Core Faculty

Alice E. Novak

Lecturer in Urban and Regional Planning
Assistant Head, Academic Programs
MUP, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1985


Alice Novak teaches UP 101: Introduction to City Planning to more than 200 students each fall. Since 1997, she has taught UP 420: Planning for Historic Preservation, in which students have created a 1,000 building inventory for the City of Urbana. Now digitized, the project is housed in the Illinois Digital Archives. The student survey substantially contributed to the City of Urbana’s demolition delay ordinance in 2007, which specifically cites the course. Novak’s Historic Preservation Workshops are responsible for a number of entries to the National Register of Historic Places, including Buena Vista Court in Urbana; the Main Library, Busey-Evans Residence Hall, and Louise Freer Hall on campus; the Fischer Theatre in Danville; and the Transfer House in Decatur.

Professor Novak received her Master of Urban Planning with a concentration in Preservation Planning, then worked as a Preservation Planner for the Ohio Historic Preservation Office before returning to Urbana-Champaign to work with Professor Lachlan F. Blair in The URBANA Group, historic preservation consultants. She later established her own practice and amassed twenty years of Preservation Planning consulting experience before joining the Department of Urban and Regional Planning full time in August 2009.

She recently completed her third and final year on the Illinois Historic Sites Advisory Council, the group which reviews nominations to the National Register of Historic Places. She served as Vice Chair in 2011. Professor Novak has served as Chair of the Urbana Historic Preservation Commission since it began in 1999, after serving on the Urbana Historic Preservation Steering Committee for three years. She was on the Board of Directors of the Preservation and Conservation Association of Champaign County for seven years, serving two year terms as Vice President and then President. She also held a two year term on the Board of Directors of Landmarks Illinois, and now serves as the Regional Advisor for Central Illinois. Her recent consulting work includes the buildings of the Illinois Central Railroad (local) Historic District and the Lincoln Building in downtown Champaign. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Community Center for the Arts in Urbana, and was recently appointed to the Urbana Parks Foundation, the fund-raising arm of the Urbana Park District.

Professor Novak is in preservation paradise in her 1933 French Revival house near campus. She is currently researching the work of Berger and Kelley Associates, architects of the house.

Contact Information
Room 111 Temple Buell Hall
611 Taft Drive
Champaign, IL 61820
Phone: 217.244-5402
Fax: 217.244.1717
E-mail: novak2@illinois.edu

Alice E. Novak