Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1902 [PAGE 107]

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88

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

[June 11,

A petition from the Urbana and Champaign Railway, Gas & Electric Company, asking permission to lay a gas pipe across the University grounds was referred to the Committee on Buildings and Grounds with power to act. A petition from the same company asking the Board to authorize the proper officers to sign a petition to the City Council of Urbana for a renewal of its franchise for 20 years was referred to the same Committee. Professor Palmer was allowed $300.00 for work in water analysis during the coming summer vacation. A communication was received from Professor Moss with reference to funeral processions, and it was ordered that hereafter no such procession be allowed to pass through any part of the University grounds.

CHEMICAL LABORATOKY.

The Committee on Buildings and Grounds presented the following report: URBANA, I I I . , June 11,1901. lo the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. GENTLEMEN: Your Committee on Buildings and Grounds desires to report in regard to the method of procedure in the erection of the new chemical laboratory. We realize that the chemical laboratory is one of the most important buildings of our University group. It is important in that for a time it becomes the workshop of an unusually large per cent of the students who attend the University; and, in the increase of attendance, the growth is felt in the chemical department more perceptibly, perhaps, than in any other. Its importance is noted also in that the building must be specially adapted to laboratory purposes; the laboratories and lecture rooms, offices, studies, and investigation rooms being proportioned to the number of students taking instruction in th9 courses; and it being impossible to put the several rooms to other uses after they have once been fitted up. Your Committee recommends— 1. That the building be generally planned after the shape of the letter E. the laboratories bring in the two outer extensions, and, because of this easily admitting enlargement without great expense. 2. That the building be erected of brick and trimmed with stone, the outer wall of the water table being stone. 3. That the building be three stories high, including the basement, which shall have its floor above the ground outside. 4. That the laboratories be separated from other parts of the building by fire-proof doors arranged to close automatically in case of heat. 5. That the building be erected generally in slow burning construction using the best means to reduce the possibility of great loss in the case of fire. 6. That the Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds be requested to furnish the plans and conduct the construction of the building, if satisfactory terms can be agreed upon with him by the Committee. 7. That the architect, under the direction of your Committee, and in consultation with the President of the University and the professors in the chemical department, prepare preliminary plans and estimates as early as possible for the approval of the Board.