Welcome

Welcome to the self-guided audio tour of the University of Illinois Chicago, home of the Flames! My name is Billy and I use he/him/his pronouns. I am excited to be one of your two tour guides today!

Here at the University of Illinois Chicago (or as we like to call it UIC), students treat the city of Chicago as their campus and they take advantage of both academic and social opportunities throughout the city, etc.

Whether you are exploring Little Italy with a nice Mario’s Italian Lemonade on Taylor Street or taking Instagram worthy pictures at the famous Bean, there are limitless opportunities being a UIC student! 

There are 12 stops on our tour today, so please feel free to explore the campus with our audio and text transcript options. Traditionally our tour starts at the Student Services Building (SSB), but depending where you are on campus, you can also start the tour at the Student Center East (SCE). Both starting points are accessible by CTA buses and trains.

UIC is Chicago's largest public research university. It is located on Chicago's near west side, just minutes from downtown and bordered by the Little Italy, Greektown, and Pilsen neighborhoods.

To begin our tour, I would like to start off by sharing a bit of campus history. 

Founded at Navy Pier, the University of Illinois Chicago began as a two year institution to support World War II veterans looking to come back to school in 1946. 

In 1965, the university moved from Navy Pier to its current location in the West Loop.

You may notice that UIC’s logo is centered around a circle. In fact, UIC was originally named University of Illinois Chicago Circle campus because of its close proximity to the Circle Interchange (Dan Rayn, Eisenhower, and Kennedy expressways) all meet together.

Throughout our tour today, the stops will include addresses, photographs, and audio clips to help accompany your exploration of the East Campus, the main campus for our undergraduate students. Let's move onto our next stop, the Student Services Building!