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University Laboratory High School (Urbana, Illinois)
Encyclopedia
University Laboratory High School, known as Uni, or Uni High, was established in 1921 and is a laboratory school
located on the engineering part of the campus of the University of Illinois
. Its enrollment is approximately 300 students, spanning five years (the traditional grades 9
-12
, preceded by a composite 7th and 8th grade year known as the "subfreshman" year). The school is notable for the achievements of its alumni, including three Nobel laureates and a Pulitzer Prize
winner; in 2006 and 2008 it was recognized as a "public elite" school by Newsweek
because of its students' high scores on the SAT
. Until the recent SAT testing changes the total SAT scores varied from year to year ranging from 1400 to 1600.
For many years, Uni was funded by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
as a place to experiment with educational curricula, but the University of Illinois withdrew most of its support in the early 1980s. The "laboratory" aspect persists in certain classes. An experimental math course was taught in the early 2000s and teachers continue to experiment in small, creative ways with their courses to adapt to each grade of sixty students. The relationship to the University also imparts a number of other benefits on Uni's students. The proximity to the University campus provides a stimulating political climate, and access to the University's library system is equivalent to that of any undergraduate. The high school library is a branch of the University library system and for this reason has been called "the largest high school library in the world." Additionally, Kenney Gym
, the University's old men's gymnasium, is used by Uni for both physical education and as practice and game space for the volleyball and basketball teams. While access to certain facilities that are supported by student fees (such as the ARC recreation center) is not granted to Uni students, who are not assessed these fees, the school's relationship with the University of Illinois allows students over the age of 15 with sufficiently high grades to enroll in courses at the University. Credit earned in this manner may then be applied to future study at the university level.
. Students may apply during their sixth or seventh grade years. Because the subfreshman year combines two years of middle school into one year, and because many students enter at the ages of 12 and 13, many Uni students graduate at 16 or 17. For this reason, some students then choose to wait a year before enrolling in college. Whether immediately after graduation, or a year later, the vast majority of students go on to enter a four-year college or university.
) and academic competitions.
-style adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth
.
laureates:
Other notable alumni include
Notable faculty include
Laboratory school
A laboratory school or demonstration school is an elementary or secondary school operated in association with a university, college, or other teacher education institution and used for the training of future teachers, educational experimentation, educational research, and professional...
located on the engineering part of the campus of the University of Illinois
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
. Its enrollment is approximately 300 students, spanning five years (the traditional grades 9
Ninth grade
Ninth grade is the ninth post-kindergarten year of school education in some school systems. The students are 13 to 15 years of age, depending on when their birthday occurs. Depending on the school district, ninth grade is usually the first year of high school....
-12
Twelfth grade
Twelfth grade or Senior year, or Grade Twelve, are the North American names for the final year of secondary school. In most countries students then graduate at age 17 or 18. In some countries, there is a thirteenth grade, while other countries do not have a 12th grade/year at all...
, preceded by a composite 7th and 8th grade year known as the "subfreshman" year). The school is notable for the achievements of its alumni, including three Nobel laureates and a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
winner; in 2006 and 2008 it was recognized as a "public elite" school by Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
because of its students' high scores on the SAT
SAT
The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a nonprofit organization in the United States. It was formerly developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service which still...
. Until the recent SAT testing changes the total SAT scores varied from year to year ranging from 1400 to 1600.
Funding and relationship to the University of Illinois
Although Uni is located in territory belonging to the Urbana School District, it is not operated by the school district, nor does it receive any property tax revenue from this or any other district. Public funding comes only through the statewide per-pupil distribution financed in the Illinois state budget. Additional funding comes from donations by alumni and parents of current students. Enrollment is competitive, rather than being dependent upon residency in a particular district.University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
as a place to experiment with educational curricula, but the University of Illinois withdrew most of its support in the early 1980s. The "laboratory" aspect persists in certain classes. An experimental math course was taught in the early 2000s and teachers continue to experiment in small, creative ways with their courses to adapt to each grade of sixty students. The relationship to the University also imparts a number of other benefits on Uni's students. The proximity to the University campus provides a stimulating political climate, and access to the University's library system is equivalent to that of any undergraduate. The high school library is a branch of the University library system and for this reason has been called "the largest high school library in the world." Additionally, Kenney Gym
Kenney Gym
Kenney Gym is a 5,000-seat multi-purpose arena in Urbana, Illinois, on the campus of the University of Illinois and is named after Harold E. Kenney. The arena opened in 1890 and was originally known as the Men's Gym Annex....
, the University's old men's gymnasium, is used by Uni for both physical education and as practice and game space for the volleyball and basketball teams. While access to certain facilities that are supported by student fees (such as the ARC recreation center) is not granted to Uni students, who are not assessed these fees, the school's relationship with the University of Illinois allows students over the age of 15 with sufficiently high grades to enroll in courses at the University. Credit earned in this manner may then be applied to future study at the university level.
Admissions and academics
Students apply to enter Uni as part of the incoming "subfreshman" class which, although composed of seventh and eighth grade students, completes a year at eighth grade level before continuing on to the ninth grade. Roughly 60 students are admitted each year, keeping the school's total enrollment near 300 students. Admission decisions are based on previous academic history, extracurriculars, a personal statement, and a student's scores on the Secondary School Admission TestSecondary School Admission Test
The Secondary School Admission Test, or SSAT, is an admissions test administered by the Secondary School Admission Test Board to students in grades 5-11 to help determine placement into independent or private junior high and high schools....
. Students may apply during their sixth or seventh grade years. Because the subfreshman year combines two years of middle school into one year, and because many students enter at the ages of 12 and 13, many Uni students graduate at 16 or 17. For this reason, some students then choose to wait a year before enrolling in college. Whether immediately after graduation, or a year later, the vast majority of students go on to enter a four-year college or university.
Student life
Uni has had numerous successes in interscholastic competitions, including competitive chess (administered by the Illinois High School AssociationIllinois High School Association
The Illinois High School Association is one of 521 state high school associations in the United States, designed to regulate competition in most interscholastic sports and some interscholastic activities at the high school level. It is a charter member of the National Federation of State High...
) and academic competitions.
Chess
The school's chess team has won the IHSA's team chess tournament seven times (1978, 1979, 1986, 1991, 1992, 1994, and 2009) and has been runner-up three times (1976, 1980, 1989). They came in second in the US National Championship in 1978 on a tiebreak. During the school year, the team participates in the East Central Illinois Chess League, a conference consisting of twelve schools from the central part of Illinois.WYSE Academic Challenge
Since 1997, Uni has been an annual participant in the University of Illinois' Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering Academic Challenge, which consists of a series of tests in various academic fields, including biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering design, English, mathematics, and physics. The competition is open to high schools in Illinois and Missouri. For nine consecutive years from 1998 to 2006, as well as in 2008, 2009 and 2011, Uni was the state champion in the smallest division (enrollment under 300). In 2007, Uni competed in the next larger division and placed 2nd, despite the school's smaller enrollment in the 9th through 12th grades.Athletics
Despite the school's small enrollment, Uni offers five no-cut sports for boys (Cross Country, Soccer, Basketball, Track & Field and Tennis (club sport)) and six no-cut sports for girls (Cross Country, Swimming, Volleyball, Basketball, Soccer, and Track & Field). The cross country and track teams have sent competitors to the state finals on numerous occasions. In girls track & field, Uni has two third place finishes (1985, 1990) and one second place finish (1991). In cross country, Uni has, in addition to appearances by individuals in other years, had 16 girls teams and 9 boys teams qualify for the state finals, with two third place finishes by the girls (1988, 1991) and one third place finish by the boys (1995).The Wylde Q. Chicken Award
The Wylde Q. Chicken Award, sponsored by the graduating class of 1972, was first awarded in 1998 and is meant to recognize "spontaneous creativity," "unbidden originality," and "extraordinary acts in ordinary circumstances." It is awarded annually at the end of the school year; recipients are chosen by a panel of judges from the class of 1972 along with past winners of the award. Previous winners have included a series of promotional posters for the 50 states in the first floor restrooms, the staging of the American Revolution in comic strip form, and a Gilbert and SullivanGilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
-style adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
.
The Steve Rayburn Award
The Steve Rayburn Award is given to students who help out in the community, volunteer, or do good deeds for the benefit of others.Agora Days
Another example of creative freedom is Agora Days, a four-day school week in late February when students, parents, faculty, alumni and friends of the school can teach hour-long classes about a wide range of topics. Students are required to take a number of academic-oriented classes, but classes based on playing sports and watching films or TV series also exist. Students have the same eight-hour schedule on each of the four days. Agora Days has been a Uni tradition since 1977.Notable alumni and faculty
Three alumni are Nobel PrizeNobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
laureates:
- Philip W. Anderson (class of '40), for PhysicsNobel Prize in PhysicsThe Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
in 1977. - Hamilton O. SmithHamilton O. SmithHamilton Othanel Smith is an American microbiologist and Nobel laureate.Smith was born on August 23, 1931, and graduated from University Laboratory High School of Urbana, Illinois. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, but in 1950 transferred to the University of California,...
('48), for MedicineNobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineThe Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...
in 1978. - James TobinJames TobinJames Tobin was an American economist who, in his lifetime, served on the Council of Economic Advisors and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and taught at Harvard and Yale Universities. He developed the ideas of Keynesian economics, and advocated government intervention to...
('35), for EconomicsNobel Memorial Prize in Economic SciencesThe Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics, but officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel , is an award for outstanding contributions to the field of economics, generally regarded as one of the...
in 1981.
Other notable alumni include
- Iris ChangIris ChangIris Shun-Ru Chang was an American historian and journalist. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, The Rape of Nanking. She committed suicide on November 9, 2004...
(class of '85) was a journalist and author (The Rape of NankingThe Rape of Nanking (book)The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II is a bestselling 1997 non-fiction book written by Iris Chang about the 1937–1938 Nanking Massacre, the massacre and atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army after it captured Nanjing, then capital of China, during the Second...
), and was the subject of the book Finding Iris ChangFinding Iris ChangFinding Iris Chang: Friendship, Ambition, and the Loss of an Extraordinary Mind is a biography of Iris Chang, author of the best-selling history The Rape of Nanking. Written by Chang's friend and journalist Paula Kamen and published in November 2007, the writing and research of the book was...
. - Paul DebevecPaul DebevecPaul Debevec is a researcher in computer graphics at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies. He is best known for his pioneering work in high dynamic range imaging and image-based modelling and rendering....
('88), 2010 Academy Award-winning researcher in computer programming - Eugie FosterEugie FosterEugie Foster is a Nebula Award winning Asian American short story writer, columnist, and editor. Her stories have been published in a number of magazines and book anthologies, including Fantasy Magazine, Realms of Fantasy, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, and Interzone. Her...
('88), 2009 Nebula AwardNebula AwardThe Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
-winning author - Theodore GrayTheodore GrayTheodore W. Gray is one of the founders of Wolfram Research and is currently Wolfram's Director of User Interface Technology.He is a prominent element collector and created a wooden periodic table with compartments for samples of each of the elements...
('82), a co-founder of Wolfram Research and winner of the Ig Nobel PrizeIg Nobel PrizeThe Ig Nobel Prizes are an American parody of the Nobel Prizes and are given each year in early October for ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. The stated aim of the prizes is to "first make people laugh, and then make them think"...
for chemistry in 2002 - Erika HaroldErika HaroldErika N. Harold was Miss America 2003, having qualified for the pageant by being selected Miss Illinois 2002. Her official platform was "Preventing Youth Violence and Bullying: Protect Yourself, Respect Yourself." This platform choice was said to have grown out of personal experience; she recounts...
, Miss AmericaMiss AmericaThe Miss America pageant is a long-standing competition which awards scholarships to young women from the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...
2003 - Tina HoweTina HoweTina Howe is an American playwright. She is the daughter of journalist Quincy Howe and was raised in a literary family...
('55), American playwright best known for Painting ChurchesPainting ChurchesPainting Churches is a play written by Tina Howe, first produced Off-Broadway in 1976. It was a finalist for the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play concerns the relationship between an artist daughter and her aging parents.-Plot:...
and Coastal DisturbancesCoastal DisturbancesCoastal Disturbances is a play by Tina Howe, which premiered Off-Broadway in 1986 and transferred to Broadway. It received a Tony Award nomination as Best Play.-Production history:...
; the latter received a Tony Award nomination for best play in 1987 - Shamit Kachru ('87)), string theoryString theoryString theory is an active research framework in particle physics that attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity. It is a contender for a theory of everything , a manner of describing the known fundamental forces and matter in a mathematically complete system...
specialist at Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San... - Jonathan KuckJonathan KuckJonathan Kuck is an American speed skater and silver medalist in the Winter Olympics.At the 2010 Winter Olympics, Kuck won a silver medal in the team pursuit along with Brian Hansen and Chad Hedrick...
('07), speedskater who won a silver medal in the team pursuit for the U.S. in the 2010 Winter Olympics2010 Winter OlympicsThe 2010 Winter Olympics, officially the XXI Olympic Winter Games or the 21st Winter Olympics, were a major international multi-sport event held from February 12–28, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with some events held in the suburbs of Richmond, West Vancouver and the University... - Francine PattersonFrancine PattersonDr. "Penny" Patterson is an American researcher who taught a modified form of American Sign Language, which she calls "Gorilla Sign Language", or GSL, to a gorilla named Koko....
('65) is an animal psychologist noted as the teacher of Koko (gorilla)Koko (gorilla)Koko is a female western lowland gorilla who, according to Francine "Penny" Patterson, is able to understand more than 1,000 signs based on American Sign Language, and understand approximately 2,000 words of spoken English....
the gorilla who could sign 1000 words and understand the sign of 2000 words. - Mary Murphy Schroeder ('58), Chief JudgeJudgeA judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth CircuitUnited States Court of Appeals for the Ninth CircuitThe United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is a U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* District of Alaska* District of Arizona... - George WillGeorge WillGeorge Frederick Will is an American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winner best known for his conservative commentary on politics...
, ('59) Pulitzer PrizePulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning columnist
Notable faculty include
- Prof. Max Beberman, member of the math faculty from 1950–1971,head of UICSM and Director of the Curriculum Laboratory, contributed to the development of and widely known as "The Father of the New Math".