Vision of the Illinois Student
The Campus Conversation on Undergraduate Education has provided an aspirational picture of what every Illinois graduate should know, be able to do, and hold as principles, goals, or attitudes.
After four years, we envision our students should be able to achieve:
- core competence in a broad array of skills and knowledge including math, science, and technology; writing; literature, art, and the humanities; visual, aesthetic, and digital literacy; familiarity with at least one foreign language; history; civics; geography; economic and financial literacy,
- deep and interdisciplinary learning in a selected major or field,
- strong critical thinking skills and readiness to innovate, create, and think outside the box,
- commitment to lifelong learning and to one’s own emotional, physical, and intellectual health, integrity and well-being,
- ability to secure meaningful and gainful employment and achieve professional and/or entrepreneurial success,
- strong ethical orientation including respect for difference, appreciation of cultural diversity, historical consciousness, responsibility for self and care for others,
- responsible citizenship at local, state, national, and global scales,
- understanding of major social and global issues including inequality and environmental sustainability,
- ability to begin one’s professional life unburdened by crushing levels of debt,
- an openness to beauty and wonder,
- an enduring connection to the University of Illinois as an alum who helps his or her alma mater to thrive.
To read more about this Vision of the Illinois student, download the complete report here.
Vision of the Illinois Experience
During the first-round of the Campus Conversation on Undergraduate Education, we asked faculty, students, and staff what should be distinctive and valuable about the experience of Illinois undergraduates in the coming decade. Their replies ranged from growing the resources necessary to the teaching mission of a world-class research university, to building the noteworthy curricular initiatives such an institution should promote, to fostering relationships and networks for students inside and beyond the university’s classrooms and labs and in concert with its land-grant mission.
To enrich students’ capacities as citizens, lifelong learners, and members of a global community, while preparing them to succeed in their professional endeavors, the University of Illinois seeks to develop degree programs founded on the very best interactive, interdisciplinary, and experiential curricula. An Illinois education offers students the chance to combine high-quality face-to-face instruction with the most desirable and effective forms of online learning—now and in the future. It includes innovative programs that cross disciplines and departments to connect undergraduate learning to the far-ranging resources of a top research university and world-class faculty.
At the University of Illinois, students will find an entire community of faculty, advisers, student affairs staff, graduate student mentors, career services, alumni networks, community groups, and fellow undergraduates from around the world, ready to support their transformative learning and help them to achieve their most visionary endeavors. Our diverse and global campus encourages students to engage the challenges of the future through the acquisition of core knowledge and skills; creative and critical thinking that crosses disciplinary boundaries; cultural understanding and respect for difference; and powerful ethical, practical, intellectual, and aesthetic orientations toward one’s self, one’s community, and the world at large.