To: All Faculty & All Academic Professionals & All Civil Service Staff
           <everybody@illinois.edu> 
    From: "uipres@uillinois.edu" <uipres@uillinois.edu>

Reply-To: uipres@uillinois.edu
 Subject: A Notice from the President

January 23, 2004

Dear Colleagues:

I write today to tell you I have informed the Board of Trustees that I 
will retire as president of the University of Illinois effective February 
1, 2005.

I credit all of you with making this a wonderful and satisfying 
experience, both personally and professionally. But after nine years of 
leading this great university, it is a good time to make a change.

Joan and I have been members of the U. of I. family for 42 years and will 
continue that relationship in our retirement. Beginning with graduate 
school in 1961, we have been privileged to be associated with the 
university in many capacities.

After graduate school at the Urbana-Champaign campus, my career in higher 
education was launched in the College of Engineering and progressed 
through a series of faculty and administrative posts in the college and 
at the campus.

The professional horizon broadened in the ensuing decade, and from 1985 
to 1995 we participated in a remarkable period of growth and 
transformation for the Chicago campus. It was an exciting time, 
culminating with a term as chancellor, in which the university overhauled 
the campus's research agenda, initiated the signature Great Cities 
program, and launched the South Campus development, which is reenergizing 
a historic neighborhood.

Since 1995, I have been honored to serve as president. It has been an 
eventful nine years. Because of the dedication and hard work of faculty, 
staff, and administrators and the careful stewardship of trustees, the 
University of Illinois is bigger, better, and stronger.

Together we have significantly expanded the university's engagement with 
the society we serve; continued to offer affordable educational programs 
of international stature to undergraduate, graduate, and professional 
students; and, in spite of historically difficult economic times 
recently, made major improvements in the quality of key educational 
programs through strategic investments in people, research, and 
scholarship. We completely restructured our administrative organization 
and welcomed the Springfield campus as a new member of the university.

By next February, I will have served a total of 14 1/2 years as chief 
executive officer at both the campus level and for the University of 
Illinois. These years have been wonderful. Joan and I thank the entire 
University of Illinois family--faculty, students, staff, alumni, and 
friends of the university--for its invaluable support.

We also have had the pleasure of working with trustees on initiatives 
that made positive impacts on the university. I am grateful for their 
generous contributions of personal time and resources in support of these 
initiatives and for their wise counsel in dealing with the many 
challenges encountered along the way.

I also thank the leadership and staff of the University of Illinois 
Alumni Association and the University of Illinois Foundation for their 
support and friendship and the skill and persuasiveness they bring to the 
important role of friend- and fund-raising.

I look forward to working with the Board of Trustees, leadership of the 
campuses, administration, and faculty in the coming year because as 
always we have much to do. And I will look forward, with fond memories, 
to following the continued greatness of the University of Illinois.

James J. Stukel
President
uipres@uillinois.edu
This mailing approved by:
The Office of the President

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