At the intellectual heart of the University lies the Center for Advanced Study, bringing together scholars from diverse disciplines and backgrounds, encouraging and rewarding excellence in all areas of academic inquiry. In its institutional structure the Center revolves around a small core of permanent professors, chosen from the faculty for their outstanding scholarship. These appointments are among the highest forms of campus recognition. Center professors, in turn, select research or creative proposals from the tenured and untenured faculty, who are designated associates and fellows. Thus each year brings together the established and the innovative in an ever-changing flux of ideas and disciplines. Center programs reach throughout the campus and cross virtually every disciplinary boundary. An endowed series extends departmental resources, bringing to campus a steady flow of provocative scholars and performing artists for public events and small group meetings. Other programs support visiting scholars, informal lunchtime presentations of research, and collaborations among UIUC departments. Year-long initiatives explore topical themes from multiple, interdisciplinary perspectives. The Center is the primary campus forum for regular cross-disciplinary interaction, bringing together faculty, staff, and students from all parts of the University. It also serves as an incubator for interdisciplinary programs that are then moved to other departments on campus. With its sheer breadth and pace of activity, the Center breathes into the campus an intellectual vigor that would be difficult indeed to quantify. To paraphrase words about the University's founding president, John Milton Gregory, if you seek the Center's work, look about you. [ back ]