Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1926 [PAGE 414]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1925]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

411

AGRICULTURAL MEMORIAL Mr. Trees reported for the Committee on Agriculture a recommendation that the proposed plan for an Agricultural Memorial (Minutes, January 12, 1924, page 389) be not adopted, inasmuch as i i not t s in line with the general policy of the Board. No action was taken on this matter. MATTERS PRESENTED BY PRESIDENT KINLEY The Board considered the following matters presented by the President of the University. DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE (1) A statement concerning the status of the relations of the University and the state Department of Public Welfare under the agreement of July, 1919. Some developments in connection with the work of the Research and Educational Hospitals make it necessary in m y opinion for the University to know just where it stands in the matter of its relationship to these hospitals. It is necessary particularly for us to know whether the original agreement, signed in 1919 by the Head of the Department of Public Welfare for the State, and myself for the Board of Trustees by their direction, is to be kept. If it is not to be kept it is necessary for us to know what is proposed in its place. I bring up the matter now because I a m informed that the heads of two of the divisions of the work of the Department of Public Welfare, namely the Institute of Juvenile Research and the Psychiatric Institute, have been instructed to move into the new hospitals. T h e agreement between the University and the Department of Public Welfare provides that the professional staff in charge of the work of the hospitals shall be drawn from the medical faculty of the University of Illinois. T h e heads of these two divisions of work are not appointed as such because of their connection with the faculty of the University of Illinois. It is necessary, then, for us to know whether the Director of Public Welfare can, under the agreement or in spite of it, put into this hospital lines of work in charge of people other than our professors of medicine. It seems to m e that if he can do so conditions likely to lead to friction are at once established. Moreover, w e do not know what our rights or privileges are. I call your attention to the fact that the present Director of Public Welfare has informed m e that he does not regard himself as bound by this agreement—the act of his predecessor. Y o u will recall that soon after the present head of the Department came into office objection was made to the inclusion of the Illinois Charitable Eye and Ear Hospital in this group of Research and Educational Hospitals, although it was one of the group of hospitals specifically mentioned in the agreement and although appropriations had been made for the purpose of erecting a building for this hospital. A s you know, the separate appropriations were finally pooled, including the University appropriation of $300,000 for a clinical building and its later appropriation of $500,000 for a research laboratory and library. W e acquiesced in the oral proposal to omit the Eye and Ear Hospital (Minutes, April 12, 1922, page 187), but have never had in writing the acquiescence of the Head of the Department of Public Welfare. It is evident that if two divisions of work whose staffs are independent of the University m a y be introduced into these hospitals, three m a y be so introduced, or four, or any number, and the agreement that the staff of these hospitals shall be drawn from the medical faculty of the University becomes of no effect. That will be a serious matter for the University College of Medicine. Therefore, I feel it m y duty to lay the matter before you, to inform you that I have been unable to get a definite assurance of the exact relationship between the University and the Department of Public Welfare in connection with these hospitals and to ask, therefore, for ceived from Deanthis connection Ihe callscall your attention to a letter recently reinstructions. In Davis in which would attention to the need for a larger number