The Grainger Engineering Tech Startup Challenge brings together engineering-powered startups from leading Midwestern universities to compete for funding and prizes from a pool of over $150,000. The challenge will showcase tech startups from top Midwestern universities as they pitch live to investors, founders and leaders in Chicago’s thriving tech scene. The challenge will take place at the TechChicago Capital Summit, an event that is part of TechChicago Week. Apply now.

The Reading Room will be closed for a private event on May 5 from noon onwards. Before noon the study space will be limited to the South side of the room. Normal hours resume May 6. The Main Library building will be open normal hours May 5, with all other service points accessible to patrons. Parking in Lot E3 may be limited. Library digital resources remain available and can be accessed through the Library Gateway. Please adjust your schedule.

The Writers Workshop will close all satellite locations after May 9. The Main Library will have modified hours beginning on Saturday, May 10, and will close for the semester at 5pm on Wednesday, May 14. On Wednesday, we'll host drop-in hours from 3-5pm. See our website and social media for the full finals schedule! We will re-open on June 16 for Summer Session II.

May 8 is the last day to add or drop (with a "W") a Semester or Part of Term B course (Late Registration Change via the Graduate College Student Portal). May 8 is also the last day to withdraw from ALL semester courses with "W's" recorded (Withdrawal Form and dept approval required; and approval from ISSS for International Students). All forms must be submitted to the Grad College before 5pm on Reading Day, May 8. Students in non-standard courses should see their program for deadlines. Questions about deadlines or forms? Click here for an advising appointment!

May 2 is the last day to submit a Late Registration Change via the Graduate College Student Portal to drop a Part of Term B course without a grade of "W" recorded; and the last day to submit a Credit/No-Credit election via the Graduate College Student Portal for a Part of Term B course. Have questions about registration deadlines or submitting a form? Click here for an advising appointment!

Friday, May 9, at 5:00pm, is the deadline for masters students to complete their thesis deposit, if required, for Spring 2025 degree conferral. This deadline is firm and cannot be waived. Because all corrections and all required deposit materials must be received no later than 5:00pm, the Thesis Office strongly encourages students to submit the thesis for review one week prior to the deadline. For further information about the process visit the Thesis Office website.

Friday, May 2, at 5:00pm is the deadline for doctoral students to complete their dissertation deposit for Spring 2025 degree conferral. This deadline is firm and cannot be waived. Because all corrections and all required deposit materials must be received no later than 5:00pm, the Thesis Office strongly encourages students to submit the dissertation for review several days prior to the deadline. For further information about the process visit the Thesis Office website.

Join Illinois Extension for Walk & Talks—fun, interactive sessions featuring a short lesson followed by a walk on paved park paths. The first walk is May 1 from 12–1 PM at Crystal Lake Park (206 W Park, Urbana), led by Family Life Educator Emily Harmon. Enjoy the fresh spring air, a chance to win a giveaway, and connect with your community!  In case of bad weather, we'll meet at First Christian Church (3601 S Staley Rd, Champaign). Registration is required to receive the meet-up details. Register at: go.illinois.edu/SpringWalks

Registration encouraged, not required: go.illinois.edu/firstgenseries - Join us for a self-care event before finals week! The FGSI team will provide snacks and art activities. You'll also have an opportunity to meet other first-gen students! Come alone or bring some friends and stay as long as you like. RSVP is encouraged but not required. 

Please join us for a free Mindful Music: Classical Chamber Music Recital on Monday, April 28, 2025: 7:30 - 8:30 pm at Smith Memorial Hall; Memorial Room (220): 805 S Mathews Ave, Urbana. Featuring the works by Beethoven, Fiala and Schubert and beginning with a talk by Annie Tigranyan about her research with Music & Stress-Reduction. This is a student led collaboration with College of Music, McKinley Health Education, and the Carle College of Medicine. Light snacks will be provided.

The Coordinating Council for Women in History (CCWH) awards $20,000 dissertation and postdoctoral fellowships to scholars who have not followed the traditional path of uninterrupted study. Applicants should be engaged in historical scholarship, although the degree may be in a related field, and describe a project that will further enhance women’s roles in history. CCWH also awards small fellowships for historical dissertation research. Applications are due June 15. 

The Department of African American Studies invites applications from grad students for the Dianne Pinderhughes Graduate Research Award. The award winner will receive a $500 stipend expenses accrued during the Fall 2024, Spring 2025, or Summer 2025. Applicants from all disciplines will be considered, provided they work on a topic related to African American, African, or African Diaspora Studies. Applicants should send a CV along with a 1-page, single-spaced proposal explaining their research project and how they will use these funds to John Meyers (meyersjp@illinois.edu) by April 28, 2025.

The Mentoring Matters Summer Institute is a 2-day, interactive event to support the development of strong mentoring skills. In addition to keynote addresses for all participants, the institute will feature a special track for graduate students. Grad students will collaborate with one another and with experts to identify effective mentoring practices, learn strategies for strengthening your own network of mentors, and develop your skills as a mentor. The focus will be on mentoring in a higher education context, especially in research settings. Learn more and register.

This session gets into the technicalities of podcast distribution. We will cover library policies as well as ethical and legal guidelines for ownership and fair use, copyright, and ensuring the accessibility of your podcast.

As you put the finishing touches on your thesis deposit, it’s a great idea to think of some of the things you need to do if you are preparing to leave the University of Illinois, like set email forwarding, create a plan to manage your Box files, and don’t forget to return your library books! Check out our Post-Deposit Considerations page to learn more. Don’t forget to check with your department to see if there are any final tasks you should complete (such as returning keys, exit interviews, etc.). 

Graduate College Career Development advisors specialize in the needs of grad students and postdocs. Meet one-on-one to revise application documents, prepare for interviews, get ready to negotiate, explore new career paths, develop a job search strategy, and more. We work with students/postdocs on any kind of job search, including industry, nonprofit, faculty, and government. Appointments are available in person or on Zoom. We will be open during the summer.

Build your innovation skills by enrolling in an online TE course this summer. Technology innovation, using AI in marketing, and venture funded startups are just some of the technology commercialization topics available to grad students in any major! Each course syllabus is available on our website and feel free to contact us with any questions.

Are you looking to upskill or expand your knowledge in a specific area of interest? The College of ACES has launched a variety of new Coursera courses this year, covering a plethora of subjects, including agricultural economics, wetland science, dairy nutrition, personalized nutrition, financial planning, and more! Check out the ACES offerings on Coursera today or learn more about stacking your Coursera work toward an online graduate degree at acesonline.illinois.edu.

UIUC will host the 2025 Illinois Academy of Science State Exposition on May 2-3, 2025. This is the premiere statewide science research competition for grades 7-12. We are seeking volunteer judges for the exposition. All levels of expertise are welcome. All volunteer judges must have completed high school. Please click HERE to learn more about volunteer shift opportunities and HERE to learn about judging. Additional information, training, and example rubrics will be sent, along with a final volunteer confirmation.

In this talk, Lex will share her dissertation study titled "Storied Trauma: The Violent Chronotopic Laminations of Queer Survivor Narratives." This research explores the ways in which popular public discourse communities violently impose dominant normative standards upon the circulation, reception, and reframing of embodied queer trauma and its material rhetoric. The event is hybrid. You can register for the Zoom link by clicking the title, or join us in person at IUB 504. 

The next talk in our series Women Environmental Defenders and Climate Change in the Amazon, includes the panelists: Ruth Buendía: is a renowned Asháninka Indigenous leader and an environmental activist from the Peruvian Amazon. For her efforts, she was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2014. Jane Shirley Mori: is an Agroforestry and Aquaculture Engineer from the Shipibo - Konibo people. She works with Indigenous communities in her region of Ucayali, on projects led by NGOs and Indigenous organizations.

Join us May 8 to see the latest research, network with peers, and share work at our open poster session for a chance to win a $500 travel voucher! With keynotes from Nancy Bonini, Professor of Biology at University of Pennsylvania and Nicholas Lee-Ping Chia, former IGB Fellow and Computational Biologist at Argonne National Laboratory, join us for a full day of talks. Registration is free, lunch provided.

Join CDA and National Taiwan University for the "Smart Agriculture in Crops" webinar on Wednesday! This session is part of our "Global Perspectives on Digital/Smart Agriculture" joint seminar series. Attend to learn about phenotyping plant responses to abiotic stress using the fluorescence lifetime imaging systems, AI-driven image analysis for enhancing crop monitoring and quality prediction, predicting nitrogen needs, and more. Details here.

Behnam Ben Taleblu is senior director of FDD’s Iran Program, where he oversees the breadth and depth of FDD’s work on Iran in addition to serving as a senior fellow specializing in Iranian security and political issues. Behnam has supported FDD’s Iran program as a senior fellow, research fellow, and senior Iran analyst. Prior to his time at FDD, Behnam worked on non-proliferation issues at an arms control think tank in Washington. Leveraging his subject-matter expertise and native Persian-language skills, Behnam closely tracks a wide range of Iran-related functional and regional topics.

The Towards a Center for Gender and Sex in Health team is hosting Rose Eveleth from 12:30 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. Rose Eveleth's talk is free and open to the public.

Explore how human-centered design can unlock bold new possibilities with Dav Rauch, a visionary experience design leader whose works spans digital platforms, physical products, immersive spaces, and collaborative group experiences -- ranging from therapeutic tech and wearable navigation to spaceflight, museums, and even Ironman's first Heads Up Display -- all grounded in deep research strategic thinking and hands-on collaboration.

Build your cultural competence in this workshop as you learn about the Intercultural Development Continuum, a framework used to understand and enhance intercultural competence. This session will explore the IDC stages, give an overview of the Intercultural Development Inventory for assessing intercultural competence skills, and provide practical strategies for fostering intercultural growth in your own work and daily interactions. Join us to learn how to improve cross-cultural understanding and build stronger connections in diverse settings. You can view more information and register here.

Join us for a special Moroccan Names Training on Monday May 5 from 12:00pm-1:00pm held online through Zoom! This interactive session will explore the diverse linguistic and cultural influences that shape Moroccan names, including Arabic and French traditions. You’ll gain insight into name structures, pronunciation tips, and cultural context—guided by our presenter with lived experience and knowledge of Moroccan naming customs. Click here for more information and to register. After you register, you will receive the virtual meeting link via email.

Enjoy a dance performance at Krannert Art Museum! Anna Sapozhnikov’s evening-length "Good House Keep" is inspired by midcentury modern spaces throughout Champaign-Urbana, in conjunction with the Making Place for the Arts at Home: Performance and Midcentury Modern Architecture exhibition. Collaborators include fellow faculty members from the Department of Dance: Roxane D’Orléans Juste, Nicole Marini, Alexandra Barbier, and Jan Erkert, with documentation by Laura Chiaramonte and an original sound score by Elliot Reza Emadian. Parking nearby is free after 5 pm and on weekends.

In the Arabic-speaking world, coffee and tea are rituals of hospitality and generosity that are taken seriously. Join International Education and the Salaam MENA Cultural Center during Arab American Heritage Month as we taste and experience coffee and tea cultures while learning local phrases of respect and gratitude to praise and thank our hosts. Dinner is provided. 

The Courtyard Café is excited to partner with the traveling comedy group based out of Champaign-Urbana, C-U Comedy Club, to bring a night of fun and laughter to the Illini Union! Student org, Phoenix Improv Company, will open the show, followed by three entertaining comics, and finishing with headliner, Winston Hodges from Washington, DC. Don't miss the last Friday Funnies of the semester!

Join us at Riggs Beer Company at 1 p.m. on Sunday, May 4th, to hear Dr. Sepideh Sadaghiani discuss her work understanding how the brain processes information into cognitive control networks and how these networks communicate across the brain. We hope to see you there! Brought to you by the MCB GSA, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, and Beckman Institute 

Online Registration for Study with the Television ON! at Funk ACES Library is now live! This year for Reading Day, May 8th from 2 pm - 4 pm, Funk Library is offering a new way to study. At this event, in Room 509, the library will be showing the documentary film, Rachel Carson: The Woman Who Launched the Modern Environmental Movement. Students are encouraged to bring homework to Study with the Television ON, or just enjoy the film for DeStress Fest! Sign up through libcal with your Net ID to secure a spot for the show! 

On the 60th anniversary of U.S. publication of Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth, 100 years since Fanon’s birth, UIUC Urban & Regional Planning Professor and Fanon Scholar Lou Turner will join the HRI Social Movements Reading Group for a Q&A on Wretched and its impacts on U.S. social movements including Black Power, Black Studies, and Black Arts. Join us Monday May 5, 5-6:30 pm, Asian American Cultural Center/online. Food provided, open to all. RSVP

NCSA is hosting the Machine Learning and Big Data workshop presented by the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. This workshop will focus on big data analytics and machine learning with Spark and deep learning using TensorFlow. Visit the event description for more details.

The Education Justice Project’s Policy and Research Team is hosting a research group meeting from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, May 2, via Zoom. Join us to hear from Alina Loewenstein about their current research, Policing Mental Health. All are welcome!

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.