UIS to host the Career Connections Expo for students, alumni and community members

WHAT: University of Illinois Springfield, Lincoln Land Community College and Benedictine University Springfield are excited to announce the 2018 Career Connections Expo. Community members, students and alumni from the hosting institutions and other colleges as well as community members are invited to attend the free event. The Expo is sponsored by Lutheran Child and Family Services, MSF&W Inc., NPR Illinois and RL Canning.

WHEN: Thursday, February 15, 2018, from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

WHERE: The Recreation and Athletic Center (TRAC) on the UIS campus

DETAILS: The Expo is designed to help attendees make professional connections, find jobs and internships and explore career paths. For potential employers, it is a chance to disseminate pertinent information and to develop a pool of candidates interested in current or future career opportunities.

Representatives from more than 100 organizations are expected to be on hand. The event has an average attendance of more than 300 students, alumni and community members.

Information for students, alumni and others: Pre-registration is not required, business-casual attire is required (NO jeans) and participants should bring copies of their resume to the Expo.

Information for employers: Advance registration is required. Booth space will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. Registration is available online at www.uis.edu/career. For more information, or to register, contact the Career Development Center at 217/206-6508.

UIS Visual Arts Gallery presents "Hold me" by Chicago artist Erin Hayden

The University of Illinois Springfield Visual Arts Gallery is pleased to present “Hold me” by Chicago artist Erin Hayden. “Hold me” will open on Monday, January 29, and run through Thursday, February 22, 2018. A reception for the exhibit will take place on Thursday, February 1, from 5:30 to 8 p.m.

Hayden is a multimedia artist whose works often reflect the unfiltered ways in which society consumes virtual information. “Hold me” presents a series of paintings influenced by a memorial card made for Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession.

Hayden currently lives and works in Chicago. She received her MFA in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University and BFA at Illinois State University. Her work has been exhibited in various cities across the United States and abroad, including at Stony Island Arts Bank and Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Torino. Solo exhibitions of her paintings and video work has been shown at Mana Contemporary Chicago and the Randy Alexander Gallery. She has been an artist resident at the Ragdale Foundation, the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity and is a Luminarts Fellow. She has been featured in reviews and publications, such as the Chicago Tribune, Frieze, Lori Waxman's 60wrd/min art critic and NewCity Art.

The Visual Arts Gallery is centrally located on the UIS campus in the Health and Science Building, Room 201, and is open Monday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

For more information, visit the UIS Visual Arts Gallery website at www.uis.edu/visualarts/gallery or contact the gallery by phone at 217/206-6506 or by email at alach@uis.edu.

UIS Speaker Series explores the history of protests in the United States from a legal and social perspective

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Engaged Citizenship Common Experience (ECCE) Speaker Series and the UIS Diversity Center presents a panel discussion on “Protest: As American As Apple Pie” featuring UIS faculty members exploring American protest from historical, legal and social perspectives.

WHEN: Tuesday, February 6, 2018, at 6 p.m.

WHERE: UIS Brookens Auditorium, located on the lower level of Brookens Library

DETAILS: Protest is as American as apple pie, baseball, rock and roll, and Broadway. From the Boston Tea Party to the national anthem kneel, protest has been a part of America since its founding. Protest has been used in various ways throughout history and has served different functions. This interdisciplinary panel of UIS faculty will explore American protest from historical, legal, and social perspectives. These lenses will serve to contextualize modern protest movements, including the benefit they provide for all citizens.

UIS faculty members taking part in the panel discussion include Devin Hunter, assistant professor of history; Tiffani Saunders, lecturer of sociology/anthropology and African American Studies; Yona Stamatis, assistant professor of ethnomusicology; and Ann Strahle, associate professor of communication.

Individuals with disabilities who anticipate the need for accommodations should contact the UIS Speaker Series Office at 217/206-8507 or speakerseries@uis.edu in advance. For a list of other upcoming ECCE Speaker Series events, visit www.uis.edu/speakerseries/.

UIS Theatre to hold auditions for an upcoming production of “Six Characters in Search of an Author”

The theatre program at the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS Theatre) will hold open auditions and crew interviews for their upcoming production of Luigi Pirandello's play “Six Characters in Search of an Author” on Sunday, January 21 and Monday, January 22, 2018, in The Studio Theatre at UIS.

Crew interviews will begin at 6 p.m., followed by auditions at 7 p.m. both nights. Roles and crew positions are open to students, faculty, staff, and community members. Callbacks are slated for Tuesday, January 23.

A limited number of scripts are available for checkout at the front desk at Brookens Library at UIS. Prepared one minute contemporary monologues and headshots/resumes are appreciated, but not mandatory. Auditions will consist of cold readings from the script.

“Six Characters in Search of an Author” will be performed April 13-15 and 19-21, 2018 in the Studio Theatre, located on the lower level of the Public Affairs Center. UIS Associate Professor of Theatre Eric Thibodeaux-Thompson will direct with scenic design by UIS Assistant Professor of Theatre Dathan Powell.

UIS Theatre will perform the 1998 adaption of the play by Robert Brustein, which has been described by the publisher Samuel French as a “highly acclaimed adaption of Pirandello’s masterpiece, a study in illusion and reality which follows a group of characters who try to fashion their life stories into acceptable drama.”

For more information, contact Eric Thibodeaux-Thompson at 217/206-6613 or ethib1@uis.edu. You can also visit the UIS Theatre website at www.uis.edu/theatre.

UIS Speaker Series presents “From Racial Hatred to Rational Love: Confessions of a Former White Supremacist” with Joseph Pearce

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Engaged Citizenship Common Experience (ECCE) Speaker Series presents “From Racial Hatred to Rational Love: Confessions of a Former White Supremacist” with speaker Joseph Pearce. This event is co-sponsored by the UIS Diversity Center and the Catholic Student Organization and is free and open to the public.

WHEN: Thursday, February 1, 2018, at 7 p.m.

WHERE: UIS Brookens Auditorium, located on the lower level of Brookens Library

DETAILS: Joseph Pearce's talk will take the audience through his journey from racist revolutionary to his rejection of that ideology. Before he became a well-known college professor of literature, Pearce was a leader of the National Front, a British nationalist white supremacist group. Pearce will chronicle his life from disseminating literature extolling the virtues of the white race, to organizing pro-fascist concerts and brawling on the streets, to his imprisonment for inciting racial hatred and finally to the role that important literary figures played in his conversion from radical revolutionary to Catholic author.

Joseph Pearce is Tolkien & Lewis chair in literary studies at Holy Apostles College & Seminary and senior editor at the Augustine Institute. He is editor of the St. Austin Review, series editor of the Ignatius Critical Editions, and executive director of Catholic Courses. His books include “The Quest for Shakespeare,” “Tolkien: Man and Myth,” “The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde,” “C. S. Lewis and The Catholic Church, Literary Converts, Wisdom,” “Innocence: A Life of G.K. Chesterton, Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile” and “Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc.”

Individuals with disabilities who anticipate the need for accommodations should contact the UIS Speaker Series Office at 217/206-8507 or speakerseries@uis.edu in advance. For a list of other upcoming ECCE Speaker Series events, visit www.uis.edu/speakerseries/.

University of Illinois Springfield to cut ribbon on new $21.75 million Student Union Building

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield will officially open the new $21.75 million Student Union Building during a ribbon cutting ceremony. UIS Chancellor Susan Koch will be joined by U of I President Timothy Killeen, Springfield Mayor Jim Langfelder and student leadership to cut the ribbon.

WHEN: Sunday, January 14, 2018, at 2 p.m. An open house will immediately follow the ribbon cutting until 4 p.m. 

WHERE: UIS Student Union, 2251 Richard Wright Drive, Springfield

DETAILS: The two-story, 50,000-square-foot student union anchors the campus’s south quad, providing campus dining services, a Starbucks coffee shop, a ballroom with seating for up to 450 people and a Student Leadership Center that houses student government, volunteer offices and workspaces for student organizations.

The first-ever student union will serve as a social hub for student life and foster a greater sense of community on the growing campus. In this signature building, so full of light and activity, students will interact with each other and with faculty, staff, and visitors, creating a vibrant and thriving focal point for life at UIS.

The new facility will fill a void that officials say has grown since UIS became part of the University of Illinois system in 1995. The campus was originally founded in 1969 as Sangamon State University, catering to upperclassmen and graduate-level students, but is now a traditional four-year school that lacked the central gathering place that student unions provide at most colleges across the nation.

For more information, contact Derek Schnapp, UIS director of public relations, at 217/206-6716 or dschn3@uis.edu.