UI trustees OK higher student insurance rates, design for innovation hub

Ethan Simmons, The News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.
·3 min read

Mar. 31—SPRINGFIELD — Coming to the Urbana campus: a new roof for the Illini Union, rebuilt arch stuccos for the Armory, and higher student health insurance rates for undergraduate and graduate students in Urbana.

Student insurance costs from campus provider UnitedHealthcare will rise by 10 percent in the 2023-'24 academic year, up to $783.20 per semester for Urbana undergrads and $1,007.60 per semester for graduate and professional students.

"The increased costs are due to greater utilization of services, including prescription drug usage, medical and mental health services, laboratory orders, non-ER hospital charges, and MR/CT imaging," according to the resolution the board approved Thursday.

Students have the option each year to not participate in the University of Illinois' health insurance program as long as they provide evidence of comparable coverage. Students are also billed a health service fee, $251 per semester starting in the fall, to support the Counseling Center and McKinley Health Center.

At their first meeting on the Springfield campus since the pandemic began, the UI board of trustees approved the design for the system's upcoming Discovery Partners Institute headquarters.

The DPI is the UI system's new effort to develop talent for tech jobs and businesses, billed as the leading innovation and research hub of the university and state as a whole. As part of a $500 million commitment to support the state's Innovation Network, Illinois appropriated $235 million to fund DPI's home base in 2019.

The headquarters will anchor The 78, a new "innovation district" built along the Chicago River. The facility itself will be an eight-story glassy dome with 200,000 square feet of offices, classrooms, labs and event space. The groundbreaking is set for spring 2024.

"To have a U of I-led research hub there, the opportunity we now have in Chicago with this campus being created will put our system and our state in the very forefront of research and economic development," UI President Tim Killeen said.

Trustees swore in their newest member, Wilbur Milhouse III, an established Chicago civil engineer who holds multiple engineering degrees from UIUC. He's chairman and CEO of Milhouse Engineering and Construction, the largest African American-owned construction firm in the U.S. His term will run until Jan. 15, 2029.

With Milhouse's appointment, two seats on the board remain vacant.

The board also approved plans for big construction contracts, buildings and appointments on the Urbana campus: a $15 million replacement for the Illini Union roof, a $7.2 million replacement of the Armory's arch stucco and curtainwall, and the official appointment for Claire Stewart as the next dean of libraries and university librarian. The $100 million learning center coming to south campus along Gregory Drive will be named Steven S. Wymer Hall, after the Danville-raised UI alum and investment manager who donated $25 million to fund the building.

The board left warm messages for three-year secretary Gregory Knott, an alum of the UI's Urbana and Springfield campuses. Knott began working at the UI in 2002 at the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition in Urbana; he later served as assistant dean for university libraries.

"You've been a tremendous help, no matter what we needed, whether it was where to go where to find something, you were always there," Trustee Ramón Cepeda told Knott. "You're the band leader, putting us in the right place and making sure that we function well."