University Updates

This post just has a few University of Illinois related news items. Some quick updates, right off the bat:

• The University will be having online courses during the first week of this Spring semester according to WCIA. More information at the COVID updates post this week.
• The University Police announced that the campus "Safe Walks" program will be available over winter break. Other safety tips.

UIUC Chancellor Robert Jones' "State of the University" speech last month highlighted the school's pandemic strategy heading into the new year. The address also touched on local gun violence and addressing issues with inequality. From Illinois Newsroom:

Last year, everyone on campus was required to test for the virus twice a week. Now, with vaccines available, Jones said they’re testing students, faculty and staff on a targeted basis.

“If there’s more than a couple of cases in a day or two or three cases in a week, we do what we call targeted surveillance testing where everybody in that facility does have to test every other day. And that, according to our public health officials, combined with our very high level of vaccination, is the best mitigation step to take at the moment,” Jones said.

Around 94 percent of the University of Illinois students and staff are fully vaccinated. That’s compared to 74 percent of people 18 and over statewide.

Full article here. Text of the address here, video link here (jump to link on COVID section of the address here). More on the University's collaboration with Champaign-Urbana on gun violence from the News-Gazette here.

The famous Blue Waters supercomputer is being decommissioned and replaced with newer technology. Tom Kacich got some answers on what comes next for the supercomputer and its home in a Tom's Mailbag column last month:

"Most of the hardware will be recycled as there are few systems of this age still in operation," said Dina Meek, assistant director of marketing and communications at NCSA. "We are at that point now, with Blue Waters not being a cost-effective option for the university. Although Blue Waters is a uniquely well-designed, productive, general purpose, and high-capacity machine, supercomputing technology has evolved.

"NCSA and UIUC will continue to develop new computing technologies that take advantage of advances in computing algorithms, hardware and software. These large-scale projects require collaboration with federal funding agencies, and industry and academic partners; we will continue to pursue such opportunities."

She said that the National Petascale Computing Facility at 1725 S. Oak St., Champaign, will continue to house other NCSA systems, "and we are considering additional options to house computing and data resources. We plan to upgrade the building’s infrastructure with more efficient power and cooling for the machine room, modernizing the facility to keep pace with current trends."

Full Mailbag article here. WCIA had brief coverage of the Blue Waters shut down here.

During a visit by the U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, she highlighted the potential for UIUC to become one of four hydrogen energy hubs under recent infrastructure plans. From Illinois Newsroom.

[Director of the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Kevin O’Brien] is helping other researchers at the University of Illinois connect with companies interested in joining the potential Midwestern Hydrogen Hub. Engineering professor Petros Sofronis, who also directs the International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research, is one of the people leading the planning for the hub.

If the University of Illinois does succeed in creating the Midwestern Hydrogen Hub and winning federal support, it would mean roughly $2 billion for the region over the next four years.

Full article here.