About The Global Campus

About the University of Illinois

Founded in 1867, the University of Illinois is one of the best and most comprehensive public universities in the country. One of the original 37 public land-grant institutions created after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act in 1862, today the University is comprised of distinct campuses in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, and Springfield--and now the online Global Campus. Together, all the campuses serve the people of Illinois and the world through a shared commitment to excellence in teaching, research, public service, and innovation.

Our campuses attract the nation's most talented students with hundreds of undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs, many of them ranked among the best in the United States. We are Illinois' largest college educator. Right now nearly 70,000 students are enrolled at our campuses, and thousands more take classes off campus and online. With a faculty base of 5,600 and an alumni body of more than 570,000, the University is a major world-class institution.

The University of Illinois is a leader in research and discovery. Our internationally renowned faculty win more federal research dollars than all other public Illinois universities and colleges combined, resulting in priceless new knowledge and life-changing breakthroughs in medicine, agriculture and technology.

A prime indicator of the University's excellence is the success of its alumni and faculty. We have more than a dozen Nobel laureates, nearly 20 Pulitzer Prize winners, and almost 200 Guggenheim Fellows. Illinois' alumni have gone on to become presidents and leaders of countries, corporations, and institutions of higher learning.

The University's leadership in online education is supported by a heritage of innovation in the development of the Internet itself. The first World Wide Web browser, Mosaic, was developed at the University's National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at Urbana-Champaign. Apache, the most widely used web server, was also developed at NCSA, and Eudora, a popular e-mail client, was developed by a U of I computer science alumnus.

With the launch of The Global Campus, the University of Illinois aims to expand availability of quality education programs over the Internet to students who could not previously participate in our campus communities. We are beginning a new era that builds on the University's distinguished past.

The Global Campus supports a wide range of e-learning and continuing education initiatives across the University. The Global Campus' mission and vision, as approved by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, serves the University by supporting its mission to transform lives and serve society by educating, creating knowledge, and putting knowledge to work on a large scale and with excellence.