Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1898 [PAGE 248]

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248

UNIVERSITY O F I L L I N O I S .

[April

19,

able rates. This is perhaps more emphatically true of the Faculty than of the students. There seems to be a very general lack of appreciation of the importance of this subject on the part of people living in the cities adjacent to the University. It has been a surprise to me that private capital has not ventured to erect more buildings, with modern conveniences, in the neighborhood of the University; and also, to provide more facilities for obtaining meals near us. There is no room for doubt but that such accommodations would be quickly seized upon and appreciated. Unless something is done in this direction, with new energy, we shall be embarrassed still more with the advent of the increased attendance which we are bound to anticipate at the beginning of the next University year. I have every reason for saying that the difficulty in securing proper rooms and suitable board, at reasonable rates, is now the most serious difficulty in the way of the growth of the institution. Other institutions have been obliged to confront this difficulty. There is scarcely a large university in the country which has not at one time or another been obliged to initiate measures for meeting the needs of its faculty and students. Indeed, there are few of the larger universities which do not maintain a lunch room where faculty and students can obtain their meals, or at least part of them. These lunch rooms are, I am told, easily self-supporting, if managed competently. If such a room could be established at our University, it would be a greater boon to many of our people than is commonly supposed; and, aside from providing needed food, it would enable us to make a shorter noon recess and arrange a schedule of recitations which would more completely facilitate our work.. It "has occurred to me that we might, next fall, start a department of domestic economy, about which we have frequently talked, and that in some T w ay this department might open a lunch room and thus accomplish several desirable purposes at the same time. The room under the chapel in University Hall, which has heretofore been occupied as the electrical laboratory, wiil be vacated in a few days, and, while there are calls for it by departments already established, I am not sure but the best use we canx put it to wiil be to establish a lunch room in it. I submit the whole matter to the serious consideration of the Board of Trustees and ask for such action upon it as may seem practicable.

A. S. DRAPER, President.

Mr. M c L e a n offered the following r e s o l u t i o n : Besolved, That the room now used for the electrical laboratory, but soon to be vacated, be properly arranged, under the supervision of a committee of the Board, as a restaurant, and that it be given rent free to some qualified caterer for the term of one year. O n m o t i o n of Mr. R a y m o n d , t h i s resolution was referred 'to Mr. P e a r c e , P r e s i d e n t D r a p e r , and t h e C o m m i t t e e on S t u d e n t s ' Welfare, as a special committee. T h e q u e s t i o n of t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t of a d e p a r t m e n t of domestic science was, on m o t i o n of Mr. M c L e a n , referred to P r e s i d e n t D r a p e r for investigation a n d report. T h e m a t t e r of s m o k i n g on U n i v e r s i t y premises was referred to t h e C o m m i t t e e on S t u d e n t s ' Welfare.' P r e s i d e n t D r a p e r presented, with his approval, a request from Dr. K i n l e y for t h e a p p r o p r i a t i o n of $50.00 to defray t h e expenses of c o n t i n u i n g t h e investigation into t h e cost of p r o d u c t i o n of corn a n d oats, a n d the a p p r o p r i a t i o n was made.