Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1904 [PAGE 331]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1903.]

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES,

COLLEGE OF DENTAL SURGERY.

307

The following refutation of misstatements, made with regard to the movement to affiliate the College of Dental Surgery with the University of Illinois, was presented for record:

In view of mistaken and misleading statements from officers or stockholders of the Chicago College of Dental Surgery concerning the failure of the movement to affiliate that institution with the University of Illinois, I respond to a request that I shall state the facts as I recollect them. The first overture concerning the proposed affiliation came from the Dental College. We said we had no desire to take over any other professional school unless in the clear interest of professional education, and that we could take no school which was not more than self-supporting. Upon this general understanding we made such examination of the affairs of the Dental College as was practicable, and discussed details patiently and at length. An agreement was finally reached upon all matters. This was put in writing, read at a joint meeting and unanimously assented to. Later it was put in more perfect form and after ample delay was duly and solemnly executed. The one important factor about which any uncertainty could arise, because the information about it was wholly within the knowledge of the Dental College, was the amount of the floating indebtedness of that institution. They said it was just about $25,000 and the written agreement set forth that amount, provided for meeting it, and declared that any indebtedness beyond that sum should be paid by the College of Dental Surgery. When the agreement went into operation it was disclosed that instead of the debts being $25,000 they amounted to $48,000. Moreover, the officers of the institution refused to pay the difference and insisted that the University should shoulder the whole amount. This was by no means all. The agreement had set forth that all moneys received or to be received by the Dental College for instruction this year should be turned over to the University. At the end of the first month, and upon our requesting the payment of so much of these moneys as had been received, it was disclosed that practically all, amounting to nearly $30,000, had been wrongfully used to pay old debts or otherwise, and could not be paid to us as had been agreed. These two disclosures were of great importance and demanded serious steps at once. The Dental College was therefore notified that no more than $25,000 of indebtedness would be recognized and that the officers of the institution would be held responsible officially and personally for any use of misapplication of moneys which belonged to the University under the contract. This led three or four of the officers of the Dental College to come to the University to a meeting of the Board of Trustees. The statement that I declined to respond to their request that I should meet them at a hotel late in the evening is true. The personal reasons for this were ample, and beyond these personal reasons I desired conference with the University trustees before seeing the Dental people. At the meeting with the trustees some concessions were made and a supplemental agreement was arrived at which was put in writing and which the officers of the Dental College, contrary to their assurances, refused to execute. Then one of the stockholders of the Dental College, who had been present at all of the conferences and had assented to all the conclusions raised the technical objection that their President had signed the original contract, not without their knowledge and approval but without the adoption of a resolution of authorization at a regular meeting. This was like pleading infancy. It was conclusive proof, if it had not been already supplied, that the University could not safely have relations with the management of the Dental College, and we therefore consented to the entry of an order in Court annulling the contract. There are one or two other things possibly worth mentioning. For example, there came into the hands of the Business Manager of the University something like $6,800— if I remember the sum correctly—of Dental moneys and he paid out, for current expenses of the Dental College all of this but a sum in the neighborhood of $1,000. The Dental people demanded the repayment to them of this balance. The University had been put to legal expenses and traveling expenses of its officers amounting to about the same sum, and as the whole movement had failed through the culpability of the officers of the Dental College, the trustees of the University thought this balance should be used to pay this expense, and directed the Business Manager to retain it. The statement that the University has no legal right to affiliate an institution in Chicago is erroneous. Although no specific authorization is necessary, the original charter of the University expressly recognizes the right of the University to maintain branches anywhere in the state. Acting upon this authority the University has affiliated or established certain professional departments in Chicago. The occasion for doing this in Chicago was because there were large numbers of students there to be accommodated, because these -departments required facilities which existed there and not elsewhere in the State, and because the State of Illinois was bound to give its aid and guidance to the uplifting of professional education at the great center of American professional education