Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1892 [PAGE 77]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

80

UNIVERSITY O F ILLINOIS.

The Finance Committee made the following report which was adopted on motion of Mr. Morgan:

To the Board of Trustees oj the University of Illinois. GENTLEMEN: Your Finance Committee reports t h a t it has examined the report of John W. Bunn, treasurer, for the quarter ending March 1, 1891, and rinds it correct, and t h a t there are funds in the hands of the treasurer amounting to $16,208.09. Eespectfully submitted,

The following minute was made with regard t o t h e s t u d e n t s ' petition and the subjects t o which it related, and the Secretary was instructed t o give a copy of it t o the F a c u l t y and a n o t h e r copy t o the committee of the students.

In the matter of the petition, or protest, tiled by a committee appointed by a number of the students of the University, setting forth certain grievances and asking relief therefrom, the papers were taken up by the Board in response to said request, and, due notice having been previously given to said committee of students and they being then present, the matters of difference were thereupon formally presented and considered. Whereupon said committee of students presented their case in regular form as to the issues joined therein. The Regent, together with the Yice-President of the Faculty, the cleans of the faculties of the several Colleges of the University, and Professor Sbattuck, made a statement touching the matters in controversy. And thereupon the Board of Trustees, after careful investigation, and being fully advised in the premises found as follows: 1. T h a t the joint resignations, as set forth in the complaint, were presented to the Regent, but that, time being limited, the matter could not be immediately considered in a proper manner by the Regent and the Faculty. T h a t the students, acting immediately upon said resignations, thereby caused, unintentionally, the confusion which ensued thereafter. In view of these facts, we And that it was impossible to adjust properly or to consider the same; and we therefore deem t h a t the resignations were not submitted in proper form or time for official action. 2. We also rind t h a t students Steele and Pasfield were suspended in proper form and at a regular meeting of the Faculty, and t h a t due notice of this action was given to the said students; and t h a t said action of said Faculty is still unrescinded by them and stands upon their records. Now in view of the circumstances surrounding the matters of dispute, and after a full investigation of the facts as presented, we find t h a t the "rules for the government of students of the University" have been enforced with reasonable uniformity, and impartially by the Faculty. We also find t h a t the rules aforesaid were not generally known or understood by the students. We therefore consider their action more the result of ignorance of said rules than of a vicious desire to violate any law of the University; and t h a t this is, in a great measure, a mitigation of the offense. We feel it our duty to state t h a t the Faculty, so far as we can ascertain from an examination of their records, acted in good faith and in accordance with the rules and regulations issued by authority of the Trustees. We therefore deem it proper to state that, so far as we can ascertain, the complications alluded to in said petition were the result, in a large measure, of an imperfect knowledge of the rules aforesaid and not of a desire to violate any known laws of the University.