News

HCOM program celebrates 15 years

Fifteen years ago, online education was not only uncommon but often lacked credibility. Those looking for leadership roles in the health care industry often pursued master’s degrees in public health or business.But in 2009, then-department head Dale Brashers saw an opportunity to provide those...

Connection offline: real-world conversation in a digital age

It’s not always easy to strike up a conversation with strangers, especially after years of remote classes and increasingly digital communication.That’s why communication professor Lisa Guntzviller gives students the chance to practice their conversation skills in a real-world setting in her...

A picture perfect day

 Bonnie Kim’s long road to earning a bachelor’s degree at the University of Illinois is coming to an end. Since spring 2024, when she returned to campus after 45 years to wrap up her coursework, she’s felt something like a time traveler, studying as a full-time college student at a university...

Empowering Voices: University of Illinois launches new Speakers Workshop

By leveraging the Department of Communication’s expertise, the University of Illinois’ new Speakers Workshop is furthering the university’s mission of producing graduates who exemplify professionalism, authenticity, and leadership. The director of the workshop,...

If you build it, they will come

Throughout their time at Illinois, if Juliette Chavarria and her friends wanted to go to an anime convention, they would have had to travel more than 100 miles. Chavarria, then a senior majoring in communication and Spanish with a minor in leadership...

Softball sensation Danielle Zymkowitz continues a Hall of Fame career

When Danielle Zymkowitz (BS, ’11, communication) was playing on a travel softball team in California during high school, she and several of her teammates were aggressively recruited by Ohio State. But then Illinois coach Terri Sullivan suddenly...

Blast from the past

 Fewer than 120,000 U.S. World War II veterans are still alive in 2023. People who lived through the war are relatively few. Why then, in an age of shortening attention spans and character limits, would a three-hour-long biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer interest the modern audience? Although...

Playing with gender roles

Compared to J. Robert Oppenheimer, the head of a scientific revolution that ended the Second World War and caused hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, a toy might seem to be an inconsequential figure in history. However, such is Barbie’s influence that professor Grace Giorgio uses the...

Barbenheimer: The Internet sensation that stole headlines and made its way into the classroom

Barbenheimer, the portmanteau for Barbie: The Movie and Oppenheimer, captured headlines this summer. But how did two films that were seemingly polar opposites get grouped into a suggested double-header and become so inextricably linked? At face value, the only thing they share is a premiere date:...