Faculty, staff, and students from throughout the Department of Mathematics have come together to overcome the disruptions caused by the first major renovation of the department’s facilities in nearly 70 years.
“It surprises some people, but mathematics is a social activity,” according to Rui Loja Fernandes, the Lois M. Lackner Professor of Mathematics at the University of Illinois. “Between teachers and students, yes, but also between all kinds of faculty. Researchers need to interact with one another, too.”
Though faculty in the Department of Mathematics have been split by Wright Street for years – with some having offices in Altgeld Hall and others in Illini Hall – the gaps have been exacerbated by the construction of a replacement for Illini Hall. Since the demolition of Illini Hall, faculty have been dispersed across three buildings on campus, and further relocations are expected when extensive interior renovations to Altgeld Hall begin in the coming years. Students face a similar situation. More than 175 graduate students and postdocs have moved to temporary digs, and the Undergraduate Advising Office is currently in a building on Green Street.
“It is a very real disruption. A $200 million-plus project is going to be. Knocking down and rebuilding a building is going to be,” said Department Chair Vera Mikyoung Hur. “It’s important to acknowledge the inconveniences. I am proud and grateful for the way in which the entire department has come together. Their flexibility, problem-solving, dedication, and professionalism don’t surprise me. But they do make me very happy.”
People across the department agree that the work is a must. Faculty, staff, and students have all made an intentional effort to work through and mitigate the disruptions.
The last significant renovation for Altgeld Hall was in 1956, and the future upside is huge. “You come into a state-of-the-art building. It’s welcoming. It looks great,” Loja Fernandes said. “You want to be a part of it, and interactions will increase dramatically. New spaces will make a big impact.”
‘Close and Relevant’
The Mathematics Library was among the first departmental units to move. In the summer of 2023, the team meticulously kept their collection of 112,000 books and other materials in order as they were shifted to the campus’ Main Library, where they are being housed during the renovations. Items were frequently hand-carried down the stairs. Moving crews were in daily, loading cart after cart onto a truck, driving them to the new location, and offloading them. That process alone took about six weeks.
Moving the collection to another central location just off the Quad “helps us remain closely connected and relevant to the Departments of Mathematics and Statistics while also providing access to the broader campus community,” according to Sarah Park, head of the Mathematics Library and a professor in the University Library. Library staff, unbound journals, and course reserve materials are in Grainger Engineering Library, about a block from Altgeld. Staff are offering research and consultation services virtually, reminding faculty of those services on an ongoing basis. Appointments for in-person services and use of the collection have also helped.
“We’ve done quite a lot,” Park said.
Colleagues and members of the preservation, cataloging, and central access services departments within the University Library have been attentive and pitching in. “We’re grateful for the support we’ve received. We wouldn’t be in this position without that support. Despite the disruption, they’re helping us and keeping us in the loop,” Park said.
“The Mathematics Department has always loved our library because of the collection, and it’s been a selling point to attract top faculty and researchers from around the world. It is good to see that it remains that important,” Becky Burner, a senior library specialist.
‘People Care’
With construction following so closely on the heels of the COVID pandemic, many opportunities for members of the department to meet one another, spend time together, and simply socialize dried up. The weekly tea and cookies get-together, which has been a part of the Department of Mathematics for so many years, goes on. (Rather than taking place in the basement of Altgeld it now floats among different locations.) And graduate student seminars are back up to speed.
“We’re recovering, and colloquium [which brings in distinguished faculty from other institutions] is back to pre-pandemic levels of attendance and has high faculty participation,” Loja Fernandes said.
But other events, both formal and informal, did not continue. Perhaps no one has sought to remedy that situation more than PhD student Maddy Ritter.
She said she is “pretty involved in the department,” and she understated things. Ritter is a member of the department’s Climate, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, president of the Graduate Student Chapter of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM), and outreach manager for the Illinois Mathematics Lab – all while winning awards for teaching excellence as a calculus TA in the Merit Program.
With Ritter’s leadership, the AWM chapter hosts several events throughout each semester, with about 15 to 20 students attending any given event. These include movie nights, an annual celebration of International Women’s Day, casual coffees, and panels of female faculty members. They also put on the welcome picnic for graduate students every fall. The AWM’s activities are not limited to social gatherings. They host a book club and support a math circle for middle to high school students on the weekends.
“People feel stuck sometimes, but people care. And we have a big presence,” Ritter said. So big and successful that the department is now helping students start an American Mathematical Society (AMS) chapter as well. “The director of graduate studies asked, ‘What can we do to help?’ They were very interested and open to making the student experience better,” she said.
The new AMS chapter has supported board game nights for graduate students and postdocs. On their own, graduate students also organize board game and hot pot nights, watching March Madness together, and other regular activities to build community.
“AWM, under Maddy's leadership, has been vital to community-building among the graduate students. None of these would be possible without the amazing committees that make up the AWM board,” said Polly Yu, who joined the department as a professor this year and is faculty advisor to AWM.
‘Very Exciting’
In addition to co-locating all students and faculty in the newly built Illini Hall, major improvements to Altgeld will make shared student experiences, faculty-student interaction, and student services much easier.
“[Illini Hall] has been intentionally designed to really reimagine the building and construct it to enhance the student experience. It’s very rare for a math department to be able to design a building for what we do. It’s very exciting,” said Sheldon Katz, a professor of mathematics and Arthur Coble Scholar, in a previous interview.
Altgeld currently includes three floors with additional odd levels reached by stairs or ramps – so addressing accessibility is a key part of the work, providing access to all areas and minimizing the number of separate levels. Other features include:
- A new lounge for undergraduate students and new rooms for undergraduate student organizations.
- New research space for the Illinois Mathematics Lab.
- New tutoring rooms.
- Several new classrooms in Altgeld and nearly a dozen new classrooms in Illini Hall.
The Mathematics Library will also return to its rightful – and beautiful – place. A new reading room will be added, and the rotunda will be specially lighted to make its stained glass all the more impressive. The bookstacks will keep their glass floors, while adding seating and an elevator.
The library team has worked closely with students who are part of the Illinois Mathematics Lab to catalog and care for more than 400 physical models that make their home in Altgeld. Made of string, wood, glass, plaster, paper, and metal – as well as the plastic and other materials used in 3D printing – these models illustrate mathematical concepts and systems. Many date back to 19th Century Germany.
With new climate-controlled gallery space in the library, this effort is “the perfect project to preserve this beauty,” according to Park. “It’s an enormous amount of work to catalog these, but they are a way to appreciate the past and connect to all the effort that previous faculty and students put in.”
Which is an apt description of the Altgeld Hall and Illini Hall projects as a whole – an enormous amount of work and an indelible connection to the past and future of the Department of Mathematics.
“The spaces we inhabit are crucial to our work and our relationships and all the time we spend in our studies and our research,” Department Chair Vera Mikyoung Hur said. “This will be where ideas form, where friendships and mentorships form. Our people are so very creative, and the outcomes of that creativity can change how we understand the world. Altgeld Hall and Illini Hall will anchor that for the next century of our work.”
-Written by Bill Bell 2025