The University of Illinois is moving forward with plans to expand its leadership in the mathematical sciences by constructing a new building west of the Main Quad by 2022 and renovating Altgeld Hall by 2024.

Derek Fultz, director of facilities for the College of LAS, said the university is negotiating an architect contract for the roughly $100 million project which is expected to increase capacity, modernize learning spaces, and encourage innovation in data science and other mathematical sciences. Fultz anticipates that the university will sign the contract for the project by spring of this year.

“We’d like one architectural team to do both projects,” Fultz said.

Campus is still raising money for the project. The new building will be constructed on the site of Illini Hall, which is scheduled to be razed beginning in fall 2020. It will be replaced with a larger, world-class facility for learning and discovery, including a data science center that does not currently exist on campus.

The new building will be funded in part with a portion of the $500 million in state capital funding that was approved last spring to launch the Illinois Innovation Network and Discovery Partners Institute. The university will also contribute to the new building.

The Altgeld Hall renovation will receive funding from campus in addition to funding from donations and other sources, some of which has already been secured. The building’s inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places means that certain historic features will be restored, while new features will be added to increase energy efficiency and accessibility.  State-of-the-art classroom space will be created to improve the learning environment for the thousands of students who take classes in Altgeld Hall each semester.

The new building will be an advanced classroom and research facility focused on creating knowledge through mathematics, statistics, data analysis, and machine learning. The departments of Mathematics and Statistics will continue to use space in the new building.

The renovation of Altgeld Hall will begin when construction of the new building is complete. Built in 1897, Altgeld Hall is the second oldest building on campus. It was named for former Illinois Governor John Altgeld and formerly served as the original university library and law school before becoming home to the Department of Mathematics. It was last renovated in 1956.

“This is an exciting and meaningful time for this project,” said Feng Sheng Hu, the Harry E. Preble Dean of the College of LAS. “We’ve been talking about this for many years. The selection of an architect is significant. It means that we have a clear timeline to use for planning and preparing.”

A new data science center will be funded in part with a portion of the $500 million in state capital funding that was approved last spring to launch the Discovery Partners Institute and Illinois Innovation Network.

Plans for a new statewide innovation network to accelerate job creation and economic growth include building a world-class center devoted to the fast-growing field of data science, U of I System officials have announced.

The data science center will be created by replacing the university’s Illini Hall, which currently consists of primarily classrooms, computer labs, and faculty offices, with a state-of-the-art classroom and research facility focused on creating knowledge through statistics, data analysis, and machine learning.

Additionally, the university plans to renovate Altgeld Hall. Built in 1897, Altgeld is the second-oldest building on campus, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It hasn’t been renovated since 1956, when it became home to the Department of Mathematics.

The data science center will be funded in part with a portion of the $500 million in state capital funding that was approved last spring to launch the Discovery Partners Institute (DPI) and Illinois Innovation Network (IIN). The university will contribute to the project.

The Altgeld Hall renovation will receive funding from campus in addition to funding from donations and other sources, some of which has already been secured.

“The DPI is a $500 million vote of confidence and support from our state leaders in this university’s ability to be the most important driver of innovation and economic growth in our state,” said Chancellor Robert J. Jones. “And we’re extremely excited that one of the inaugural investments recognizes the unmatched expertise in data sciences and advanced analytics we have at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.”

Illini Hall, located a block west of the Main Quad on Wright Street, will be replaced with a new data science center. (Campus photo.)

Feng Sheng Hu, the Harry E. Preble Dean of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, said the building and renovation projects will link the data science initiative through DPI to the departments of Mathematics and Statistics while providing the departments with long-needed infrastructure improvements. The two departments currently share the bulk of the space in Illini Hall.

“This has tremendous implications for the departments of Mathematics and Statistics, and the entire college,” said Hu. “The new data science center will be pivotal to further establishing LAS as a leader in this field, and, taken together, the building projects will allow for the incredible growth we’ve seen in the mathematical sciences to continue unabated.”

The data science center project will create a new, 60,000- to 80,000-square-foot classroom and research facility on the current site of Illini Hall, which sits roughly a block west of the Main Quad on Wright Street. The new facility will be an incubator for collaborative research and education in data science, which is rapidly growing to include faculty and students from all over campus.

In addition to a new data science center, campus plans to renovate Altgeld Hall. (Campus photo.)

Undergraduate enrollment in the departments of Statistics, Mathematics, and Computer Science have doubled in the last decade. The units also have deep connections with businesses that would serve IIN’s mission through internship agreements and alumni who work at Fortune 500 firms across the state and beyond. Faculty from the units are involved in interdisciplinary research that touches all fields at the core of IIN’s mission.

Another campus project under DPI will expand EnterpriseWorks, an incubator for early-stage tech firms at Urbana-Champaign’s Research Park that has been named one of Forbes magazine’s “12 Business Incubators Changing the World.”

Plans for DPI and IIN were announced in October. Work is currently underway on an implementation plan that will establish a timetable for opening and other details of the enterprise, where world-class researchers will work side-by-side with students and businesses to foster next-generation innovation and workforce development and address societal grand challenges of great importance to the state of Illinois and beyond.

The DPI will be developed on a donated site along the Chicago River. The state is currently working on a bond sale that will provide capital funding to help develop the DPI, an innovation center that will be home to leading-edge research, and the IIN, a virtually connected network of regional hubs that bridge the distance between communities and foster collaborative discovery, education, and entrepreneurship, bringing energy and economic development to the entire state.

The DPI will bring together top faculty in agriculture, health care, computing, environment, and other critical fields from the U of I System and partner universities that already include the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and Tel Aviv University. Nearly 100 new researchers also will be added and together they will connect with hundreds of businesses and thousands of students over time, as well as with entrepreneurs and venture capital firms.

Altgeld Hall on a snowy evening.

By Samantha Jones Toal

The renovation of Altgeld Hall is coming closer to reality after a campus committee conditionally approved allocating $27 million in student funding to modernize and upgrade the iconic building.

The Academic Facilities Maintenance Fund Assessment (AFMFA) Oversight Committee approved the amounts for fiscal years 2020 to 2021 contingent upon the university securing the remainder of funds from campus, the state, donor gifts, and other sources.

The renovation of Altgeld could be part of a larger project for both Altgeld and Illini Hall, immediately to the west. Modernizing both buildings will cost an estimated $90-$100 million.

The AFMFA Oversight Committee includes student representatives who play a role in deciding how the deferred maintenance funds will be spent. Students at Illinois currently pay $334 per semester into the fund.

“The funding commitment for Altgeld from our students is inspiring, and I deeply appreciate their leadership to help get this important renovation in progress,” said Feng Sheng Hu, the Harry E. Preble Dean of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. “It’s exciting and meaningful to have student support for this critical project.”

Altgeld will be equipped with contemporary learning spaces, while also maintaining a focus on the roughly 121-year-old building’s historic significance. Mosaics, murals, and woodwork in Altgeld Hall’s library will be restored.

“The committee comprised of student and administration representatives did an outstanding job supporting transformative projects that will contribute to the university’s excellence by upgrading building systems, enhancing energy conservation initiatives, and aiding in accessibility and life safety improvements. These selections will positively impact student experience for generations to come,” said Doris Reeser, assistant director of capital planning, deferred maintenance, and classroom programs at Illinois Facilities & Services.

Other improvements include the restoration of the Mathematics Library by replacing missing glass floor panels in the stacks and restoring the open appearance of the colonnade to the east. If funding permits, the library renovation will also include installation of a back-lit ornamental glass dome to illuminate the atrium properly for the first time since the original glass dome was removed in 1942.

The last time Altgeld Hall received significant renovations was in 1956, when the School of Law moved out of the building and the Department of Mathematics moved in. Mathematics is still located in the building.

Heating and air conditioning will be replaced throughout the building, vastly increasing energy efficiency, improving the classroom environment, and protecting the valuable collection of the Mathematics Library. Furthermore, a second elevator will be added to make all portions of Altgeld Hall accessible.

The renovations to Altgeld Hall will encourage environmental sustainability with the project targeting Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)+ Gold certification through the U.S. Green Building Council.

While campus is still assessing capital improvements to Altgeld, repair work continues on the chimes. The playing chamber room and the playing and practice stands were repaired last summer. Work on the bells, clappers, pulleys, cables, and supporting frame should be completed this upcoming spring semester, according to Steve Breitweiser, manager of external relations for Illinois Facilities & Services.

AFMFA is currently the primary source of funding for deferred maintenance projects on the Urbana campus. Since the program’s inception in 2007, student contributions have addressed more than $200 million in building projects that strive to make a significant impact on teaching and learning environments.

By Joel Steinfeldt

The restoration work on the historic Altgeld Chimes at Illinois is progressing rapidly, said Matthew Tomaszewski, the associate provost for capital planning. He’s leading a diverse team of Facilities and Services engineers, carpenters, movers, upholsterers, painters, and others who are bringing the beloved chimes back to life.

“The chimes are the sound of the campus. One of the things that everybody remembers, whether it’s guests, or students, faculty or staff, everyone knows the Quad, the Alma Mater, and then of course, the sound, the sound of the chimes in the background – it’s the feel of the campus,” he said. “I think that creates the full experience, all of your senses, while you’re here. It’s the sound of the University of Illinois.”

While the chimes are still being played through automation on the quarter hour, the live, weekday afternoon concerts had to be suspended to allow the restoration work to be done. The playing chamber has been leveled, eliminating tripping hazards, and orange and blue carpeting tiles have been installed. The walls have been repainted, damaged furniture replaced, and refurbishing of the playing and practice stands for the chimes is 90 percent finished, Tomaszewski said.

“It’s pretty amazing from what it was to what it is right now, but there’s a long way to go yet,” he said.

That’s because the restoration work on the bells, clappers, pulleys, cables, supporting frame, and masonry is yet to be done. The university expects to sign an agreement with a company that specializes in clock and bell repairs soon. After that, it is expected that repairs will take six months, unless additional damage is found, he said.

Tomaszewski hopes current and future chimes players will be delighted with the detailed restoration work on the playing and practices stands, which have been stripped and re-stained. Handles that play sharps have been painted black and all of the note identifiers have been applied and polished. New pieces were fabricated, crumbling nuts and bolts replaced, and new felt and pads have been installed. “All the chimes players care so much about the instrument itself; they want to make sure it’s in good hands, and of course it was done beautifully,” he said.

New cables and special cone-shaped guides will help keep the cables from freezing, Tomaszewski said. “It would be very nice if we didn’t have to worry about that, because basically that shuts down the chimes. In years past, players would open the hatch door and shake the cables (to free them), but we don’t want people going above the playing room.”

“The furniture shop and mill shop team, they have done an outstanding job with the repairs,” he said. “Basically, when the players played, the whole rack would shake from side to side, and it was becoming unstable.” Because of the years of wear and tear, and because of water infiltrating the room at times, many pieces were too damaged to re-use and have been replaced, he said.

“The chimes are such an important part of people’s experience of our campus. It’s sad that it’s closed right now, but wonderful that we have the opportunity to actually take care of something that’s such an iconic piece of campus, and when we re-open, during the Sesquicentennial celebration, to have all of this attention on it, I think it will be wonderful to have the chimes playing again,” Tomaszewski said.

Editor’s Note: This article about the Altgeld Chimes was originally published in July 2014.

The Altgeld Hall chimes.

By Meaghan Downs

Thousands of students attend Sue Wood’s daily concerts simply by walking to class.
Many of them have never seen her.

Six stories up in the Altgeld Hall tower – where chimesmaster Sue Wood has played the bells for the last 43 years – the day’s chimes performance resembles a finely tuned ballet.

Poised in front of what looks like a seven-foot-long marimba, Wood grabs a wooden “pump handle.” She pushes down and releases the lever quickly, the attached cable vibrating through the ceiling to wake up the bell above. The handle is still clattering as Wood moves on to the next lever and the next note, her eyes focused on the sheet music.

Weaving hand over hand, Wood rings out the Illinois State Song with fluid ease before five automated hammers toll the Westminster Chime and the hour.

Because concerts are performed during the traditional class “passing times,” Wood has about 10 minutes to play as many songs as she can before the clock chime automatically strikes 1 p.m.
But she isn’t worried about getting cut off in the middle of “Hedwig’s Theme” from the “Harry Potter” film soundtrack or the Illinois anthem “Hail to the Orange.”

Mistakes do happen, Wood said, but no one knows who’s made them.

That’s one perk of being the anonymous conductor of a 15-bell choir.

Decades ago, Wood said she even helped provide chime cacophony to accompany the university band’s performance of the “1812 Overture” on the steps of Foellinger Auditorium. When Wood got a telephone call in the tower, she’d ring the chimes “lickety-split” on cue so that concert goers in the Main Quad would hear chimes behind them at Altgeld Hall and in front of them at Foellinger.

The Altgeld Hall tower was built specifically to hold the bells, not students. The Classes of 1914 through 1921 managed to raise enough money for 13 bells, but not the 15 total required to perform “Illinois Loyalty,” the main school song.

Following the end of World War I, the U.S. School of Military Aeronautics – which held exercises during wartime and was preparing to leave campus – gave $2,000 in a memorial fund to add the necessary two bells.

The rest is a rich history that includes more than 2,000 different arrangements transposed for the Altgeld Hall chimes since the bells’ dedication at Homecoming in October 1920.

Even after four decades with the bells, Wood said she doesn’t know any chimes music by heart yet. Well, except for “Hail to the Orange,” a change ringing fragment and the Illinois State Song.
Wood grew up playing the piano, but ultimately became an analytical chemist, receiving her Ph.D. in plant pathology from Illinois and retiring early from the Illinois Natural History Survey.
Being a chemist and playing the chimes aren’t so different from each other, Wood said.

“Math and music always connect,” she said.

Her first introduction to bells was as a graduate student and the former carillon – a bell system with 23 or more bells – located at University Lutheran Church near campus.

She soon found Albert Marien, Illinois chimesmaster from 1958 until 1995, and learned the technique of playing the Altgeld Hall chimes from him.

The Altgeld Chimes are played with hammers in the third floor of Altgeld Hall.

Wood said Marien took great pains to promote a regular chimes program at Altgeld Hall. She’ll continue to do the same, as long as she’s still ringing the bells and has student volunteers willing to learn.

“To learn from Sue has been wonderful because she’s such a master of the art, and also just a very lovely person,” junior and chimes student Amy Liu said of Wood.

Like Wood, Liu enjoys the anonymity that comes from playing the chimes, too.

“To me, it’s really romantic to be able to play music for so many people and to be anonymous,” Liu, an urban planning major, said.

Sometimes romance seeps into what Liu performs.  If you catch strains of “Off We Go into the Wild Blue Yonder” coming from Altgeld Hall, that’s Liu playing “The U.S. Air Force Song” as a nod to her boyfriend, a former Illinois student planning to join the United States Air Force.

When Liu comes to play at Altgeld Hall – about every other week depending on her schedule — she mixes it up with a song from “Lord of the Rings,” “Star Wars” or “Fireflies” by Owl City. A maintenance worker has also requested a chimes cover of Moody Blues’ “Knights in White Satin.” She’s still working on that one, as well as “Bold As Love” by Jimi Hendrix.

In Liu’s hands, the bells often sing George Gershwin.

“People probably hear that often,” Liu, a classic jazz lover and banjo-playing member of the Folks and Roots club on campus, said with a laugh.

An Altgeld Hall chime.

The chimes are not chromatically complete, Wood said, because the eight classes arranged to have only enough bells to play “Illinois Loyalty”; the chimes are missing a lower D sharp and both F naturals, so music has to be transposed into the keys of G, D, or A major.

Her students come up with “all the contemporary tunes,” Wood said.  Students have introduced chimes arrangements of modern tunes such as Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

New music is still being created, however. One of Wood’s chimes students, Jonathan Smith, arranged a version of “Alleluia! Let Praises Ring” as an Easter duet for him and Wood to perform.
Like her predecessor Albert Marien, Wood continues to mentor Illinois students interested in learning the chimes and allows visiting children to test their chimes skills by tickling the keys of the practice keyboard with “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

If you hear music coming from Altgeld Hall, Wood said, that means someone is always up in the tower, playing. Wood said the building has survived to become home to the Department of Mathematics with a tower full of bells that continue the tradition of the chimes concerts.
“And I guess it’s going to survive a little longer,” Wood said.

The News-Gazette in Champaign has covered Altgeld Hall several times.

“Altgeld Hall’s rough-hewn Romanesque architecture has always made it stand out in a sea of green-roofed Georgian buildings on the University of Illinois campus,” Paul Wood wrote. Read the full story.

And, the paper shared Chair Matthew Ando’s thoughts on what makes Altgeld a special place. Read his thoughts in the story.

Altgeld Hall has long been recognized as a gem on campus. One frequent topic for news stories: its chime. Chimesmaster Sue Wood and the Altgeld Ringers put on daily concerts from the attic of Altgeld.

Read more:

• Inside Illinois Q&A with Sue Wood
• 2014 campus holiday video featuring the chimes
• Happy to Chime In (The News-Gazette)
• Sue Wood on 44 years behind the chimes (WILL)
• University of Illinois Altgeld Hall Chimes (Illinois Public Media)