The John Paul II Newman Center was named & established at its current site on the UIC campus in 1979.  Since that time it has cultivated the faith of Catholic and non Catholic students, staff and faculty alike.

Our focus is on a well rounded education, helping to build a community of students who are encouraged to share spiritual and ethical values, and to promote value-oriented intellectual discourse and inquiry on vital moral and spiritual issues in a spirit of freedom, honesty, and civility.  By offering religious, educational, and social programs that support and nurture spiritual growth and moral leadership, we are helping to Build Tomorrow’s Church, Today. 

Dedicated at its current site on October 22, 1980, by Cardinal Cody, the John Paul II Newman Center was built out of the inspiration of Cardinal Cody to provide a permanent home for Catholic campus ministry at UIC and provide a setting where Catholics could nurture their spiritual development.

The JP2 Newman Center was built as a lasting memorial in remembrance of Pope John Paul II's visit to the Archdiocese of Chicago from October 4-6, 1979. During that visit, Pope John Paul II gave consent for the center to bear his name. The foundation stone at JP2 Newman Center is taken from the altar erected for the papal Mass offered in Grant Park on October 5, 1979.


The University of Illinois had its start in Chicago at Navy Pier, shortly after World War II but it was called the University of Illinois Chicago Circle. At that time, campus ministry was very much a part of student life. So although the Navy Pier site closed and the current UIC campus opened in 1965, campus ministry has been an integrated part of student offerings since the beginning.

The importance of Catholic campus ministry at UIC can be easily seen in the statistics. The enrollment at UIC has hovered around 25,000 students. Sixty percent of those students are from Catholic families. This gives UIC the largest Catholic student population of any university in the Midwest and a representative cross section of American society.

The ethnic/racial distribution at UIC: