As a recent communications graduate, Lia Basden missed getting her hands dirty and making things grow. “My parents have a big garden and chickens,” she said. “I missed touching dirt.” That’s why she applied to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Small Farm Certificate Program. Last semester, after eight months of hard work, she’s the program’s inaugural graduate.

How do you assess the health needs of an entire community, especially its most vulnerable members? It’s a huge logistical challenge for public health offices serving counties and states around the country, but an accurate view of community health is needed to guide the services they offer and to reach their intended audiences. 

The next time you grab a bag of popcorn at an Illini basketball game, you will be snacking on a local innovation years in the making. Thanks to a commercial partnership between Riggs Beer Company and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, fans will soon enjoy Illini SuperPop™ — a new popcorn variety developed and grown right here in Champaign County.

Bill Tarter likes to say he grew up a Southern Illinois farm boy. The oldest of nine in a tight-knit Irish Catholic family, he found money was scarce, but opportunity was not.

His parents, both high school graduates, fostered an environment that encouraged their children to participate in 4-H, FFA, school plays, band and anything else that expanded their world.

“We didn’t have a penny, but neither did anyone else,” he said. “We didn’t know you were supposed to have money. We just knew you were supposed to work hard and show up.”

Dakoda Maguire, a senior in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has been selected as the 2025 recipient of the Robert M. Harrison Leadership Award.

The College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is redefining educational access with the launch of ACES 102: Introduction to Sustainable Food Systems. Approved by the Illinois Board of Higher Education and debuting this fall, the course marks the first dual-credit class offered by the Urbana campus. 

When students enroll in Agricultural and Consumer Economics 241: Advanced Personal Finance at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, many expect a traditional course with many lectures and challenging tests. But what they find instead is an immersive, practical experience designed to strengthen financial literacy and prepare them for the real world. A component of the course that makes it different from others is the Action Learning Project. Students are then able to apply classroom concepts to benefit communities beyond campus.

Eight undergraduates from the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) have been selected to participate in an on-campus, paid internship program to pursue work related to global food and nutritional security. 

“This is essentially a paid research experience to work in a lab for an ACES professor,” says Lauren Karplus, assistant director of international programs for ACES, who manages the internship program.