University of Illinois to Create Center Honoring Roger Ebert

Officials announced Thursday, efforts are underway to raise about $2.5 million to create a center named for late film critic Roger Ebert in the College of Media at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ebert was a Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic for the Chicago Sun-Times who graduated from the University of Illinois. He died of cancer in 2013. The Ebert Center's goal would be to combine the studies of film and ethics to encourage writers and filmmakers to think critically about film, according to the school and Ebert's wife. Chaz Ebert said, "Lots of colleges have film studies programs. Roger wanted a program that focused more on critical thinking and analysis and why you do certain things in filmmaking and the way you write about it."