11. U of I Alma Mater sculpture

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At the heart of University of Illinois stands the Alma Mater sculpture, giving a warm welcome to the students, and alumni. This statue is often used as a symbol of the University. Well, after the departure of the Chief Illiniwek symbol, I guess this will become more widely used to represent the school.

The statue is located at the corner of Wright and Green, right at the border of Champaign and Urbana. Almost every other day, a news van would be there, and some reporter talking about a UofI story will give a live report from there.

The statue shows three women, standing on a Granite pedestal. There are two inscriptions in the base of the statue, that read "To thy happy children of the future, those of the past send greetings" and "Her children arise up and call her Blessed" Proverbs 31-28.

The designer of the statue was Lorado Taft. The original idea of the statue was conceived in 1922. Those ideas and designs were materialized in 1929. At that time, the the American Art Bronze Foundry was commissioned to caste the bronze statue. The alumni fund and the classes of 1923-1929 paid for it.

The original location of the statue was behind Foelinger Auditorium. However, to move it to a more prominent location, the Alumni Association moved it to the current location on August 22, 1962.

The statue is featured in the new I-card of UofI.

[Info and image source: Wikipedia, used under CC/GFDL]

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7. Wright and Green, the heart of U of I campus

wright_and_green_UIUC
Originally uploaded by Ragib Hasan.

Where do you want to be when you first arrive at Chambana? Definitely, you should come to the corner of Green Street and Wright Street. This forms the center of the U of I campus. On the south east side, you'd see the Illini Union, the place where students hang out all day.

On the south west, you have Moonstruck cafe, one of the best places to have a good sip of hot chocolate in town. The Folett bookstore is at the north west corner (visible in the photo). The Everitt lab of the ECE dept is on the north east side.

The traffic signal here lasts for 18 seconds, and you can pass diagonally. There are a LOT of different types of restaurants along green street as you walk along it to the west.

So, enjoy, have a bite at those cafes/restaurants, and take a sip of hot chocolate as you stroll around the campus.

5. Libraries of Champaign Urbana

There are two library systems in Champaign-Urbana ... one associated with the University of Illinois, and the other associated with the public library systems.

• UofI library: Part of many other academic libraries in Illinois
• Lincoln Trail Library System: the public libraries of the cities of Champaign and Urbana

U of I library: This is the academic library system. The University of Illinois has the largest public university in the United States, and it has more than 10 million items in its collection. The library is scattered throughout the U of I campus, with the two largest locations being the main library at Armory & Wright in Champaign , and the Grainger Engineering Library on Springfield avenue, Urbana (between Wright and Matthews). Subscribers (U of I students, staff, faculty, and also UniHigh students) can also get books from many other libraries in the I-Share alliance.


Lincoln Trail Library System: This is an alliance of the public libraries in the region.

• Champaign Public Library is located on Randolph St between Green and Springfield. It just moved into a new building in 2008, and the new state-of-the-art building is one of the largest and spectacular library buildings in the area. It has cool features such as automated check-out of books, spacious reading rooms, and on-site cafes.




• The Urbana Free Library is located at the corner of Green and Race in Urbana. It is more than 150 years old, and is a very nice, quiet, and fun place to study. It also has in its collection the historical records of the county.

People who are members of either of these two libraries can borrow books from the other one, and also from 20+ public libraries in the region. There are also videos (VHS and DVD), audiobooks and CDs. Membership is free and open for all area residents.

1. Champaign + Urbana = Chambana

What do you call Champaign-Urbana,the twin cities that house the University of Illinois? Well, folks here have come up with some interesting names. These names coined by the "townies" include:

• Chambana
• Shampoo-Banana
• Champo-Banana

But among these, "Chambana" seems to be the most popular. Even Craigslist's local page is marked as Chambana.

Image Courtesy of wikipedia