The shlyakhta (, ) were a noble class of Ruthenians in what is now Western Ukraine that enjoyed certain legal and social privileges. Estimates of their numbers vary. According to one estimate, by the mid-19th century, there were approximately 32,000 Ukrainian nobles in the western Ukrainian territory of Galicia, over 25% of whom lived in 21 villages near the town of Sambir. They comprised less than 2% of the ethnic Ukrainian population. Other estimates place the number of nobles at 67,000 people at the end of the 18th century and 260,000 by the end of the 19th century, or approximately 6% of the ethnic Ukrainian population. The nobles tended to live in compact settlements either in villages populated mostly by nobles or in particular areas of larger villages.

Unlike in the case of their Polish ethnic counterparts, the szlachta, the Ukrainian nobility in Galicia as a class played a marginal role in western Ukrainian society, which came to be dominated by Eastern Catholic clergy families, who formed a tight-knit hereditary caste that constituted the wealthiest and most highly educated group within the Ukrainian population. There was considerable overlap between priests and nobles, however, with many priestly families also belonging to the nobility. During the late 19th century until the 1930s, more than half of the Ukrainian priestly families in western Ukraine had noble origins. Such families tended to identify themselves primarily as priests rather than as nobles.

History and Political Activity

Origins
The territory of western Ukraine was part of the medieval state of Kievan Rus'. After its collapse, that state's westernmost part formed the independent Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia. By the end of the 14th century, this territory had become part of the Kingdom of Poland. Over the following centuries, most of the wealthy native landowning nobility were eventually Polonized by adopting the dominant Polish nationality and also converting to Roman Catholicism, thus completely assimilating into Polish society.

The nobility in western Ukraine that retained its non-Polish identity was generally poorer and developed as a social class in the 14th century.

Ukrainian or East Slavic origins

According to mainstream Ukrainian historiography, the western Ukrainian nobility developed out of a mixture of three groups of people: poor Rus' boyars (East Slavic aristocrats from the medieval era), descendants of princely retainers or druzhina (free soldiers in the service of the Rus' princes), and peasants who had been free during the times of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia. During the 12th and 13th centuries, fortified villages were built by Kievan Rus' and Galician princes to defend the local lucrative salt trade and the borders with the Kingdoms of Poland and Hungary.

These villages were located southwest of Lviv and Przemyśl in areas such as those surrounding Sambir, which in modern times have been the heartland for Ukrainian noble settlement.  These villages were populated and defended by poor or minor boyars and druzhina. After the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia was absorbed by Jagiellonian Poland in the 14th century as the Ruthenian Voivodeship, the noble status of these poor boyars and druzhina was confirmed in exchange for military service to the Polish Crown; those poor boyars who failed to confirm their noble status were reduced to the level of serfs or, more frequently, town servants and assimilated into those social groups. The Ukrainian nobility's development thus involved a process of poor Rus boyars and druzhina changing their allegiance from the defunct Galicia-Volhynia and its princes to that of the Polish state and becoming legally integrated into the Polish system as nobles.

Polish origins

In the 1930s the Polish government attempted to assimilate western Ukrainian nobles into Polish culture. At that time, Polish researchers claimed that the Ukrainian nobles were descended from poor Polish nobles who became assimilated into Ukrainian culture by adopting the Ukrainian language and Orthodox religion of the peasants among whom they lived. They noted that the period of Polish rule involved the settlement of newly acquired Ukrainian territories by Poles and that the Ukrainian nobility's speech frequently used Polish words and expressions. The Polish historians also pointed out that the early 19th-century western Ukrainian nobles tended to ally themselves with Polish rather than East Slavic or Ukrainian causes politically. This was seen as a vestige of their originally Polish roots.

Contemporary Ukrainian historians write that while it is likely that some poor Polish nobles may have assimilated into Ukrainian culture in isolated instances, the number of Ukrainian nobles was simply too large to be accounted for by assimilated Polish nobles. They also point out that those arguing in favour the Polish origins, while writing about the Polonization of wealthy landowning boyars (nobles), completely ignore the documented existence of poor boyars and druzhina who inhabited western Ukraine before Polish rule and failed to account for what happened to this large group of people after western Ukrainian lands were absorbed by Poland.  Furthermore, given that the Polish culture was dominant and that for centuries Poles controlled the local administration, it seems unrealistic that large numbers of Poles would assimilate to the subservient Ukrainian culture and to adopt the Ukrainian Orthodox or Greek Catholic faiths, which were at a disadvantage relative to the Polish Roman Catholic religion. Moreover, some western Ukrainian nobles lived in villages populated exclusively by nobles.  Such nobles had little contact with Ukrainian peasants and thus no means to be assimilated by them. In terms of political allegiance, although Western Ukrainian nobles did side with Poles against Ukrainian peasants during much of the 19th century, the nobility's loyalty was exclusively political in nature and focused on the retention of their traditional privileges; there was little movement to adopt the Polish language or Roman Catholic religion by the Ukrainian nobles despite their political cooperation with the Poles.

During the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

Western Ukrainian nobles enjoyed the legal rights and privileges of other nobles.  They had their own court system and unlike Ukrainian peasants were not under the authority of the Polish landlords.  Villages populated exclusively by nobles were typically self-governing, and nobles living in mixed towns were under the authority of their own governing bodies.  The elected heads of self-governing Ukrainian noble communities were called prefects.  Noble villages tended to be older than other villages and typically carried the names of the noble families associated with them, such as Kulchytsi (Kulchytsky family), Mokhnate (Mokhnatsky family), etc.  Unlike many Polish nobles, western Ukrainian nobles did not own serfs and instead worked their own lands.  Their relative poverty served as a barrier to assimilation with the wealthy Polish landowners and helped them to retain their East Slavic identity.  Nobles usually lived in compact groups occupying entire villages or parts of villages. Although Ukrainian nobles were scattered throughout western Ukraine, two regions had particularly large concentrations of them: southern Galicia, north of the Carpathian mountains and south-west of the city of Lviv; and in the western parts of Podolia, to the east of Galicia in what is now the Ternopil Oblast.  The most commonly used coats of arms by western Ukrainian nobles were Sas and Korczak.

Despite their obligation to serve the Polish crown, during the 15th through the 17th centuries, western Ukrainian nobles sometimes took part in anti-Polish uprisings. At this time, the Ukrainian nobles considered themselves honour-bound to defend the Orthodox Church. Due to their shared Orthodox faith, when the Moldavian prince Bogdan III the One-Eyed invaded Polish-controlled Galicia in 1509, the local Ukrainian nobles joined this invasion en masse. After the Polish victory over Moldavian forces in 1510, many of the Ukrainian nobles' lands were confiscated by the Polish authorities, although they were returned to them after the Ukrainian nobles claimed that they had been coerced into joining the Moldavians. In 1511, the Polish king declared that Ukrainian nobles were banned from participating in religious ceremonies in Moldavia. Opposition from the western Ukrainian nobles delayed the implementation of the Union of Brest, the recognition by the Orthodox Church in Ukraine of the Pope, by several decades in Galicia. Noble resistance resulted in Galicia being the last part of Polish-ruled Ukraine to accept the Union with Catholicism. Several western Ukrainian nobles travelled east and joined the Zaporozhian Cossacks.  One of them, Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny, became the leader of the Cossacks in the early 17th century. He remained loyal to Poland.

During the times when western Ukraine was part of the Kingdom of Poland, the nobles had a duty to defend the state they were in. Accordingly, they were obligated to participate in regular military reviews where they presented themselves and their weapons. The relative poverty of the Ukrainian nobility was evident in the fact that few owned armour, very few could afford to come on horseback, and they were typically armed only with sabres, muskets or even small calibre bird-hunting rifles.

Under Austria-Hungary and into the twentieth century

Abolition of serfdom and loss of status

In 1772, western Ukraine was annexed by Austria during the First Partition of Poland–Lithuania. The Western Ukrainian nobility, whose self-image was centred on their function of militarily defending the kingdom, found themselves without a social role within the new political circumstances and from this point defined themselves largely by their differences from and superiority to the peasants. In 1848, serfdom was abolished. Before the abolishment of serfdom in 1848, the Ukrainian nobility enjoyed a lifestyle that was quite different from that of the Ukrainian peasants. Unlike Ukrainian peasants, Ukrainian nobles worked on their own lands and were not forced to work for the Polish nobility. They enjoyed their own court system and were not under the authority of local Polish-dominated courts. Unlike serfs, Ukrainian nobles were also not obligated to perform communal duty such as working on roads, which they considered to be humiliating.

In contrast to the Polish nobles who had owned serfs, the Ukrainian nobles did not experience economic losses when serfdom was abolished. Instead, they experienced a loss in social status and standing. The Ukrainian nobles lost all of their privileges, they were placed under the same legal authority and given the same obligations as the peasants. In 1860, noble self-government was abolished and noble and peasant elected bodies were integrated. The nobility attempted to continue to unofficially elect their own leaders, traditionally known as prefects, despite official integration with the peasant community. Multiple appeals to the Austrian government in the 1860s seeking to obtain separate legal standings for themselves failed, with rare exceptions such as sometimes being able to avoid having to perform compulsory roadwork. Thus, in the mid-19th century, the political and socioeconomic differences between the Ukrainian nobles and the Ukrainian peasants disappeared.

In one of the two regions with a large concentration of Ukrainian nobles, western Podolia, the loss of special noble legal privileges and elimination of peasant serfdom led to the assimilation of most of the western Ukrainian nobility into the Ukrainian peasantry and to the disappearance of the nobility as a social group. In contrast, nobles from southern Galicia would retain their distinct self-identity well into the 20th century.

Evolution from class to national identity
Because the Western Ukrainian nobles had not owned estates or serfs, unlike the Polish nobility they were not hated by the peasants. Conversely, because they had never been enserfed, the Ukrainian nobility did not share the peasants' animosity towards the Polish nobility and indeed felt a class solidarity with them.

Despite sharing the language and religion of their Ukrainian peasant neighbours, throughout the 19th century, the Ukrainian nobles in western Ukraine tended to side with the Polish nobility during conflicts between the Polish and Ukrainian communities. In 1848, Ukrainian nobles volunteered for the Polish National Guard and in 1863 they took up donations in support of Polish–Lithuanian rebels in the Russian Empire. Villages populated mostly by the Ukrainian nobility tended to vote for Polish candidates and to oppose efforts to spread literacy among the peasants. The nobles were so politically preoccupied with trying to retain or win back their special rights as nobles that they did not engage in other forms of political activism. The alienation of the nobles from the Ukrainian national movement was not one-sided. The Ukrainian national movement was very peasant-focused and rejected the nobility, whose social background did not fit the nationalist narrative. The nobility were often treated as scapegoats and blamed for electoral failures; the press of the national movement accused them of greed and of selling their votes to the Poles. Almost none of the 19th-century political activists seeking to alleviate the plight of Ukrainian peasants, or to spread literacy, or to encourage Ukrainization, or to limit economic exploitation, were nobles. The nobles' consistent indifference or opposition towards Ukrainian causes resulted in some rural Ukrainian activists claiming that the nobles were not even part of the Ukrainian nation.

Until the mid-19th century, because the Ukrainian nobles were oriented towards their class standing, they were opposed to the interests of the Ukrainian peasants. By the end of that century, however, the idea of the old multinational Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth gave way to competing modern Ukrainian and Polish nationalisms. This meant that national ideas eclipsed class loyalties. At that time, most of the Ukrainian nobility in western Ukraine linked itself to the Ukrainian national movement. The nobility was represented by the Association of the Ruthenian Gentry, which allied itself with the conservative and religious elements within the Ukrainian national movement. Despite their allegiance to the Ukrainian national cause, these nobles maintained their separation from the peasants. For example, rather than joining the peasants in reading clubs for cultural activities, nobles participated in their own "gentry casinos." This aroused some negative feelings among the peasants. Russophiles attempted to exploit the differences between nobles and peasants, and there was a stronger tendency to support ideological Russophilia among the nobility than among the general Galician population. Indeed, the noble candidate from Sambir county in the elections of 1911, Ivan Kulchytsky, even declared "now we have recovered our sight and shall not allow the bastards to trick us with Ukraine…. You should know that from now on we do not give a damn for Ukraine and have returned to the historical road. From now on we are Russians." In general, however, the nobles adopted a Ukrainian national orientation. By the beginning of the 20th century, noble gatherings often concluded with the singing of the Ukrainian national anthem, Shche ne vmerla Ukraina ("Ukraine has not yet Died"). The 1912 commemoration of the 17th century Cossack leader Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny, a member of the petty gentry from Galicia, in 1912 served to underscore the new affiliation of the Ukrainian gentry towards the Ukrainian national movement. During these celebrations, the Cossacks were represented not only as peasant runaways but also as nobles defending the Ukrainian nation. In this way, the nobles found a place for themselves within the Ukrainian national narrative.

During and After the First World War

On the eve of World War I, many Ukrainian nobles joined the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, a patriotic Ukrainian unit within the Austro-Hungarian Army.  Dmytro Vitovsky and Myron Tarnavsky, two of the supreme commanders of the Ukrainian Galician Army which fought against Poland for Ukrainian independence after World War I, were noblemen. Yevhen Petrushevych, president of the West Ukrainian People's Republic was from a family of noble priests who traced their origins to Galician boyars. In a survey given to members of the Ukrainian National Council, the legislative body of the West Ukrainian People's Republic, although 2.4% listed their primary social origin as nobility several of those who listed their origin as clergy also came from noble families.

During the period of Polish rule over Western Ukraine between the world wars, efforts by the Polish government in the 1930s to split the Ukrainian nobility from other Ukrainians (through the formation of Kola Szlacheckie) were unsuccessful.  Such efforts backfired, resulting in many nobles rejecting and even concealing their status as nobles in order to avoid possible association with the Polish nation and to emphasize their solidarity with the Ukrainian people, most of whom were the descendants of peasants.

In the early 21st century, an attempt was made to revive the Association of Ruthenian Gentry. Based in the traditional heartland of western Ukrainian nobility, the town of Sambir, its first head was the priest Petro Sas-Pohoretsky.

Culture

Speech and naming traditions

The earliest recorded observations noted that western Ukrainian nobles spoke the East Slavic Ukrainian (or Ruthenian) language, rather than Polish. Although they spoke the same language as the Ukrainian peasants, they maintained their own particular traditions. Nobles tended to be more likely to be literate than peasants. The nobility tended to use the literary Ukrainian language rather than local village dialects. Reflecting some exposure to education, the noble speech was also differentiated from that of the peasants by the frequent use of Polish and Latin words and expressions.

The Western Ukrainian nobility often used as surnames the names of the villages where they lived. For example, the nobles of Terlo adopted the name Terletsky, and those of Kulchytsi adopted the name Kulchytsky. Surnames ending in -ich (-ич) or -ik (-ик) were also used. They usually gave their children Ukrainian names but on occasion gave them Polonized Ukrainian names.

Lifestyle
Villages populated primarily by nobles generally had no central planning, with the nobles building their homes wherever they liked on their properties. Western Ukrainian nobles typically lived in small one or two-room houses with straw roofs whose interiors were in most ways indistinguishable from those of the peasants. Noble homes differed from those of peasants primarily by their outward appearance.  Noble homes had front porches, with columns, and larger windows than did peasant homes.

Those nobles who were not also priests usually worked as farmers and, after the abolition of serfdom in 1848, had lifestyles very similar to those of the Ukrainian peasants. When possible, the nobility sought to use common fields and forests that were different from those used by peasants. A minor difference between peasants and nobles was the peasants tended to use oxen for ploughing, while the nobility favoured the use of horses for such work. This tradition was likely a vestige of earlier times when the nobles' ancestors were obligated to occasionally use horses for military activities and as scouts.

The nobles amused themselves by dancing and visiting each other in their homes; they tended to segregate themselves from peasants when doing so. Among their favourite dances were the same ones beloved by non-noble Ukrainians, such as the Kolomyika and the Kozak. The Mazurka, popular among Poles, was shunned by Ukrainian nobles.

Marriage and family

The nobility avoided marriage with non-nobles despite a similar lifestyle to those of peasants. For example, in one village between 1785 and 1855 out of 216 marriages, 183 were between peasants, 19 were between nobles and only 3 were mixed marriages between nobles and peasants (although some unrecorded marriages could have been mixed).  The status of nobility was conferred through the male line, so the children of noblewomen who married commoners were no longer considered to be nobles. To ensure noble spouses, if there were few nobles in the immediate area marriages were sometimes arranged with noble families from distant villages, and as late as the 19th century there were recorded cases of people being married against their will.  Even into the 1980s in some villages populated by noble families, the members of the nobility avoided marrying commoners. The few cases of marriage between nobles and commoners typically involved particularly poor nobles marrying prosperous non-nobles. The writer Ivan Franko was the product of such a marriage.

The nobility was renowned for their elaborate wedding ceremonies, which by custom lasted from Saturday until Saturday and which attempted to recreate or maintain the old traditional grand celebrations of distant ancestors. Noble brides wore white for the wedding ceremony, unlike peasant brides who would wear embroidered costumes.  Large numbers of noble guests were invited, including nobles from neighbouring villages. The groom would arrive for the ceremony on horseback, while the bride would arrive in a carriage.  Following the wedding ceremony, young noblemen would fire their pistols into the air as a way of saluting the new pair and wishing them a long life. Beer, wine and food were provided for an entire week of celebrations. The first three days of festivities were spent at the bride's house. Afterwards, the dowry (which could consist of items such as a cow, horse, cart, plough or land) was presented to the groom's family and the party shifted to the groom's house for the remaining four days.

Clothing

Clothing served a very important function for the nobles because after they lost their legal privileges in the early 19th century, manner of dressing was one of the few ways they could demonstrate that they were different from the peasants. The Ukrainian nobility retained particular forms of clothing that differentiated them from both Ukrainian peasants and Polish nobility, although it was generally of the Ukrainian type.  Nobles tended to decorate their clothes with black rather than red embroidery because the latter colour was considered peasant-like. Indeed, they tended to avoid colours in general and mostly dressed in shades of black and grey.  In some regions, it was customary for men to wear blue cloaks with grey edges similar to Cossack zupans. Women wore coats with fox-fur collars.  Nobles also wore vests with two rows instead of one row of buttons.  The village nobility were often interested in wearing the same clothes that townsfolk wore.  The men often wore collared shirts and even ties.  Because many of the nobles were unable to afford to buy such clothes, they sewed approximations of them using the same materials that peasants used for their clothing. If a noble married a peasant, the noble was forbidden by other nobles from wearing clothes identifying themselves as a noble and if caught doing so, his or her "noble" clothes would be torn off.

Relationships with Ukrainian peasants
Despite having a similar lifestyle to the peasants, members of the nobility were noted for the proud way in which they distinguished themselves from them.  The fact that their ancestors, unlike those of their peasant neighbours, had never been serfs was a source of pride for noble families.  The nobles were fond of the Polish saying, "Szlachcic na zagrodzie równy wojewodzie" ("The noble behind his garden wall is the province governor's equal"). They typically added "nobilis" or "nobilis agrikola" (denoted their work as farmers) when signing their names, and it was said that even when herding livestock or trading in the markets they carried documents confirming their noble rank in their pockets. Members of the nobility, regardless of level of education, typically knew the distant history and exploits of their families and would pass these stories on to their children.

As late as the late 19th century, long after the legal distinctions between western Ukrainian nobles and peasants disappeared, certain customs maintaining noble social superiority over their peasant neighbours were retained.  The nobility denigrated the peasants by referring to them as "nine-skinned" (дев'ятьшкірними) in reference to their supposed greater weight and referred to peasant clothes as rags.  Nobles of any age, even youths, typically addressed all peasants, even those older or wealthier than themselves, with the informal "you" (ty,) while even older and wealthier peasants addressed all nobles with the formal pronoun vy. In villages with noble populations, taverns had separate areas set aside for the nobles, whose tables were covered in tablecloths and who used chairs rather than the crude benches used by the peasants; in such towns nobles and peasants also had separate areas in the churches.  The latter practice continues to survive in some western Ukrainian villages populated by the descendants of nobles. In some regions on Easter, nobles typically blessed their Easter baskets within the churches while peasants' baskets were blessed outside. In other regions, the nobles were granted the right to cut folding collars from shirts worn by peasants because the peasants were deemed unworthy of wearing them. As late as the 1950s, on some collective farms in Soviet-ruled western Ukraine, nobles and peasants were assigned to separate work-groups.

The peasants had mixed feelings about the nobility.  On the one hand, peasant songs mentioned noble laziness and shoddy workmanship. Despite nobles' feelings of superiority, during the late 19th century the western Ukrainian nobility had a reputation among the peasants of being poorer than peasants because they did not work as hard.  Due to the nobility's material poverty, the peasants sometimes viewed the nobles' proclamations of their status and expressions of superiority as ridiculous. On the other hand, it was considered a great honour in a peasant household if someone married a noble.

In literature
The Western Ukrainian poet Ivan Franko, whose mother was a noblewoman, supported the peasants and in his writings frequently mocked the Ukrainian nobility's feelings of superiority.

A western Ukrainian nobleman serves as a protagonist in the story Der Don Juan von Kolomea (The Don Juan of Kolomiya) written by Austrian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose mother was from the western Ukrainian nobility.

Prominent western Ukrainians with noble backgrounds
Ivan Franko, Ukrainian poet. His father was a village blacksmith of German ethnic origin, but his mother was from the petty noble Kulchytsky family.
Jacques Hnizdovsky, Ukrainian artist.
Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny, 16th-17th century Cossack leader, of noble origins from the Sambir region of Galicia.
Solomiya Krushelnytska, an early twentieth-century opera singer, was born into the family of a priest with noble origins.
Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, a hero during the 1683 Battle of Vienna, was allegedly the first person to open a coffee house in Vienna.  Nobleman from Sambir region.
Soter Ortynsky, first Ukrainian Catholic Bishop in the United States (1907–1916), a nobleman from Sambir region
Yevhen Petrushevych, president of the West Ukrainian People's Republic, from a priestly family who traced their descent to Galician boyars
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, an Austrian writer whose mother was from a Ukrainian noble family.
Julian Sas-Kuilovsky, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church 1899–1900; nobleman from Sambir region
Dmytro Vitovsky, first commander of the Ukrainian Galician Army and organizer of the Ukrainian takeover of Lviv in October 1918; of noble origin from the Halych region .
Stefan Yavorsky, first president of the Most Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church; nobleman from Lviv region, heraldric sign Sas
Denis Zubrytsky, first Ukrainian historian in Galicia and major figure in the Galician Russophile movement.

See also
Cossack nobility

References

External links
 Video from Ukrainian News (Channel 1+1) about marking the 100th Anniversary of the Association of Ruthenian Gentry . Ukrainian-Language. Originally aired April 11, 2007
 Ivan Franko writing about the western Ukrainian nobility. Ukrainian-language.

Feudalism in Europe
History of Eastern Galicia
Social history of Ukraine

Ukrainian nobility of Galicia


Montage is an editing technique in film. In montage, shots are placed one after another in a sequence. The series of shots use less space and time. Montage can tell a story very fast. It can give much information in a short amount of time. In French, the word montage simply means editing. Montage is an important part of Soviet Montage Theory. Soviet theorists believed montage could create meaning and symbolism. There are several types of montage editing. Several were originally part of Soviet Montage Theory, but are common in films today.

Types
Metric montage is not connected to emotions or a deeper meaning. It is based on the number of frames (single image in a video). It is mathematically and symmetric. This type of montage can be jarring and unpleasant. It is not often used in movies.

Rhythmic montage cuts clips based on the actions of the images. The images are matched with what is happening. This creates continuity and makes things less abrupt. This is a common form of montage.

Tonal montage cuts images based on the emotions of a scene. Directors place two images together to create emotions.

Overtonal montage combines metric, rhythmic and tonal montage. The combination creates deeper emotions.

Intellectual montage combines images to add meaning and emotions. It can often create metaphors. This type of montage creates the Kuleshov effect.

Sports training montage is a type of montage to show sport athletes training. It often shows physical training with shortcut images appearing really fast. The time of multiple weeks or months happens in a couple of minutes on the screen. It is common in America and in East Asian martial arts films.

References

Movies

Montage (filmmaking)


Sport in Denmark is diverse. The national sport is running, but club sport is  football with the most notable results being qualifying for the European Championships six times in a row (1984–2004) and winning the Championship in 1992. Other significant achievements include winning the Confederations Cup in 1995 and reaching the quarter final of the 1998 World Cup. Other popular sports include handball, esports, cycling, sailing sports, badminton, ice hockey, swimming, and recently also golf. A few youths also play basketball.

Sport is encouraged in school, and there are local sports clubs in all cities and most towns.

The national stadium for football is the Parken Stadium.

Football

Football is the most popular sport in Denmark, with over 313,000 players in more than 1600 clubs. The national football team in Denmark have reached high and notable results, like qualifying for the European Championships six times in a row (1984–2004) and winning the UEFA Championship in 1992. Other significant achievements include winning the Confederations Cup in 1995 and reaching the quarter final of the 1998 World Cup.

Denmark national football team reached #3 ranking in the FIFA ranking in May 1997, and #1 at the World Football Elo Ratings system in (1912–1920).

The top-league in Danish football is called The Danish Superliga. The reigning champions are F.C. Copenhagen, while they are also the most successful club ever in financial terms. Famous Superliga players include Per Nielsen, Jimmy Nielsen, Michael Hansen, Mogens Krogh, Daniel Agger and Jesper Grønkjær.

The second level league is the Danish 1st Division, which was last won by Lyngby Boldklub. The third tier is made up of the two Danish 2nd Divisions: East and West. The last two champions were NordVest (East) and Blokhus FC (West). The fourth tier is the Denmark Series, which is split into three pools. The last champions were BK Marienlyst, IF Skjold Birkerød and Kjellerup IF.

The top women's league is the Elitedivisionen, most recently won by Fortuna Hjørring. HEI Aarhus are the most successful team, with 10 titles.

The premier cup competition is the Danish Cup, won in 2016 by F.C. Copenhagen. AGF are 9 time champions. Copenhagen are also the last winners of the Danish Supercup, back in 2004, of which Brøndby IF are the most successful club. Brøndby are the only winners of the twice-held Danish League Cup.

The Danish Women's Cup has been won the last three times in a row by Brøndby IF, and seven times overall by Fortuna Hjørring.

The current manager of the national team is Kasper Hjulmand, and Simon Kjær is the captain. Legendary former players include Poul "Tist" Nielsen, Peter Schmeichel, Jon Dahl Tomasson, Allan Simonsen and Michael Laudrup.

Handball

Denmark has a long history with handball, with the sport originating in Denmark. Handball is one of the most popular pastimes in Denmark, only exceeded by football. There are over 146,000 licensed handball players in Denmark. Both the male and female national teams have reached high international rankings.

Denmark women's national handball team have won the Olympics gold medal a record three times, the European Women's Handball Championship three times, and the World Women's Handball Championship once. The male national team won the European Men's Handball Championship in 2008 and 2012, won gold at the Olympics in 2016 and has become world champions three times in a row, in 2019, 2021 and 2023, which is a feat no other country has managed. Denmark co-hosted the 2019 tournament with Germany, and will do so again in 2025, this time with Croatia and
Norway
.

Motorcycle speedway
Denmark have marked their status as one of the leading motorcycle speedway countries. Denmark has won the Speedway World Cup four times in 2006, 2008, 2012 and 2014 and came second in 2007 missing only two points to Poland.

Danish Speedway World Championship Champions include Ole Olsen, Erik Gundersen, Hans Nielsen (nicknamed "The Professor", four-times World Champion), and Nicki Pedersen, the 2003, 2007, and 2008 World Champion.

Erik Gundersen and Hans Nielsen occupied the first two places at Gothenburg in 1984. In fact, there were two Danes on top of the table in each and every World final from 1984 to 1988 - a somewhat extraordinary record. Gundersen and Nielsen took three titles each as the Danes won six successive and seven out of eight titles from 1984 to 1991.

Ice hockey

There are seven Danish ice hockey players currently in the National Hockey League (NHL): Lars Eller of the Colorado Avalanche, Frederik Andersen of the Carolina Hurricanes, Nikolaj Ehlers of the Winnipeg Jets, Alexander True of the Seattle Kraken, Oliver Bjorkstrand of the Seattle Kraken, Mads Søgaard of the Ottawa Senators and Jonas Røndbjerg of the Vegas Golden Knights. Other Danes who have played in the NHL include Frans Nielsen, Jannik Hansen, Peter Regin, Philip Larsen and Oliver Lauridsen. The first Dane to play a game in the NHL was Frans Nielsen on January 6, 2006. Lars Eller became  the first Dane to win the Stanley Cup with Washington Capitals in 2018. There also many Danes in top level leagues like KHL and Swedish Hockey League.

The Denmark men's national ice hockey team have been in the best division since 2003. The Danish national hockey team scored two historic, unexpected upsets in Tampere, Finland, defeating the United States 5-2 on April 26, 2003 and tied Canada 2-2 six days later on May 2, 2003. At the 2010 World Championship Denmark finished eighth place, which is their best placing to date. The Denmark men's national ice hockey team and the Denmark women's national ice hockey team are both currently number 10 on the IIHF World Ranking. In 2018 Denmark was the host of the 2018 IIHF World Championships, Herning and Copenhagen were the host cities.

Badminton
Denmark is Europe's strongest badminton country. Danish players have won 11 gold medals at the World Championships since 1977, 63 gold medals at the European Badminton Championships since 1968, and 19 titles at the Europe Cup since 1978. The Denmark national badminton team has won the 2016 Thomas Cup, and has been runner-up eight times in the Thomas Cup, three times in the Uber Cup, and two times in the Sudirman Cup. At the

In men's badminton, Viktor Axelsen, the current world's number one in singles since 2021, has won two gold medals at the BWF World Championship (2017 and 2022), and one gold medal at the Olympic Games (2020). Poul-Erik Høyer Larsen's victory at the 1996 Olympic Games is one of two gold medals for Europe. Erland Kops won seven All England Open Badminton Championships in singles and four All England titles in doubles from the late 1950s to the late 1960s, whilst Morten Frost was one of the top players of the 1980s, winning the 1984 World Badminton Grand Prix and four All England singles titles. Topped the world rankings from 1998 to 2001 and with 22 Grand-Prix titles, Peter Gade is one of the world's most successful badminton players.

In women's badminton, Kirsten Thorndahl and Tonny Ahm claimed singles, women's doubles and mixed doubles titles at the All England. Lene Køppen and Camilla Martin have won singles titles at the World Championships and All-England. Other notable women's players include Ulla Strand (All-England doubles titles), Rikke Olsen (six World Championship medals), Helene Kirkegaard (two medals at the World Championships), Tine Baun (All-England singles titles), Kamilla Rytter Juhl (World mixed doubles title), and Christinna Pedersen (two Olympic and five World Championship medals).

The premier international badminton tournament in Denmark is the Denmark Open, which is part of the BWF World Tour. Meanwhile, the Danish National Badminton Championships is the most prestigious tournament for Danish players, and the Danish Badminton League is the main tournament for Danish clubs.

Cycling

Historically, Denmark's most successful name in cycling has been Thorvald Ellegaard won the world professional sprint title in six times, three European titles, and 24 Danish titles.

In recent years, Denmark has made a mark as a strong cycling nation, with Bjarne Riis winning Tour de France in 1996, Michael Rasmussen reaching King of the Mountains status, in the Tour 2005 and 2006, Jonas Vingegaard winning the Tour de France in 2022 and Mattias Skjelmose winning the 2023 Tour de Suisse. Other well-known Danish riders are Matti Breschel, Nicki Sørensen, Bo Hamburger, Jesper Skibby, Jakob Fuglsang and Lars Michaelsen. Three Danish riders have won monuments, the five most prestigious one-day classics: Rolf Sørensen, who won Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 1993 and the Tour of Flanders in 1997, Jakob Fuglsang, who won the 2019 edition of Liège–Bastogne–Liège and the 2020 Giro di Lombardia and Kasper Asgreen who won the 2021 edition of Tour of Flanders. Team Saxo Bank has been the most successful cycling team in Denmark: the team was founded in 1998 as Team Home-Jack and Jones and led by Bjarne Riis from the following year. It competed as a Danish-registered team until 2014, when it switched its registration to Russia after being sold to Russian businessman Oleg Tinkov, although Riis stayed as the team's manager until 2015. In 2008 Carlos Sastre won the Tour de France while riding for Saxo Bank, one of five Grand Tour wins the team took in an eight year span. They also enjoyed success in the monuments, with Fabian Cancellara (who won Milan–San Remo in 2008 and the Tour of Flanders in 2010), Andy Schleck (who won Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 2009) and Nick Nuyens (who won the Tour of Flanders in 2011). In addition Cancellara won two World Road Time Trial Championship titles whilst riding for the team. Three Danish riders have won stages in all Grand Tours: Jesper Skiby, Magnus Cort and Mads Pedersen, the latter also won the 2019 UCI Road World Championships.

In the past years, the Danish cycling has suffered from dope-cases. Bjarne Riis, Bo Hamburger, Rolf Sørensen, Jesper Skibby, Michael Rasmussen all confessed doping use, or were related with doping. But despite all the bad publicity, cycling is still quite a popular sport in Denmark. In 2011, Copenhagen hosted the UCI world championships on the road. Denmark hosted the Grand Depart in the 2022 edition of the Tour de France.

Golf
Golf has become a highly popular sport in recent years in Denmark with more than 180 courses across the country.

Golf is mostly popular among the older demographic, with more members over the age of 24 than any other sport in Denmark.

In pro golf, Thomas Bjørn has dominated the Danish scene for many years, along with Anders Hansen, Søren Hansen and Steen Tinning on the European Tour. On the Ladies European Tour, Iben Tinning is the most successful Danish player.

American Football
American football is a minor sport in Denmark with Well under 1.000 players. The governing body the Danish American Football Federation was formed in 1988. The top level league is the National Ligaen. The final game for the national championship is called the Mermaid Bowl and the first was played in 1988. The national teams both youth and senior level has competed in the European Championship of American football.

Basketball

Denmark's national team had a few strong showings at senior and youth level. The Bakken Bears currently hold the attendance record for a single basketball game in Denmark.

Boxing
Denmark has many great boxers, including former Super Middleweight World Boxing Council World Champion and Super Middleweight World Boxing Association (WBA) World Champion, Mikkel Kessler. Former great boxers include Johnny Bredahl a former WBO and WBA champion and Brian Nielsen who fought Mike Tyson in 2001. The active boxer Ahmed Khaddour who was in the American reality TV show The Contender also comes from Denmark. Other boxers that have won titles at an international level are Patrick Nielsen and his brother Micki Nielsen.

Cricket
Cricket has a little presence in Denmark. But the Denmark national cricket team has been performing well in Europe. Cricket has been played in Denmark since the mid 19th century, brought there by the British. As well as the men's team, the Denmark national women's cricket team has also played international matches.

Flag football
The Danish flag football team, is one of the best Flag football teams in the world, having won a record 6 consecutive EFAF European Flag Football Championship and 2 bronze medals. They also won 4 silver medals at the IFAF Flag Football World Championship and 2 bronze medals. The women's team also had success, as they won the european championship in 2017 hosted in Denmark.

Mixed martial arts
Denmark has various Mixed Martial Arts fighters with the most prominent being Martin Kampmann. Kampmann fought for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) as a 170-pound welterweight and was considered one of the best fighters in the division. Other Danish fighters that have competed in the UFC include Anna Elmose, Nicolas Dalby, Joachim Christensen, Christian Colombo, and Mads Burnell.

Motor sports
In Denmark, there is also a small but successful group of people doing motorsport. The driver with the most 24 Hours of Le Mans wins so far is Denmark's Tom Kristensen with nine first places. Jan Magnussen has been a Corvette Racing factory driver since 2004, having claimed several GT class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring and Petit Le Mans. His son Kevin Magnussen has been competing in Formula One since 2014. Other notable Danish drivers include Kurt Thiim, Nicki Thiim, Jason Watt, Michael Christensen and Marco Sørensen.

The main permanent racetracks are Ring Djursland, Jyllands-Ringen and Padborg Park. The Danish Touringcar Championship was held from 1999 to 2010, and the Danish Thundersport Championship has been held since 2012. In addition, the Copenhagen Historic Grand Prix has been held since 2001.

Physical education and gymnastics
Franz Nachtegall was influential in the introduction of physical education and gymnastics into schools of Denmark.

Racketlon
Denmark has the highest ranked racketlon player and two more within top seven (July 2015).

Rugby league football

Rugby league football is played at a local, national and international level. Currently the country is ranked 26th on the RLIF. Danish domestic teams, including Jutland RLFC (Jylland) and Copenhagen RLFC compete with teams from other areas of Southern Scandinavia.

Rugby union

The Danish Rugby Union dates back to 1950, and joined the IRB in 1988. There are about 3,000 registered players.

Tennis

Caroline Wozniacki is commonly referred to as the best Danish female tennis player in history. She is a former World No. 1 on the WTA Tour. As of 1 March 2017, she held this position for 71 weeks. She was the first Scandinavian woman to hold the top ranking position and 20th overall. She has won The Australian Open 2018 and 27 WTA singles titles incl 2017 WTA Finals  (and made 52 finals) as of March 2018, and is currently ranked number 2 in the WTA rankings.

Frederik Løchte Nielsen became the first Dane ever to win a Wimbledon championship title in 2012. Nielsen and his partner Marray, who had only played three tournaments together previously, also became the first wild card ever to win the Wimbledon men's doubles. His current position in the ATP doubles rankings is No. 249.

Notes

References

External links
DIF - The National Olympic Committee and Sports Confederation of Denmark

Sport in Denmark


The Lodha Muslim are a tribal or Adivasi community found in the state of West Bengal in India. They are a Muslim tribe.

Origin

The exact circumstances of the conversion of the Lodha Muslims to Islam remains shrouded in mystery, but the conversion process was gradual, and the community still preserve many of their pre-Islamic customs. They are found mainly in the Midnapore District, in particular in the villages of Madhya Hingli, Uttar Rani Chak, Gamatub, Maniktala, Laldighi, Chapbasan, Sodhpur and Piyada.

Present circumstances

The traditional occupation of the Lodha was hunting and gathering, in particular catching of snakes and toads, and then selling their skins. They are no longer hunters and gatherers, and community has now taken up the occupation as locksmiths. A small number are also marginal farmers, but their holdings are incredibly small. The bulk of the community are now wage labourers, with a steady immigration to the city of Kolkata.

The Lodha are strictly endogamous community, and prefer to marry close kin. They are residentially segregated, live in their own quarters within the villages they reside. Each settlement contains a jati panchayat or caste council, which maintains social control, and resolves any intra community dispute. The community are Sunni Muslims and  have customs similar to other Bengali Muslims.

See also

 Lodha people
 Kela

References

Social groups of West Bengal
Muslim communities of India
Ethnic groups in India
Indigenous peoples of South Asia
Tribes of West Bengal
Scheduled Tribes of India

Lodha Muslims


The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Champaign, Illinois, and Urbana, Illinois. It is the flagship institution of the University of Illinois system and was founded in 1867. With over 56,000 students, the University of Illinois is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the United States.

The university contains 16 schools and colleges and offers more than 150 undergraduate and over 100 graduate programs of study. The university holds 651 buildings on  and its annual operating budget in 2016 was over $2 billion. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign also operates a Research Park home to innovation centers for over 90 start-up companies and multinational corporations.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". In fiscal year 2019, research expenditures at Illinois totaled $652 million. The campus library system possesses the fourth-largest university library in the United States by holdings. The university also hosts the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and is home to the fastest supercomputer on a university campus.

Illinois athletic teams compete in Division I of the NCAA and are collectively known as the Fighting Illini. They are members of the Big Ten Conference and have won the second-most conference titles. Illinois Fighting Illini football won the Rose Bowl Game in 1947, 1952, 1964 and a total of five national championships. Illinois athletes have won 29 medals in Olympic events. The alumni, faculty members, or researchers of the university include 30 Nobel laureates, 27 Pulitzer Prize winners, two Fields medalists, and two Turing Award winners.

History

Illinois Industrial University

The University of Illinois, originally named "Illinois Industrial University", was one of the 37 universities created under the first Morrill Land-Grant Act, which provided public land for the creation of agricultural and industrial colleges and universities across the United States. Among several cities, Urbana was selected in 1867 as the site for the new school. From the beginning, President John Milton Gregory's desire to establish an institution firmly grounded in the liberal arts tradition was at odds with many state residents and lawmakers who wanted the university to offer classes based solely around "industrial education". The university opened for classes on March 2, 1868, and had two faculty members and 77 students.

The Library, which opened with the school in 1868, started with 1,039 volumes. Subsequently, President Edmund J. James, in a speech to the board of trustees in 1912, proposed to create a research library. It is now one of the world's largest public academic collections. In 1870, the Mumford House was constructed as a model farmhouse for the school's experimental farm. The Mumford House remains the oldest structure on campus. The original University Hall (1871) was the fourth building built; it stood where the Illini Union stands today.

University of Illinois
In 1885, the Illinois Industrial University officially changed its name to the "University of Illinois", reflecting its agricultural, mechanical, and liberal arts curriculum.

During his presidency, Edmund J. James (1904–1920) is credited for building the foundation for the large Chinese international student population on campus. James established ties with China through the Chinese Minister to the United States Wu Ting-Fang. In addition, during James's presidency, class rivalries and Bob Zuppke's winning football teams contributed to campus morale.

Alma Mater, a prominent statue on campus created by alumnus Lorado Taft, was unveiled on June 11, 1929. It was established from donations by the Alumni Fund and the classes of 1923–1929.

The Great Depression slowed construction and expansion on the campus. The university replaced the original university hall with Gregory Hall and the Illini Union. After World War II, the university experienced rapid growth. The enrollment doubled and the academic standing improved.  This period was also marked by large growth in the Graduate College and increased federal support of scientific and technological research. During the 1950s and 1960s the university experienced the turmoil common on many American campuses. Among these were the water fights of the fifties and sixties.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
By 1967, the University of Illinois system consisted of a main campus in Champaign-Urbana and two Chicago campuses, Chicago Circle (UICC) and Medical Center (UIMC), and people began using "Urbana-Champaign" or the reverse to refer to the main campus specifically. The university name officially changed to the "University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign" by 1977. While this was a reversal of the commonly used designation for the metropolitan area (Champaign-Urbana), most of the campus is located in Urbana. The name change established a separate identity for the main campus within the University of Illinois system, which today includes campuses in Springfield (UIS) and Chicago (UIC) (formed by the merger of UICC and UIMC).

In 1998, the Hallene Gateway Plaza was dedicated. The Plaza features the original sandstone portal of University Hall, which was originally the fourth building on campus. In recent years, state support has declined from 4.5% of the state's tax appropriations in 1980 to 2.28% in 2011, a nearly 50% decline.  As a result, the university's budget has shifted away from relying on state support with nearly 84% of the budget coming from other sources in 2012.

On March 12, 2015, the Board of Trustees approved the creation of a medical school, the first college created at Urbana-Champaign in 60 years. The Carle Illinois College of Medicine began classes in 2018.

Philanthropy
Over the last twenty years state funding for the university has fallen. Private philanthropy increasingly supplements revenue from tuition and state funding, providing about 19% of the annual budget in 2012. Notable among significant donors, alumnus entrepreneur Thomas M. Siebel has committed nearly $150 million to the university, including $36 million to build the Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science and $25 million to build the Siebel Center for Design. Further the Grainger Foundation (founded by alumnus W. W. Grainger) has contributed more than $300 million to the university over the last half-century, including donations for the construction of the Grainger Engineering Library. Larry Gies and his wife Beth donated $150 million in 2017 to the shortly thereafter renamed Gies College of Business.

Campus

The main research and academic facilities are divided almost evenly between the twin cities of Urbana and Champaign, which form part of the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area. Some parts are in Urbana Township.

Four main quads compose the center of the university and are arranged from north to south. The Beckman Quadrangle and the John Bardeen Quadrangle occupy the center of the Engineering Campus. Boneyard Creek flows through the John Bardeen Quadrangle, parallel to Green Street. The Beckman Quadrangle, named after Arnold Orville Beckman, is primarily composed of research units and laboratories, and features a large solar calendar consisting of an obelisk and several copper fountains. The Main Quadrangle and South Quadrangle follow immediately after the John Bardeen Quad. The former makes up a large part of the Liberal Arts and Sciences portion of the campus, while the latter comprises many of the buildings of the College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences (ACES) spread across the campus map.

Additionally, the research fields of the College of ACES stretch south from Urbana and Champaign into Savoy and Champaign County. The university also maintains formal gardens and a conference center in nearby Monticello at Allerton Park.

The campus is known for its landscape and architecture, as well as distinctive landmarks. It was identified as one of 50 college or university "works of art" by T.A. Gaines in his book The Campus as a Work of Art. The campus also has a number of buildings and sites on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places including Harker Hall, the Astronomical Observatory, Louise Freer Hall, the Main Library, the Experimental Dairy Farm Historic District, and the Morrow Plots. University of Illinois Willard Airport is one of the few airports owned by an educational institution.

Sustainability

In 2008, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign became a signatory of the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment, binding the campus to the goal of carbon neutrality as soon as possible. In 2010, the first Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) was written to chart a path to this goal. The iCAP is a strategic framework for meeting the university's Climate Leadership Commitments to be carbon-neutral by 2050 or sooner and build resilience with its local community. Since then, the iCAP has been rewritten every five years to track the university's progress.

In December 2013, the University of Illinois launched the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) on the Urbana-Champaign campus. The institute, under the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation, leads an interdisciplinary approach to researching solutions for the world's most pressing sustainability, energy, and environmental needs. In addition, iSEE has engaged students, faculty, staff, and campus leadership in the iCAP process — especially in the areas of zero waste and conservation of energy, food, water, land, and natural resources — as well as sustainability outreach and immersive educational programs.

In her remarks on being named Director of iSEE in 2022, Professor of Agricultural and Consumer Economics Madhu Khanna explained: "We aim to position campus to play a transformative role in moving us all to a more sustainable future."

In 2022, new solar and geothermal energy projects, a reduction in water use, and wide-ranging sustainability research helped the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign earn its fifth consecutive gold certification in the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS). Illinois has consistently achieved gold certification since it began reporting data through STARS in 2013, and the 2022 score was one of its highest to date.

Currently, the campus features 27 LEED certified buildings.

Academics

Admissions

Undergraduate

The 2015 annual ranking of U.S. News & World Report categorizes the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as "more selective." For the Class of 2025 (enrolled Fall 2021), UIUC received 47,593 applications and accepted 28,395 (59.7%). Of those accepted, 8,303 enrolled, a yield rate (the percentage of accepted students who choose to attend the university) of 29.2%. UIUC's freshman retention rate is 93.5%, with 84.9% going on to graduate within six years.

Of the 43% of the incoming freshman class who submitted SAT scores; the middle 50 percent Composite scores were 1340–1510. Of the 24% of enrolled freshmen in 2021 who submitted ACT scores; the middle 50 percent Composite score was between 29 and 34. In the 2020–2021 academic year, 28 freshman students were National Merit Scholars.

Admissions differ greatly between the different colleges in the university. While the overall admit rate is 37.5% (first-choice), the most selective college, the College of Engineering, has an admit rate of 23.2% (for first-choice major). Certain in-demand majors like Computer Science (the university's program being ranked in the top five nationwide) can be extremely competitive, with an acceptance rate of less than 6.8%, and average freshman ACT composite score of 33.7.

In 2009, an investigation by The Chicago Tribune reported that some applicants "received special consideration" for acceptance between 2005 and 2009, despite having sub-par qualifications. This incident was known was the University of Illinois clout scandal.

Academic divisions

The university offers more than 150 undergraduate and 100 graduate and professional programs in over 15 academic units, among several online specializations such as Digital Marketing and an online MBA program launched in January 2016. In 2015, the university announced its expansion to include an engineering-based medical program, which would be the first new college created in Urbana-Champaign in 60 years. The university also offers undergraduate students the opportunity for graduation honors. University Honors is an academic distinction awarded to the highest achieving students. To earn the distinction, students must have a cumulative grade point average of a 3.5/4.0 within the academic year of their graduation and rank within the top 3% of their graduating class. Their names are inscribed on a Bronze Tablet that hangs in the Main Library.

Online learning
In addition to the university's Illinois Online platform, in 2015 the university entered into a partnership with the Silicon Valley educational technology company Coursera to offer a series of master's degrees, certifications, and specialization courses, currently including more than 70 joint learning classes. In August 2015, the Master of Business Administration program was launched through the platform. On March 31, 2016, Coursera announced the launch of the Master of Computer Science in Data Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. At the time, the university's computer-science graduate program was ranked fifth in the United States by U.S. News & World Report. On March 29, 2017, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign launched their Master's in Accounting (iMSA) program, now called the Master of Science in Accountancy (iMSA) program. The iMSA program is led through live sessions, headed by UIUC faculty.

Similar to the university's on-campus admission policies, the online master's degrees offered by The University of Illinois through Coursera also has admission requirements.  All applicants must hold a bachelor's degree, and have earned a 3.0 GPA or higher in the last two years of study. Additionally, all applicants must prove their proficiency in English.

The University of Illinois also offers online courses in partnership with Coursera, such as Marketing in a Digital World, which focuses on how digital tools like internet, smartphone and 3D printers are changing the marketing landscape.

Rankings

In the 2021 U.S. News & World Report "America's Best Colleges" report, UIUC's undergraduate program was ranked tied for 47th among national universities and tied for 15th among public universities, with its undergraduate engineering program ranked tied for 6th in the U.S. among schools whose highest degree is a doctorate.

Washington Monthly ranked UIUC 18th among 389 national universities in the U.S. for 2020, based on its contribution to the public good as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service.  Kiplinger's Personal Finance rated Illinois 12th in its 2019 list of 174 Best Values in Public Colleges, which "measures academic quality, cost and financial aid."

The Graduate Program in Urban Planning at the College of Fine and Applied Arts was ranked 3rd nationally by Planetizen in 2015.  The university was also listed as a "Public Ivy" in The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public Universities (2001) by Howard and Matthew Greene.  The Princeton Review ranked Illinois 1st in its 2016 list of top party schools.

Internationally, UIUC engineering was ranked 13th in the world in 2016 by the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) and the university 38th in 2019; the university was also ranked 48th globally by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings in 2020 and 75th in the world by the QS World University Rankings for 2020. The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) has ranked University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as the 20th best university in the world for 2019–20.

UIUC is also ranked 32nd in the world in Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings for 2018. Nature Index ranks UIUC 33rd among top Academic institutions in the world.

Research

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is often regarded as a world-leading magnet for engineering and sciences (both applied and basic).

According to the National Science Foundation, the university spent $625 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 37th in the nation. It is also listed as one of the Top 25 American Research Universities by The Center for Measuring University Performance. Beside annual influx of grants and sponsored projects, the university manages an extensive modern research infrastructure. The university has been a leader in computer based education and hosted the PLATO project, which was a precursor to the internet and resulted in the development of the plasma display.  Illinois was a 2nd-generation ARPAnet site in 1971 and was the first institution to license the UNIX operating system from Bell Labs.

Research Park

Located in the southwest part of campus, Research Park opened its first building in 2001 and has grown to encompass 13 buildings. Ninety companies have established roots in research park, employing over 1,400 people. Tenants of the Research Park facilities include prominent Fortune 500 companies Capital One, John Deere, State Farm, Caterpillar, and Yahoo, Inc. Companies also employ about 400 total student interns at any given time throughout the year. The complex is also a center for entrepreneurs, and has over 50 startup companies stationed at its EnterpriseWorks Incubator facility.

In 2011, Urbana, Illinois was named number 11 on Popular Mechanics' "14 Best Startup Cities in America" list, in a large part due to the contributions of Research Park's programs. The park has gained recognition from other notable publications, such as inc.com and Forbes magazine. For the 2011 fiscal year, Research Park produced an economic output of $169.5M for the state of Illinois.

National Center for Supercomputing Applications

The university hosts the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), which created Mosaic, the first graphical web browser, the Apache HTTP server, and NCSA Telnet. The Parallel@Illinois program hosts several programs in parallel computing, including the Universal Parallel Computing Research Center. The university contracted with Cray to build the National Science Foundation-funded supercomputer Blue Waters. The system also has the largest public online storage system in the world with more than 25 petabytes of usable space.  The university celebrated January 12, 1997, as the "birthday" of HAL 9000, the fictional supercomputer from the novel and film 2001: A Space Odyssey; in both works, HAL credits "Urbana, Illinois" as his place of operational origin.

Prairie Research Institute

The Prairie Research Institute is located on campus and is the home of the Illinois Natural History Survey, Illinois State Geological Survey, Illinois State Water Survey, Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, and the Illinois State Archeological Survey.  Researchers at the Prairie Research Institute are engaged in research in agriculture and forestry, biodiversity and ecosystem health, atmospheric resources, climate and associated natural hazards, cultural resources and history of human settlements, disease and public health, emerging pests, fisheries and wildlife, energy and industrial technology, mineral resources, pollution prevention and mitigation, and water resources. The Illinois Natural History Survey collections include crustaceans, reptiles and amphibians, birds, mammals, algae, fungi, and vascular plants, with the insect collection is among the largest in North America. The Illinois State Geological Survey houses the legislatively mandated Illinois Geological Samples Library, a repository for drill-hole samples in Illinois, as well as paleontological collections. ISAS serves as a repository for a large collection of Illinois archaeological artifacts. One of the major collections is from the Cahokia Mounds.

Technology Entrepreneur Center
The Technology Entrepreneur Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a permanent center established to provide students with resources for their entrepreneurial ideas. The center offers classes, venture and product competitions, and workshops to introduce students to technology innovation and market adoption.
Events and programs hosted by the TEC include the Cozad New Venture Challenge, Silicon Valley Entrepreneurship Workshop, Illinois I-Corps, and SocialFuse. The campus-wide Cozad New Venture Challenge has been held annually since 2000. Participants are mentored in the phases of venture creation and attend workshops on idea validation, pitching skills, and customer development. In 2019, teams competed for $250,000 in funding. The Silicon Valley Workshop is a week-long workshop, occurring annually in January. Students visit startups and technology companies in the Silicon Valley and network entrepreneurial alumni from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Students are exposed to technology entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership. The trip features corporate leaders, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs in various stages of a startup lifecycle. Illinois I-Corps teaches National Science Foundation grantees how to learn to identify valuable product opportunities that can emerge from academic research, and gain skills in entrepreneurship through training in customer discovery and guidance from established entrepreneurs.
The program is a collaboration between the Technology Entrepreneur Center and EnterpriseWorks, with participation from the Office of Technology Management and IllinoisVentures. The program consists of three workshops over six weeks, where teams work to validate the market size, value propositions, and customer segments of their innovations.
SocialFuse is a recurring pitching and networking event where students can pitch ideas, find teammates, and network.

Center for Plasma-Material Interactions
The Center for Plasma-Material Interactions was established in 2004 by Professor David N. Ruzic to research the complex behavior between ions, electrons, and energetic atoms generated in plasmas and the surfaces of materials. CPMI encompasses fusion plasmas in its research.

Accolades
In Bill Gates' February 24, 2004, talk as part of his Five Campus Tour (Harvard, MIT, Cornell, Carnegie-Mellon and Illinois) titled "Software Breakthroughs: Solving the Toughest Problems in Computer Science," he mentioned Microsoft hires more graduates from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign than from any other university in the world. Alumnus William M. Holt, a senior vice-president of Intel, also mentioned in a campus talk on September 27, 2007, entitled "R&D to Deliver Practical Results: Extending Moore's Law" that Intel hires more PhD graduates from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign than from any other university in the country.

In 2007, the university-hosted research Institute for Condensed Matter Theory (ICMT) was launched, with the director Paul Goldbart and the chief scientist Anthony Leggett. ICMT is currently located at the Engineering Science Building on campus.

The University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA), which recognizes excellence in both individual and institutional achievements, has awarded two awards to U of I.

Discoveries and innovation

Natural sciences

BCS theory – John Bardeen, in collaboration with Leon Cooper and his doctoral student John Robert Schrieffer, proposed the standard theory of superconductivity known as the BCS theory. They shared the Nobel Prize in Physics 1972 for their discovery.
Sweet corn – John Laughnan produced corn with higher-than-normal levels of sugar while he was a professor at the university.

Computer & applied sciences

ILLIAC I – Illinois Automatic Computer, a pioneering computer built in 1952 by the University of Illinois, was the first computer built and owned entirely by a US educational institution. Lejaren Hiller, in collaboration with Leonard Issacson, programmed the ILLIAC I computer to generate compositional material for his String Quartet No. 4.
ILLIAC Suite – is a 1957 composition for string quartet which is generally agreed to be the first score composed by an electronic computer.
LLVM – compiler infrastructure project (formerly Low Level Virtual Machine). Vikram Adve and Chris Lattner started development as a research assistant and M.Sc. student.
Mosaic – The first successful consumer web browser was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1993.
PLATO – Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations was the first generalized computer assisted instruction system.  Starting in 1960, it ran on the University of Illinois' ILLIAC I computer.  By the late 1970s, it supported several thousand graphics terminals distributed worldwide, running on nearly a dozen different networked mainframe computers.  Many modern concepts in multi-user computing were developed on PLATO, including forums, message boards, online testing, e-mail, chat rooms, picture languages, instant messaging, remote screen sharing, and multiplayer video games.
Touchscreens and Plasma displays – developed by Donald Bitzer in the 1960s.
Talkomatic is an online chat system that facilitates real-time text communication among a small group of people.  Created by Doug Brown and David R. Woolley in 1973 on the PLATO System.
 Synchronized Sound-on-film – Joseph Tykociński-Tykociner publicly demonstrated for the first time a motion picture with a soundtrack optically recorded directly onto the film June 9, 1922.

Companies & entrepreneurship
UIUC alumni and faculty have founded numerous companies and organizations, some of which are shown below.

Student life

Student body
As of spring 2018, the university had 45,813 students. , over 10,000 students were international students, and of them 5,295 were Mainland Chinese. The university also recruits students from over 100 countries among its 32,878 undergraduate students and 10,245 graduate and professional students. The gender breakdown is 55% men, 45% women. UIUC in 2014 enrolled 4,898 students from China, more than any other American university. They comprise the largest group of international students on the campus, followed by South Korea (1,268 in fall 2014) and India (1,167). Graduate enrollment of Chinese students at UIUC has grown from 649 in 2000 to 1,973 in 2014.

Student organizations

The university has over 1,000 active registered student organizations, showcased at the start of each academic year during Illinois's "Quad Day." Registration and support is provided by the Student Programs & Activities Office, an administrative arm established in pursuit of the larger social, intellectual, and educative goals of the Illini Student Union. The Office's mission is to "enhance ... classroom education," "meet the needs and desires of the campus community," and "prepare students to be contributing and humane citizens." Beyond student organizations, The Daily Illini is a student-run newspaper that has been published for the community of since 1871. The paper is published by Illini Media Company, a not-for-profit which also prints other publications, and operates WPGU 107.1 FM, a student-run commercial radio station. The Varsity Men's Glee Club is an all-male choir at the University of Illinois that was founded in 1886. The Varsity Men's Glee Club is one of the oldest glee clubs in the United States as well as the oldest registered student organization at the University of Illinois. As of 2018, the university also has the largest chapter of Alpha Phi Omega with over 340 active members.

Greek life

There are 59 fraternities and 38 sororities on campus. Of the approximately 30,366 undergraduates, 3,463 are members of sororities and 3,674 are members of fraternities. The Greek system at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has a system of self-government. While staff advisors and directors manage certain aspects of the Greek community, most of the day-to-day operations of the Greek community are governed by the Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Council. A smaller minority of fraternities and sororities fall under the jurisdiction of the Black Greek Council and United Greek Council; the Black Greek Council serves historically black Greek organizations while the United Greek council comprises other multicultural organizations. Many of the fraternity and sorority houses on campus are on the National Register of Historic Places.

Student government

U of I has an extensive history of past student governments. Two years after the university opened in 1868, John Milton Gregory and a group of students created a constitution for a student government. Their governance expanded to the entire university in 1873, having a legislative, executive, and judicial branch. For a period of time, this government had the ability to discipline students. In 1883, however, due to a combination of events from Gregory's resignation to student-faculty infighting, the government formally dissolved itself via plebiscite.

It was not until 1934, when the Student Senate, the next university-wide student government, was created. A year before, future U of I Dean of Students, Fred H. Turner and the university's Senate Committee on Student Affairs gave increased power to the Student Council, an organization primarily known for organizing dances. A year after, the Student Council created a constitution and became the Student Senate, under the oversight of the Committee on Student Affairs. This Student Senate would last for 35 years. The Student Senate changed its purpose and name in 1969, when it became the Undergraduate Student Association (UGSA). It ceased being a representational government, becoming a collective bargaining agency instead. It often worked with the Graduate Student Association to work on various projects

In 1967, Bruce A. Morrison and other U of I graduate founded the Graduate Student Association (GSA). GSA would last until 1978, when it merged with the UGSA to form the Champaign-Urbana Student Association (CUSA). CUSA lasted for only two years when it was replaced by the Student Government Association (SGA) in 1980. SGA lasted for 15 years until it became the Illinois Student Government (ISG) in 1995. ISG lasted until 2004.

The current university student government, created in 2004, is the Illinois Student Senate, a combined undergraduate and graduate student senate with 54 voting members. The student senators are elected by college and represent the students in the Urbana-Champaign Senate (which comprises both faculty and students), as well as on a variety of faculty and administrative committees, and are led by an internally elected executive board of a President, External Vice President, Internal Vice President, and Treasurer. , the executive board is supported by an executive staff consisting of a Chief of Staff, Clerk of the Senate, Parliamentarian, Director of Communications, Intern Coordinator, and the Historian of the Senate.

Residence halls

The university provides housing for undergraduates through 24 residence halls in both Urbana and Champaign. Incoming freshmen are required to live in student housing (campus or certified) their first year on campus. The university also maintains two graduate residence halls, which are restricted to students who are sophomores or above, and three university-owned apartment complexes. Some undergraduates choose to move into apartments or the Greek houses after their first year. There are a number of private dormitories around campus, as well as 15 private, certified residences that partner with the university to offer a variety of different housing options, including ones that are cooperatives, single-gender or religiously affiliated. The university is known for being one of the first universities to provide accommodations for students with disabilities. In 2015, the University of Illinois announced that they would be naming its newest residence hall after Carlos Montezuma also known as Wassaja. Wassaja is the first Native American graduate and is believed to be one of the first Native Americans to receive a medical degree.

Libraries and museums

Among universities in North America, only the collections of Harvard are larger. Currently, the University of Illinois' 20+ departmental libraries and divisions hold more than 24 million items, including more than 12 million print volumes. , it had also the largest "browsable" university library in the United States, with 5 million volumes directly accessible in stacks in a single location. University of Illinois also has the largest public engineering library (Grainger Engineering Library) in the country.  In addition to the main library building, which houses numerous subject-oriented libraries, the Isaac Funk Family Library on the South Quad serves the College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences and the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center serves the College of Engineering on the John Bardeen Quad.

Residence Hall Library System is one of three in the nation. The Residence Hall Libraries were created in 1948 to serve the educational, recreational, and cultural information needs of first- and second-year undergraduate students residing in the residence halls, and the living-learning communities within the residence halls. The collection also serves University Housing staff as well as the larger campus community. The Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) is one of the Special collections units within the University Library. The RBML is one of the largest special collections repositories in the United States.

The university has several museums, galleries, and archives which include Krannert Art Museum, Sousa Archives and Center for American Music and Spurlock Museum. Gallery and exhibit locations include Krannert Center for the Performing Arts and at the School of Art and Design.

The Illinois Open Publishing Network (IOPN) is hosted and coordinated by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library, offering publishing services to members of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign community, to disseminate open access scholarly publications.

Recreation

The campus has two main recreation facilities, the Activities and Recreation Center (ARC) and the Campus Recreation Center – East (CRCE). Originally known as the Intramural Physical Education Building (IMPE) and opened in 1971, IMPE was renovated in 2006 and reopened in August 2008 as the ARC. The renovations expanded the facility, adding 103,433 square feet to the existing structure and costing $54.9 million. This facility is touted by the university as "one of the country's largest on-campus recreation centers." CRCE was originally known as the Satellite Recreation Center and was opened in 1989. The facility was renovated in 2005 to expand the space and update equipment, officially reopening in March 2005 as CRCE.

Transportation

The bus system that operates throughout the campus and community is operated by the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District. The MTD receives a student-approved transportation fee from the university, which provides unlimited access for university students, faculty, and staff.

Six daily Amtrak trains connect Champaign-Urbana with Chicago and Carbondale (IL).  The City of New Orleans train also serves Memphis, Jackson, Mississippi, and New Orleans.

Willard Airport, opened in 1954 and is named for former University of Illinois president Arthur Cutts Willard. The airport is located in Savoy. Willard Airport is home to University research projects and the university's Institute of Aviation, along with flights from American Airlines.

Security

The University of Illinois has a dedicated police department, UIPD, which operates independently from CPD, the department that serves the surrounding Champaign area.

On June 9, 2017, Yingying Zhang, a Chinese international student, was abducted and murdered in a case that made national headlines at the time. The university subsequently announced plans to install additional, high-definition, security cameras across the campus.

On April 18, 2022, Sayed A. Quraishi, a 23-year old man who had recently graduated from the university, assaulted a Jewish student outside of the campus' Hillel building during an anti-Israel protest organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Quraishi was subsequently charged with a hate crime. The Champaign County state's attorney eventually dropped the case after Quraishi agreed to complete public-service work for Jewish organizations. In May 2022, the Anti-Defamation League cited the incident as part of a "troubling pattern of [antisemitic activity] on several college campuses across the Midwest" and noted the role of local student organizations in promoting antisemitism.

In July 2022, the university announced that it was partnering with local businesses to invest $300,000 to combat violent crime in Champaign County.

In September 2022, the City of Champaign transferred responsibility for a large swath of Campustown from CPD to UIPD, claiming that doing so would reduce response times and improve the quality of service. As part of the jurisdictional reforms, the city agreed to pay a substantial portion of the cost to hire seven new officers to patrol the new coverage area.

Violent crime fell sharply in 2022 compared to the year prior, with shootings and homicides declining by 50 and 47 percent, respectively. The city attributed the decrease in crime to improved staffing levels and the installation of automatic license plate readers.

Athletics
U of I's Division of Intercollegiate Athletics fields teams for ten men's and eleven women's varsity sports. The university participates in the NCAA's Division I. The university's athletic teams are known as the Fighting Illini. The university operates a number of athletic facilities, including Memorial Stadium for football, the State Farm Center for men's and women's basketball, and the Atkins Tennis Center for men's and women's tennis. The men's NCAA basketball team had a dream run in the 2005 season, with Bruce Weber's Fighting Illini tying the record for most victories in a season. Their run ended 37–2 with a loss to the North Carolina Tar Heels in the national championship game. Illinois is a member of the Big Ten Conference. Notable among a number of songs commonly played and sung at various events such as commencement and convocation, and athletic games are: Illinois Loyalty, the school song; Oskee Wow Wow, the fight song; and Hail to the Orange, the alma mater.
On October 15, 1910, the Illinois football team defeated the University of Chicago Maroons with a score of 3–0 in a game that Illinois claims was the first homecoming game, though several other schools claim to have held the first homecoming as well. On November 10, 2007, the unranked Illinois football team defeated the No. 1 ranked Ohio State football team in Ohio Stadium, the first time that the Illini beat a No. 1 ranked team on the road.

The University of Illinois Ice Arena is home to the university's club college ice hockey team competing at the ACHA Division I level and is also available for recreational use through the Division of Campus Recreation. It was built in 1931 and designed by Chicago architecture firm Holabird and Root, the same firm that designed the University of Illinois Memorial Stadium and Chicago's Soldier Field. It is located on Armory Drive across from the Armory. The structure features four rows of bleacher seating in an elevated balcony that runs the length of the ice rink on either side. These bleachers provide seating for roughly 1,200 fans, with standing room and bench seating available underneath. Because of this set-up the team benches are actually directly underneath the stands.

In 2015, the university began Mandarin Chinese broadcasts of its American football games as a service to its Chinese international students.

Mascot

Chief Illiniwek, also referred to as "The Chief," was from 1926 to 2007 the official symbol of the University of Illinois in university intercollegiate athletic programs. The Chief was typically portrayed by a student dressed in Sioux regalia. Several groups protested that the use of a Native American figure and indigenous customs in such a manner was inappropriate and promoted ethnic stereotypes. In August 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association expressed disapproval of the university's use of a "hostile or abusive" image. While initially proposing a consensus approach to the decision about the Chief, the board in 2007 decided that the Chief, its name, image and regalia should be officially retired. Nevertheless, the controversy continues on campus with some students unofficially maintaining the Chief. Complaints continue that indigenous students feel insulted when images of the Chief continue to be present on campus. The effort to resolve the controversy has included the work of a committee, which issued a report of its "critical conversations" that included over 600 participants representing all sides.

Notable alumni and faculty

Twenty-seven alumni and faculty members of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have won a Pulitzer Prize. , the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni, faculty, and researchers include 30 Nobel laureates (including 11 alumni). In particular, John Bardeen is the only person to have won two Nobel prizes in physics, having done so in 1956 and 1972 while on faculty at the university. In 2003, two faculty members won Nobel prizes in different disciplines: Paul C. Lauterbur for physiology or medicine, and Anthony Leggett for physics.

The alumni of the university have created companies and products such as Netscape Communications (formerly Mosaic) (Marc Andreessen), AMD (Jerry Sanders), PayPal (Max Levchin), Playboy (Hugh Hefner), National Football League (George Halas), Siebel Systems (Thomas Siebel), Mortal Kombat (Ed Boon), CDW (Michael Krasny), YouTube (Steve Chen and Jawed Karim), THX (Tomlinson Holman), Andreessen Horowitz (Marc Andreessen), Oracle (Larry Ellison and Bob Miner), Lotus (Ray Ozzie), Yelp! (Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons), Safari (Dave Hyatt), Firefox (Joe Hewitt), W. W. Grainger (William Wallace Grainger), Delta Air Lines (C. E. Woolman), Beckman Instruments (Arnold Beckman), BET (Robert L. Johnson) and Tesla Motors (Martin Eberhard).

Alumni and faculty have invented the LED and the quantum well laser (Nick Holonyak, B.S. 1950, M.S. 1951, Ph.D. 1954), DSL (John Cioffi, B.S. 1978), JavaScript (Brendan Eich, M.S. 1986), the integrated circuit (Jack Kilby, B.S. 1947), the transistor (John Bardeen, faculty, 1951–1991), the pH meter (Arnold Beckman, B.S. 1922, M.S. 1923), MRI (Paul C. Lauterbur), the plasma screen (Donald Bitzer, B.S. 1955, M.S. 1956, Ph.D. 1960), color plasma display (Larry F. Weber, B.S. 1968 M.S. 1971 Ph.D. 1975), the training methodology called PdEI and the coin counter (James P. Liautaud, B.S. 1963), the statistical algorithm called Gibbs sampling in computer vision and the machine learning technique called random forests (Donald Geman, B.A. 1965), and are responsible for the structural design of such buildings as the Willis Tower, the John Hancock Center, and the Burj Khalifa.

Mathematician Richard Hamming, known for the Hamming code and Hamming distance, earned a PhD in mathematics from the university's Mathematics Department in 1942. Primetime Emmy Award-winning engineer Alan Bovik (B.S. 1980, M.S. 1982, Ph.D. 1984) invented neuroscience-based video quality measurement tools that pervade television, social media and home cinema. Structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan earned two master's degrees, and a PhD in structural engineering from the university.

Alumni have also led several companies, including BitTorrent (Eric Klinker), Renaissance Technologies (Robert Mercer), Ticketmaster, McDonald's, Goldman Sachs, BP, Kodak, Shell, General Motors, AT&T, and General Electric.

Alumni have founded many organizations, including the Susan G. Komen for the Cure and Project Gutenberg, and have served in a wide variety of government and public interest roles. Rafael Correa, President of The Republic of Ecuador from 2007 to 2017, secured his M.S. and PhD degrees from the university's Economics Department in 1999 and 2001 respectively. Nathan C. Ricker attended U of I and in 1873 was the first person to graduate in the United States with a certificate in architecture. Mary L. Page, the first woman to obtain a degree in architecture, also graduated from U of I. Disability rights activist and co-organizer of the 504 Sit-in, Kitty Cone, attended during the 1960s, but left six hours short of her degree to continue her activism in New York.

In sports, baseball pitcher Ken Holtzman was a two-time All Star major leaguer, and threw two no-hitters in his career. In sports entertainment, David Otunga became a two-time WWE Tag Team Champion.

Eta Kappa Nu (HKN) was founded at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as the national honor society for electrical engineering in 1904.  Maurice LeRoy Carr (B.S. 1905) and Edmund B. Wheeler (B.S. 1905) were part of the founding group of ten students and they served as the first and second national presidents of HKN. The Eta Kappa Nu organization is now the international honor society for IEEE as the IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu (IEEE-HKN). The U of I collegiate chapter is known as the Alpha Chapter of HKN. Lowell P. Hager was the head of the Department of Biochemistry from 1969 until 1989 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995.

Notes

References

Further reading
 Hoddeson, Lillian. No Boundaries: University of Illinois Vignettes. (University of Illinois Press, 2004; )
 Hoganson, Kristin L. The Heartland:  An American History (Penguin Random House, 2019) online reviews
 Johnson, Jr., Henry C. and Erwin V. Johanningmeier. Teachers for the Prairie: The University of Illinois and the Schools, 1868–1945 (University of Illinois Press, 1972)
 Kanfer, Alaina. Illini Loyalty: The University of Illinois. (University of Illinois Press, 2011; )
 Solberg, Winton U. The University of Illinois, 1894-1904 - The Shaping of the University. (University of Illinois Press, 2000; )
 Tate, Lex; Franch, John. An Illini Place - Building the University of Illinois Campus. (University of Illinois Press, 2017; )
 Williamson, Ann Joy. Black Power on Campus - The University of Illinois, 1965-75. (University of Illinois Press, 2003; )

External links

  of University of Illinois Athletics

University
Buildings and structures in Champaign, Illinois
Buildings and structures in Urbana, Illinois
Universities and colleges established in 1867
Education in Champaign County, Illinois
Flagship universities in the United States
Forestry education
Land-grant universities and colleges
National Register of Historic Places in Champaign County, Illinois
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Tourist attractions in Champaign County, Illinois
University and college buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois
Urbana-Champaign

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign


Sanjam Regmi (born 22 December 1982) is a Nepalese cricketer. He is a right-handed batsman and a right-arm off break bowler. He made his debut for Nepal against Germany in July 2001.

He represents the Colors X-Factors of the Nepal Premier League and APF Club of the National League.

Playing career

Born in Kalaiya in 1982, Sanjam Regmi first played for Nepal in 2001 when he played against Germany in the 2001 ICC Trophy in Ontario. The following year, he played in the Under-19 World Cup in New Zealand, returning to the senior side for that year's ACC Trophy in Singapore.

He made his first-class début when he played for Nepal in the 2004 ICC Intercontinental Cup against the UAE and Malaysia. He also played ACC Fast Track Countries Tournament matches against Singapore, the UAE and Hong Kong that year before playing in the repêchage tournament of the 2005 ICC Trophy in February 2005, in which Nepal finished third after beating Qatar in a play-off.

Following that tournament, he played an ACC Fast Track Countries Tournament match against Malaysia later that year. He most recently represented his country in the 2006 ACC Premier League tournament, playing in all four matches against Hong Kong, the UAE, Singapore and Malaysia.

References

External links

1982 births
Living people
Nepalese cricketers
People from Bara District

Sanjam Regmi