Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1904 [PAGE 263]

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1903.]

PBOOEEDINGS OF THE BOABD OF TRUSTEES.

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3. That in view of the marked prominence of our College of Engineering among the technological schools of the country, this liberal appropriation should p u t the College, in some lines a t least, a t the very top of the list and distinguish it in all the land. 4. That we should take some distinctive step which might lead to large results; that we should originate some decisive movement which would date from this decisive appropriation and always be recognized as having proceeded from it. 5. That we should even aim to advance engineering teaching in the world by studying the wide field and taking up such problems in advanced research and investigation as promise to give aid to the constructive energy and inventive genius of the world. 6. That we should lay foundations to command the approval of the legislature and proceed far enough to have our work ready for inspection and to be able to justify more help at the next session. All this has been laid before and discussed thoroughly with the chiefs of our engineering departments. I t was much to expect one whose work and enthusiasm is necessarily largely centered in a single department to rise to the broad and high plane of the problems before us, and favor the policies which would assure essential ends whether the conclusions promised to magnify the importance of his own department or not, but this has been done by our engineering professors in very considerable measure. The conclusions of their joint conferences are set forth in a letter from Dean Bicker herewith submitted. The conclusions are, generally and briefly: 1. That $30,000 be alloted for department equipments for undergraduate instruction. 2. That the nucleus of a State Engineering Experiment Station be established. 3. That the metal-working shops must be extended or another building must be erected to provide for larger accommodations for the foundry and the smith shop. 4. That the paramount claim for apparatus and appliances in the interest of advanced work is (a) for a steam laboratory and its equipment and that this requires a separate building which must be erected; (b) that the Laboratory of Applied Mechanics has the next claim for apparatus and already has sufficient space; (c) and that the development of a road laboratory for testing road and paving materials comes next in order. With the essential points I am in accord. Indeed, as already suggested, they have in the main been worked out between us. I have not much sympathy with the proposition to establish a laboratory for testing road material separately from our general laboratory for testing all materials. I should differ with Dean Bicker's recommendations somewhat, in the allotment of funds to the separate departments for the purchase of apparatus which will be classified with the work of the Engineering Experiment Station. From the nature of their work, some of the departments can have very little association with the investigational operations of the Experiment Station. A relatively small amount of money would put some departments in a higher state of efficiency than a relatively large amount would others. I think the cost of new buildings, which are necessary, should be taken out before an allotment is made. The purchase of some land is not referred to in the letter submitted, but has been considred and we are agreed as to the desirability of it. Eor some time it has been the common thought that the University should ultimately own all the land bounded by Green street, Mathews avenue, and Springfield avenue. We cannot carry out our plans in the enlargement of the equipment of the Engineering College without the erection of a building for the Steam Laboratory, and, if this is done it must obviously be done on the strip of ground formerly used by the Street Bailway Company, or upon land to be purchased and lying east of the Central Heating Plant, or in p a r t upon each of such parcels of land. I t is the common belief that the interests we are discussing