Jean Lattan (1909-2002) was a member of the Class of 1932. He received a scholarship to the U of I and majored in Engineering and Mathematics. Jean said that he did not especially notice the effects of the Great Depression, but he worked as a waiter during college. Also, Jean was a member of the Glee Club and he was the Student Colonel.
Jean Peabody Taylor (1914-2009) was a member of the Class of 1935. She graduated with a degree in Accounting, but retrained to be a teacher. Jean worked throughout college and lived at home.
Jeff Machota attended the U of I from 1984 to 1986 and took full advantage of what Unit One/Allen Hall had to offer. He made connections with artists-in-residence and also got involved in the anti-apartheid movement. In this interview, he discusses his early life, activism, and his impressions of the University.
Jeffrey Roberts was the only black student in the journalism program when he came to the University of Illinois in the fall of 1968. The passion for writing he brought with him to Illinois stemmed from high school experiences as a bat boy for the Chicago White Sox. In this interview, he recalls his varied experiences as a young black man at Illinois in the 60s and 70s, including: his dating life, his involvement with Project 500 and the Black Student Association, and his "Black Vibrations" column with the Daily Illini.
Jennifer Creasey Assistant Vice President of External and State Relations, Office of External Relations and Communications, University of Illinois System. Oral history conducted for inclusion in the COVID-19 Documentation Project, a collaboration between the University of Illinois Archives and the University of Illinois System.
Alum Jill Rosenbaum shares a short story about one of her closest friends from the university. This oral history was recorded as part of the ongoing Oral History project and conducted in partnership with the University of Illinois Library Archives.
James Andrew Dengate is an emeritus professor of Classics at Illinois and has worked with campus museums since 1975. With a B.A. from Michigan State University and M.A. and Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology from the University of Pennsylvania, he is currently Director of Record for the Excavations at Halieis, Greece with which he has worked since 1965. Two volumes of the final reports of these excavations have appeared along with many preliminary reports.
Dengate and Pitard discuss the origins and vision of the Spurlock Museum. The collections, their organization, and repatriation are also major topics. Thumbnail image courtesy of The Spurlock Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
