Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1944 [PAGE 1060]

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

I057

Turning our attention now to these curricula alone, we find that certain changes have been made in liberal arts during the period under consideration. The general curriculum (as distinguished from the curriculum of the General Division of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences) has remained practically unchanged since 1913. The premedical curriculum which is administered by a special faculty committee was extensively revised in 1937 and the curriculum in chemical engineering in 1938. There have been three or four revisions in the curriculum in chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences over the past fifteen years. In 1939 a social administration curriculum was established and finally in 1940 the General Division with its own special curriculum was opened to students. One of the fundamental difficulties encountered in American universities today is also found at the University of Illinois. Over 60 percent of the students who enter a large state university fail, for one reason or another, to obtain a bachelor's degree. At the same time it must be remembered that our higher institutions are young, and that many have been and many still are attempting to attain the status of a true university. The University of Illinois has been successful in its evolution from an industrial college to a state agricultural and mechanical college, then to a liberal arts college, and finally to an institution of university character. But the institution has failed to provide for the changing social and educational needs of its undergraduate students, and one of the outstanding reasons is that the University has concentrated on the development of research, scholarly production, and graduate instruction. Had the institution not such a large number of undergraduate students, so large a percentage of whom do not go on to graduate work, it could base its reputation solely on its graduate and professional programs both of which have achieved distinction. It may be that the trend toward a separation of what is now considered the first two years in college in our higher institutions should be hastened administratively. In planning for a postwar America consideration should be given to the diversion of that group of poor risks (from the point of view of graduation from established courses of study) to schools

[A.C.E. Report—39]