, academic and career advising, market research and program review, and instructional and technology support. |
| International Partner High School Program College of Liberal Arts and Sciences The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences proposes the creation of an International Partner High School (IPHS) program. In the program, Illinois works with a provider overseas to deliver lower division college courses to high school students in a blended format. The objective is to provide highly transferable college credit for students wishing to attend U.S. institutions and to increase interest of these students in attending Illinois’ Urbana campus in particular. The funding model is based upon those being used in MOOCs, where students take the courses at greatly reduced cost and have the option to receive credit at additional cost upon completion of the course. Like MOOCs, the program is highly scalable for Illinois at low cost due to the mentoring support being provided by the host high school and the campus materials being provided online. Examinations are created and graded by Illinois instructors and a grade, if credit is elected, is determined by our faculty. |
| Jump Start Data Science Education at Illinois College of Business, College of Engineering, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, School of Information Sciences The objective for this program is to jump start data science education at Illinois by enhancing the scholarly capabilities and career preparation of our students. The intent is to create new revenue streams to enable the development of a powerful faculty in data science cutting across disciplines. The coordination among the four colleges will expand opportunities for students in the sciences and social sciences. Ongoing discussions among the colleges should result in expanded and coordinated data science course offerings. At the graduate level, the next phase is to develop first a specialization and concentrations in data science. |
| Communicating Science More Effectively College of Media Research at Illinois is achieving breakthroughs to feed more people, offset the effects of human activity on our changing climate, and transform the way medicine is delivered. But how do these research accomplishments get translated to the public? The Departments of Advertising and Journalism in the College of Media are exploring the development of a new online Master’s Degree in Science Communication. This degree is designed to appeal to a wide range of professionals. It will emphasize health and science storytelling for a mass audience, as well as how science and scientific products are framed and disseminated. In the first year of the project, market research will be conducted to assess demand and to assist in the development of a detailed proposal for the new degree. |
| Illinois Integrated Program for Sustainable Livestock Production College of Veterinary Medicine The Illinois Integrated Program for Sustainable Livestock Production will build on the College of Veterinary Medicine’s leadership in delivering focused world-class postgraduate and online education programs. Online and blended cross-functional educational products that address known and unmet educational needs in the food supply chain will be developed. This program will address these market deficits by assembling a team of food animal production medicine experts to deliver high quality, flexible learning opportunities. |
| Training in Digital Methods for Humanists Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities This program is a mid-career faculty development initiative akin to “study in a second discipline.” It is designed to confront the challenge of equipping humanities scholars with the digital tools, computational methods, and technological expertise they need to keep abreast of changes in scholarly research, teaching, publication, and communication. Through a competitive application process, three cohorts of four tenured faculty each will audit two undergraduate or graduate courses offered on campus that will allow them to develop competencies in “digital humanities,” broadly conceived. |
| Illinois Genomic Research Service & Training Facilities Institute for Genomic Biology Through a new partnership with ZEISS, the Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB) has the opportunity to work with a larger number of external users who need custom sample processing and imaging. These funds will enhance the performance and reach of IGB Core Facilities by increasing the service capabilities of Core Facilities by acquiring a key instrument, the ZEISS Axio Scan Z1; updating the data network infrastructure of IGB; and improving visibility and academic community engagement of the core facilities by updating the laboratory teaching facilities of IGB. |
| Expansion of NCSA Industry National Center for Supercomputing Applications Funds will be used for investment and expansion of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) Industry Program, specifically to build depth in genomics and data analytics and to expand and accelerate marketing to prospects, particularly by leveraging successes with existing partners – Caterpillar, Mayo, Rolls-Royce, AbbVie, State Farm, Syngenta, and ExxonMobil, to name a few. This project also includes adding a project manager position to help in providing superior support to a growing partner base. The expansion will also provide the ability to design and develop an NCSA High-Performance Computing training product line, which will create a new revenue stream for NCSA through product sales or subscriptions. |
| Building Improvements to Support Enrollment Growth School of Information Sciences Funding will be used for building improvements to support the strategic initiatives of the School of Information Sciences (iSchool) and position it for further growth. In addition to changing the iSchool’s name in August 2016, a self-supporting Master of Science degree in Information Management (MS/IM) was launched in FY17. In order to support the projected enrollment growth in the program and others, renovations to the iSchool building are needed. |