Outlook

With this issue of Perspectives we launch a new look for a new decade. 

Perspectives has been published in its current interdisciplinary format since 1990, and the heart of it remains unchanged: in-depth feature articles; an array of shorter pieces in Research Survey; and Sight Lines, a visual showcase on our last page. By adding full color to the print version of Perspectives for the first time, however, we’ll better be able to communicate the excitement and complexity of research at SIUC. Our graphic designer, Jay Bruce, has given the magazine a fresher, more contemporary look to match. (Note: Print copies of Perspectives are available by contacting the editor.)

These improvements mirror the research climate at SIUC. Grant funding for research, training, and outreach projects is on the upswing, reaching more than $78 million in FY 2000 (July 1, 1999-June 30, 2000). New internally funded programs supporting faculty and student research are producing interesting work. The first steps also have been taken toward construction of a major research park to move inventions from the laboratory to the marketplace.

SIUC has seen some especially notable benchmarks over the past months. Among them: Poet Lucia Perillo received one of the famed MacArthur Foundation "genius" awards this year. Our expertise in coal research netted a $25 million grant from Commonwealth Edison for a program to get clean-coal technology into use at Illinois mines and power plants. And our Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory received The Wildlife Society’s highest organizational award for achievement in research and education—an award it shares with such previous recipients as The Nature Conservancy and the National Audubon Society. See our cover story on wildlife and fisheries research at SIUC—a 50-year record of innovation and excellence that continues with vigor.