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Tina Akouris

Tina Akouris

Digital news editor | Chicago Tribune | Class of 1994

A friendly warning to future UI freshmen, from Tina Akouris: Avoid 8 a.m. classes at all costs. 

“My freshman year, I had an Econ 101 lecture at 8 a.m. three days a week at Foellinger Auditorium. Not good,” says Akouris, a Sun-Times sports alum now who now mans the digital news desk at the Chicago Tribune. 

“I had a couple hours to kill between the end of that lecture and another class, so I discovered the couches at the Illini Union, specifically the ones in the lounge facing Green Street. I’d nap on the one nearest the grandfather clock, which woke me up at just the right time to get myself to my next class. 

“Napping at the Union was my favorite thing to do for four years. And the couch that faced the clock was clearly my favorite — it was the longest and the most comfortable.”