TODAY, SUNDAY 3/3! Grad students, come cheer on the Fighting Illini women's basketball team at their last home game! Join us if you're a die-hard basketball fan or if this is your first Big10 sporting event!  We'll have a grad student section next to the student section. Student tickets are FREE (bring your Icard). Sign up here to let us know you’re coming! Non-students are welcome to join and should buy General Admission tickets ahead or at the door. The game starts at 3 pm. Come early to say hello at the Grad College table and pick up a sticker and pom pom. 

Are you graduating this May? Join us for the Graduate College Doctoral Hooding Ceremony on Friday, May 10. The focus of the ceremony will be the formal hooding of doctoral graduates by their faculty advisers. Participants must have successfully deposited their dissertations by 5:00 pm on April 26 to be eligible. More details and the link to register can be found on the Doctoral Hooding webpage.

The Illini-Alert emergency notification system will be tested at 10:05 a.m. Tuesday, March 5. Visit go.illinois.edu/illinialert for additional information and technical support. To receive prompt emergency notifications, add or update your cellphone numbers and email addresses at emergency.illinois.edu.

March 8 is the last day to drop a semester course online via Self-Service; and the last day to submit a Late Registration Change request via the Graduate College Student Portal to add or drop a Part of Term A course with approval (a "W" is recorded). Students enrolled in non-standard part of term courses should refer to their graduate program for deadline information. Have questions about registration deadlines or submitting a Late Registration form? Click here for an advising appointment!

For International Women's Day 2024 and beyond, let's inspire inclusion. When we inspire others to understand and value women's inclusion, we forge a better world. And when women themselves are inspired to be included, there's a sense of belonging, relevance and empowerment. All are welcome and dinner is provided. RSVP is encouraged but not required: go.illinois.edu/IWD2024

Are you interested in helping others handle burnout, work-life balance and general well-being? The Beckman DEI Committee and University of Illinois Counseling Center are partnering to offer “Life’s a lot – How to help others (& yourself) with improved mental well-being” on Wednesday, March 20th at noon in Beckman room 1005. Lunch will be served to those who register (https://forms.illinois.edu/sec/149629920) prior to March 18th. All are welcome to attend, especially post-doc, graduate and undergraduate students.

Correctly formatting the title page of your thesis can be a challenge. Let us help! If you plan to graduate in December, submit your title page to the Thesis Office for review. We will check the formatting and your degree information to make sure you are on track! Just upload a copy of your title page on our website.

It's not too early to start thinking about formatting your thesis! Take a look at the Graduate College formatting requirements. You can also view sample thesis pages and download a template to help you with the formatting process. If you encounter difficulties formatting your thesis, check out our Formatting FAQ page for tips on navigating these issues.

Throughout your life you will, almost certainly, give presentations. We have all sat through presentations that were boring, confusing, and drab. How do you communicate your message most succinctly? What visuals will captivate and inform your audience the best? Is it only about your slide design or are there other techniques that leave a lasting impression? In this session we distill the magic that just might take your next presentation from bland to grand.

The Writers Workshop & Office of Undergraduate Research will help you figure out what your class or conference presentation should include, share tips and strategies for engagement, and discuss how to present with confidence online and in-person. Register in advance and you'll receive the Zoom invitation on the morning of the event.

Say cheese! Don’t miss out on your chance to get your headshot taken before you take off on Spring Break! break. Visit the Professional Portrait Lab on Wed., March 6, 1:15 – 3:15 p.m. or Thurs., March 7, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m., as we too will be on vacation March 11-15! Headshots will resume on Wed., March 20, 2024. Have a fun and safe spring break!

Unlock your future at the Illini Career and Internship Fair! Explore and connect with over 90 recruiters from some of the nation's leading companies, eager to engage with talent like you. Open to Illinois students of all majors and class levels. Registration is encouraged but not required. Visit Handshake to view the list of companies and register.

The Graduate College is accepting applications for the Career Exploration Fellowship, which connects doctoral students with campus units for meaningful, mentored work experience. In Fall 2024, each Career Exploration Fellow will receive a paid hourly position at a host unit and a $5,000 Career Exploration Fellowship. This program aims to enable doctoral students to gain experience and build skills that align with a wide range of career aspirations. Applications are due March 18. Learn more at https://grad.illinois.edu/career-exploration-fellowship.

Are you struggling to keep track of all your sources? Looking for an easier way to cite as you write? Mendeley is a free citation manager that helps you organize your citations, store and annotate your files, and insert formatted citations into papers. You will leave this hands-on workshop with the ability to set up and use your very own Mendeley library!

Join us to make progress on your writing! Our hybrid writing group provides grad students with dedicated time to make progress on any writing project in a supportive atmosphere. Each meeting consists of a short goal-setting conversation, quiet writing time, and a concluding reflection and wrap-up. You only need to register once with your U of I email to receive weekly email reminders all semester! 

Join the Writers Workshop during Spring Break for presentations on writing routines, literature reviews, journal articles, and revising structure and argumentation. These will be held on Zoom, Mon-Thu at 1:30pm. Register by 11:59pm the day before each event is scheduled and you'll receive an email with the Zoom invitation on the morning of the event. View our calendar to read more and register!

The Writers Workshop will discuss usage and placement of English modifiers and adjectival and adverbial phrases to make them the most effective. We'll include time to review the concept and apply it to your own work. Sign up for one or all five in this series to hone your English grammar skills! 

Join the Writers Workshop for our Spring Break Writing Retreat! March 11-14, we'll host productivity groups, in-person and online, from 9am-12pm with optional workshops at 1:30pm each day (see calendar for more info). All writing groups consist of a short goal-setting conversation, quiet writing time, and a concluding reflection and wrap-up. Ideal for graduate students seeking to create a writing routine, make progress and meet deadlines on long-term writing projects, or jump-start a new writing project. Please note that you only need to register once to attend any or all of these dates. 

Are you overwhelmed by organizing your sources? Zotero is a free, open-source citation manager that helps you store and organize your files and insert formatted citations into papers. You will leave this hands-on workshop with a Zotero library set up and ready to use!

Web of Science is the widest-scoping, multidisciplinary platform of abstract databases for full-text articles, books, and conference proceedings. This session provides insight and strategies for getting the most use out of the platform. We will highlight how to search for literature and authors, as well as where to find citation tracking data and grant information. Additional features and strategies covered include: the advanced search builder, refining and managing search results, analyzing citations, and unpacking item records. 

Google Scholar is an incredibly popular and useful tool for research with several features that scholars may not be familiar with. This workshop will elaborate on the difference between searching in Google Scholar and academic databases, demonstrate how to use Google Scholar’s Advanced Search, explain how to connect your library access to Google Scholar, and cover some of the other more sophisticated features Google Scholar offers to support your research. We will also discuss some of the privacy concerns related to Google and how you can mediate them.

Are you curious about what kind of sources and perspectives are out there beyond journal articles? This hands-on workshop will help you locate, use, and cite multimedia for your research. Some of the multimedia we go over includes images, podcasts and videos. You’re welcome (and encouraged) to bring a project you are currently working on!

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly changing the way that we write and research. But how can we use it ethically and effectively for social science and digital humanities projects? In this hands-on workshop, we’ll explore ways to use AI to clean your data, generate code, and analyze information. Along the way, we’ll discuss ethics, data privacy, and commonly used AI-powered tools. There will be plenty of room for experimentation and questions!

Explore the different methods for motion capture available in the SCIM Lab. While the main focus of this workshop will be the Rokoko suit and gloves, we will also investigate computer vision and depth cameras. Learn about the pros and cons of each method and how you might use this data for research or media production. Participants will be provided the data captured for further investigation.

This workshop will explore parallel programming and computing on HPC systems at the introductory level. Attendees will learn how to parallelize and run C/C++/Fortran applications using shared memory parallelism with OpenMP through hands-on exercises and access to the Illinois Campus Cluster. General terminology, parallel computing concepts and ideas, measuring performance, identifying bottlenecks, and other relevant topics will be discussed. Register by 3/4 with the link in the title.

NCSA Director Bill Gropp invites you to an informative session detailing everything you need to know about Illinois Computes, a program to connect University of Illinois researchers with computing resources, research consultants and data storage! Ask questions, provide feedback and get help getting started on March 4, 2–3 p.m. Join on Zoom or come in person to chat with members of the team.

This audio editing software created by Adobe and part of the Adobe Creative Suite is available free of charge to all UIUC students, faculty, and staff. This potent tool offers a great variety of effects and correction tools in addition to outstanding mixing and mastering features. It is consistently rated as the most preferred audio editing workstation among professionals. This workshop will introduce this powerful tool to anyone interested in audio recording and editing in a robust workstation. No experience required, but helpful.

The Gender and Sexuality Resource Center is excited to introduce to some and re-introduce to others, The NetworQ.  The NetworQ is a group designed to build community for our LGBTQ+ Graduate student population here at Illinois.  We invite all Queer Graduate Students to sign-up for the NetworQ listserv for more information and how you can get involved!  

Illini AstroFest is being organized to bring together members of the astrophysics community from around campus to showcase our research, encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration, and build community. Who's Invited? All members of the Illinois campus community are welcome! This event is specially tailored for early career researchers and faculty. Registration is FREE! Register by April 12

The Intercultural Spotlight Series aims to give our international students and scholars a space to share their home country and culture with students, faculty, and staff at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. 

Please join us for the University Archives' monthly Women in Science Lecture Series, March 7 from 12 -1 pm. Dr. Karrie Karahalios, Professor of Computer Science, will present her research on the relationship between computing and society, algorithmic bias, and AI. This is a hybrid event and will take place in the Siebel Center for Design Gallery Space or you can register for the zoom link.

We have another great Science Café talk Wednesday, March 6th!  Dr. Jacinda Dariotis will discuss her research on the impact of coping strategies in education. We will be at Cafeteria and Company in downtown Urbana (208 W Main St, Urbana) and as always snacks will be provided.  We hope to see you there!

Join our next lunch talk “Culture, not Costume” with Dr. Sang Lee, Associate Director of Social Justice Leadership at Diversity and Social Justice Education. Dr. Sang will explore the nuances of cultural appropriation vs. appreciation and ways to engage others in this conversation.

Dr. Hasan Ayoub, assistant professor at An-Najah National University, Nablus, will give a talk by Zoom entitled "Israel's Other War in the West Bank." As the onslaught on Gaza continues, the West Bank has been under Israeli assault long before October 7, 2023. Along with daily military incursions, Israel has intensified and deepened the fragmentation of the West Bank. Since October 7, thousands of Palestinians have been detained in the West Bank and hundreds have been killed by military and settlers' fire. Link to register

Join QCB as Markus Covert, Stanford University, discusses the bacterium E. coli, especially efforts to develop a model that includes all the known functions of every well-annotated gene in order to better understand and predict the behavior of this scientifically relevant and industrially significant model organism. Light refreshments beginning 2:30 p.m. (by room 3151). Also on Zoom.

March is Women's History Month – commemorating and encouraging the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history.  The Women's Resources Center invites you to join us for film screenings, lectures, book clubs, awards and more.  See the calendar of events at go.illinois.edu/WHMCalendar

Kameelah Janan Rasheed (artist, educator, and writer, Cooper Union) will present an artist talk on March 4 at 4:00 p.m. This event is part of the Interseminars series for "Improvise and Intervene," supported by the Mellon Foundation.

The annual ritual of Daylight Savings Time (DST) has repercussions on our biological rhythms. Understand the science behind circadian disruptions caused by reduced morning light and their implications for physical and mental health. Discover insights on mitigating health risks and adapting your rhythms after DST transitions. Presenter: Quang Nguyen

McKinley Health Center serves on-campus students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

The University of Illinois Counseling Center provides mental health counseling and well-being education for students. 

If you or a student you know may need support with their basic needs or financial stressors, please reach out.