July 23, 2009

An Open Letter to University of Illinois Alumni and the People of Illinois

The ongoing review of admissions practices at the University of Illinois and

accompanying media coverage have clouded our state’s flagship institution of higher
education, prompting us to speak out.

The work of the state Admissions Review Commission is extremely important, and we
support its efforts – because admissions practices that allow special interests to displace
excellence must stop. We commend Gov. Pat Quinn’s establishment of the commission
and also his recent partnership with alumni in his first and most recent appointment to the
UI Board of Trustees.

Yet when we hear suggestions that the University of Illinois is a “clout school” or a place
where top students should not attend, we strongly disagree. We remind our alumni and
the citizens of Illinois that the U of I has a very proud history, spanning nearly 150 years.
To be clear, we need to separate the issue of admissions practices from that of the
outstanding reputation of this great University. The high regard in which the University
of Illinois is held is based on the world-class faculty and students who have always
comprised its makeup. Throughout its many decades, the U of I has been a beacon of
academic and affordable excellence, and its future is even brighter.

The very roots of the University’s founding in 1867 are steeped in the mission of
enhancing the welfare of this state, the nation and the world. For more than a century, the
U of I has steadfastly provided the opportunity for excellence in education – not for a
privileged few, but for many. Today’s University consists of 70,000 students, 23,000
faculty and staff, and the largest base of living alumni at 600,000. More than half of these
alumni – some 350,000 – continue to call the state of Illinois home.

The University of Illinois prides itself on being a solid investment and strong economic
driver for the state. The University pumps more than $13 billion into the state’s economy
each year. It is responsible for more than 150,000 jobs, with Illinois alumni adding more
than $21 billion to the state’s economic output.

But the University of Illinois is nothing if not for the people who discover and excel
within it – people who have emerged transformed and empowered, appreciative and
loyal. They have benefited from the vast richness of this institution’s excellence – from
its colleges and programs that rank among the top 10 nationally, including engineering,
library and information science, accountancy, computer science, chemistry and physics,
to the presence of the interdisciplinary Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and
Technology, the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, the National Center for
Supercomputing Applications and one of the largest public university libraries in the
world. Soon the University will be home to the Blue Waters supercomputer capable of
producing a quadrillion calculations per second, maintaining Illinois’ role as a leader in
computer science.

The hundreds of thousands of students who have passed through the University have
gone on to become world leaders, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, astronauts,
journalists, engineers, teachers and philanthropists, following myriad occupations and
avocations. Their stories inspire great pride for this state as they remind us of the true
mission of the University. The Alumni Association comes across thousands of such
personal histories each year as part of our mission to share and preserve them.

Ours is a university that counts among its faculty and alumni 22 Nobel Prize winners and
20 Pulitzer Prize recipients. Its professors and alumni have invented or discovered the
transistor, the LED, the integrated circuit and a third form of life. It is a university
honored for its work in agriculture and the arts, campus internationalization, study abroad
programs, disability resources and community engagement, to name a few.

The investigation into admissions practices at the University of Illinois is unfortunate but
necessary. However, let us remember that this institution remains world-class, a
university of which its alumni and the people of Illinois should continue to be proud.

Thomas D. Vogelsinger
Chairman
University of Illinois Alumni Association Board of Directors

Loren R. Taylor
President and CEO
University of Illinois Alumni Association