The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in the Near West Side community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States.
The university was the second institution established within the University of Illinois System and it is now the largest university in the Chicago metropolitan area, having more than 35,000 students enrolled in its 16 colleges. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity."
History
Beginnings The University of Illinois Chicago traces its origins to several health colleges founded during the late 19th century, including the Chicago College of Pharmacy, which opened in 1859, the College of Physicians and Surgeons (1882), and the Columbian College of Dentistry (1893).
The University of Illinois was chartered in 1867 in Champaign-Urbana, as the state's land-grant university. In exchange for agreeing to the Champaign-Urbana location, Chicago-area legislators were promised that a "polytechnical" branch would open in Chicago. The Chicago-based health colleges affiliated with the university in 1896–97, becoming fully incorporated into the University of Illinois in 1913, as the Colleges of Medicine, Dentistry, and Pharmacy on Chicago's west side. Medical education and research expanded in the succeeding decades, leading to the development of several other health science colleges, which were brought together as the University of Illinois Chicago Professional Colleges. In 1936, the first act of newly elected state representative Richard J. Daley was to introduce a resolution calling for the establishment of an undergraduate Chicago campus of the University of Illinois.
Navy Pier campus As World War II was drawing to a close, Congress passed the G.I. Bill in 1944, which sought to reward veterans for their military service. Among other benefits, it provided educational funding, making college degrees far more attainable to a much-wider selection of the American public. In 1945, Daley, who was then a state senator, introduced four bills calling for a university in Chicago. In 1946, realizing that they would be "besieged with applications," University of Illinois officials opened what was to be a temporary branch campus called the Chicago Undergraduate Division (CUD) on Navy Pier. The campus was not a junior college, but rather had a curriculum based on Urbana's courses, and students who successfully completed the first two years' requirements could go on to Urbana and finish their degree.
Classes at the CUD campus began in October 1946, and approximately 4,000 students enrolled each semester.Navy Pier Campus History . Office of the UIC Historian Retrieved on November 16, 2007."G.I. Bill and History of UIC" . Office of the UIC Historian Retrieved on November 16, 2007. Nicknamed "Harvard on the rocks," three-quarters of its students were veterans on the G.I. Bill, many of whom were immigrants and most of whom worked other part-time jobs to support themselves. It also accommodated first-generation college students from working families who commuted from home. (Navy Pier's Undergraduate Division makes an appearance in Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; its protagonist taught freshman English there.)
Due to high demand for a public university education in Chicago, the university made plans to create a permanent degree-granting campus in Chicago. Students at CUD generally needed to transfer after two years to a more expensive private college in Chicago, or go to the main campus in Champaign–Urbana, where there were fewer opportunities for work, while at the same time as going to school.
Congress Circle campus
Daley succeeded in getting the state senate in 1951 to pass a bill calling for a Chicago campus. Daley then became mayor of Chicago in 1955 and pressed the University of Illinois to upgrade the Chicago Undergraduate Center to a full-fledged four-year institution. After a long and controversial site decision process,Permanent Campus Site Selection, 1958–1963 . Office of the UIC Historian Retrieved on November 16, 2007. in 1961, Mayor Daley offered the Harrison and Halsted Streets site for the new campus.Chicago Circle Campus Construction . Office of the UIC Historian Retrieved on November 16, 2007. In December 1961, the final decision to establish a four-year university in Chicago was made. In that same year, the Chicago Professional Colleges became the University of Illinois at the Medical Center (UIMC).
Florence Scala led the fight against Mayor Richard J. Daley's plan to demolish her Italian-American neighborhood to construct the campus. In 1963, the trustees of Hull House accepted an offer of $875,000 for the settlement building. Jessie Binford and Scala took the case to the Supreme Court. Scala led marches to protest the construction. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider an appeal and the settlement was closed on March 28, 1963. During the construction of the 100-acre (0.40 km2) UIC campus, 200 businesses and 800 homes were bulldozed in Little Italy, with 5,000 residents displaced.
In 1963, construction began on the university's new Chicago campus at Harrison and Halsted Streets south of the Greektown neighborhood. In February 1965, the new Chicago campus opened and was to be named the University of Illinois at Congress Circle (UICC) referencing the nearby Circle Interchange of I-290 and I-90/I-94).Circle Campus: 1965–1982 . Office of the UIC Historian Retrieved on November 16, 2007. Shortly before opening, the Congress Expressway was renamed the Eisenhower Expressway and the interchange Chicago Circle, so the campus was renamed to University of Illinois at Chicago Circle (UICC). UICC was designed in the brutalist style by Walter Netsch of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, a Chicago-based architectural firm responsible for many of today's tallest skyscrapers. Unlike the CUD campus, Circle was a degree-granting institution. Within five years of the campus' opening, in addition to undergraduate degrees, virtually every department offered graduate degrees.
Consolidation
In September 1982, the University of Illinois system consolidated UICC and UIMC to form the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), later dropping the "at" in 2020 . University of Illinois Brand and Marketing Retrieved on May 14, 2025. to become University of Illinois Chicago.Circle Campus: 1965–1982 . Office of the UIC Historian Retrieved on November 16, 2007.
In 2000, UIC began developing the south campus. The expansion of UIC south of Roosevelt Road increased on-campus living space and research facilities.When East Met West . "UIAA Alumni Magazine" Retrieved on July 31, 2009.
In 2015, UIC conducted its first university-wide winter commencements, adding that as a permanent option going forward.
In 2019, the John Marshall Law School, founded in 1899 and named for the American jurist John Marshall, became affiliated with the university. In 2021, the UI Trustees voted to officially rename UIC John Marshall Law School as UIC School of Law, citing Marshall's "role as a slave trader, slave owner of hundreds of slaves, pro-slavery jurisprudence, and racist views."
Campus
UIC is Chicago's largest university with more than 33,000 students, 12,000 employees, 16 colleges and the state's major public medical center. The East Campus was designed in the brutalist style by Walter Netsch. The plan included second-story walkways that connected all of the buildings. Some of the later buildings in Netsch's design were not rectilinear (the Behavioral Sciences Building) and even irregularly shaped (Science and Engineering South, and the never-completed Art & Architecture building). These demonstrated his idea of "field theory": designs which used squares and rotations of squares superimposed on one another. While the buildings are largely intact, the walkways were taken down in phases during the early 1990s to make the campus more welcoming. Considerable effort has been expended to modify the original Netsch campus plan to create the feel of a traditional college campus. For example, the area in front of the main administration building, University Hall, has been the site of several renovations in the last decade; and, Credit Union 1 Arena (formerly the UIC Pavilion, a sports arena) was added in 1982.
The East Campus is located on the Near West Side, just south of Greektown and a 15-minute walk from downtown Chicago. The juxtaposition of campus and commercial density was a direct result of large-scale urban renewal led by Mayor Richard J. Daley.
The Circle Court Shopping Center was a shopping center and office complex at 500 South Racine Avenue in Chicago. Completed in 1973, the five-acre property contained 209,600 square feet of space and 350 parking spaces. In 1990, the University of Illinois authorized negotiations to acquire the property for university use. By 1993, university records identified it as the Student Services Building and described it as the former Circle Court Shopping Center. By May 1993, university records referred to the property as the Student Services Building and identified it as the former Circle Court Shopping Center.
The West Campus, also on the Near West Side, is much older and includes some buildings built in the collegiate gothic style. The colleges of Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing, Dentistry, Applied Health Sciences and Public Health, as well as the Library of the Health Sciences are all located on the West Campus. The West Campus is in the heart of the Illinois Medical District where the University of Illinois Medical Center is located.
The Chicago Transit Authority's Blue Line, part of the Chicago 'L', runs through the median of the Eisenhower Expressway along the north side of the campus. Three Blue Line stations are close to the university: UIC-Halsted, Racine, and Illinois Medical District. The Pink Line serves UIC's west campus on Polk Street and runs directly to the Loop.
Campus housing
UIC offers ten residence halls for its students. The East Campus contains five residence halls, the South Campus contains three, and the West Campus contains two. Until the South Campus expansion, UIC students were still predominantly commuters. However, the administration has worked to change the campus to one where most students are residential. Nearly 6,000 students live within one-and-a-half miles of campus. 3,800 students, including over half of all freshmen, live in UIC's nine residence halls. There are also thousands of apartments within walking distance to classes.
On the East Campus, Commons West and Commons South are traditional halls with double rooms opening into a common hallway; each floor shares a common bathroom. Courtyard and Commons North are cluster-style buildings with rooms grouped to share a small private bathroom. These four buildings are connected to the Student Center East which houses a cafeteria, the campus bookstore, a convenience store, bowling/billiards, a barber shop, and the Inner Circle (an assortment of fast food restaurants).
West Campus housing is composed of the Single Student Residence (SSR, apartments for graduate students) and Polk Street Residence (cluster style rooms). South Campus is home to Marie Robinson Hall and Thomas Beckham Hall, both apartment style buildings. In the fall of 2007, James Stukel Towers opened containing suite style rooms with a bathroom and living room. In keeping with UIC culture, students often refer to residence halls by abbreviations instead of their full names (e.g. "TBH" instead of "Thomas Beckham Hall").