Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1944 [PAGE 1050]

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U N I V E R S I T Y OF I L L I N O I S

1047

prerogative at its discretion although very infrequently. But when it has occurred, the Board has not substituted an appointee of its own choice, but has most appropriately merely declined to approve and requested the President to make another recommendation. It is to be especially noted that there seems to have been a meticulous observance of proper procedure in cases where members of the Board of Trustees and the President of the University have been approached, as it is inevitable that they would be, to use their influence to secure the appointment of persons not already on its staff to positions in the University. In such cases the uniform procedure seems to have been to refer such applications to the same officers who would have originally considered the appointment had the applications been initiated within the University, and to inform the parties presenting the names that such references had been made and that the individuals would be considered solely on their merits, and by the appropriate officials. The present procedures in the respects above narrated are thoroughly consistent with historical precedent obtaining at the University of Illinois. This summary indicates that the University has gone through a major struggle, resulting in the establishment of the idea that the appropriate officers within the University should determine what its educational policy should be. It is the opinion of the Commission that if attempts political in character have been made to determine or modify educational policies or staff appointments at the University of Illinois since 1934, such attempts have made no headway whatever and, further, that they have not met with any support from the Board of Trustees or from the university administration. RELATIONSHIP OF THE UNIVERSITY TO THE STATE CIVIL SERVICE Faculty members are not the only personnel in a university in whom politicians may be interested. The large number of nonacademic employees on the payroll of a university may be a source of political patronage. Under "An Act to regulate the civil service of the State of Illinois" approved May 11,

[A.C.E. Report —29]