Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1914 [PAGE 68]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

66

LAND

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

FOR EXPERIMENTAL FIELDS.

[July 5,

(7) A communication from Professor C. G. Hopkins, enclosing three deeds of land for experimental fields: . „ #j x (a) A deed from Asa Hixley and wife, conveying to the University twenty-four acres in Edwards County, on the west end of the south half of the northeast quarter of section eighteen (18), township one (1) north, range eleven (11), east. (b) A deed from Emma Sconce, Harvey J. Sconce, and Fannie F. Sconce, conveying to the University twenty acres in Vermilion County, which include a part of the east half of the southeast quarter of section twenty-two (22), township seventeen (17) north, range thirteen (13) west. _. _ . .. (c) A deed from Gertrude C. Nation, conveying to the trustees of the Enfield Experiment Station fund twenty acres of land in White County, situated on the east half of the northeast quarter of the southeast quarter of section nine (9), township five (5) south, range eight (8) east; accompanied by a deed from the trustees of the Enfield Experiment Station fund, conveying the said land to the University.

It was voted that this communication should be referred to the Committee on Agriculture for consideration. and report.

THE BUDGET FOR 1913-1915: BUILDINGS.

(8) A statement from the president of the University in regard to the needs of the institution in the matter of new buildings, for consideration in connection with the plans for the next biennial budget.

This communication was received for record.

Following the presentation at the last meeting of the board concerning the imperative need of an adequate library at the University, I desire to call attention here to some further subjects which must be considered carefully by the board in making r up their next biennial budget. . .„ ° u Present Chemical Laboratory is crowded practically to the limit, and it will be necessary, if the University is to meet the conditions at all, to make a large addition to the present building. The members of the staff in the Chemical Department have been working for some two years on the elaboration of a satisfactory addition to be built on the east of the present building. This addition will cost, with its equipment, $375,000. With this sum a fireproof building, corresponding in general style and appearance to the present, though not containing so many cubic feet of space, can be built east of the present building, leaving a court in the center partially occupied by the present lecture-room. The number of students taking chemistry at the University of Illinois has increased very largely within the past few years. This has come about for several reasons. First of all, it is owing to the rapid increase in general attendance at the University; the demand for chemistry is of course a steadily increasing one, keeping at least equal pace with the growth in the number of students. But the demand for chemical instruction has outrun the increase in the number of students. The Engineering College at one time did not require chemistry from all the students in that college. It has now practically made this subject a required one, and, consequently, every additional engineering student means an additional student of chemistry. It means that more laboratory space must be provided, more equipment, and more instruction. In the same way the Agricultural College has practically made chemistry a required study, and by removing it from the upper years to the lower has increased very much the number of students in chemistry, owing to the fact that the lower classes are uniformly so much larger than the upper classes. Every additional agricultural student means practically an additional student in chemistry. Again, the establishment of the Department of Ceramics, in the curriculum of which chemistry plays a fundamental part, has made largely increased demands upon the Department of Chemistry for additional laboratory space, additional equipment, and additional instruction. I do not know that any department furnishes a better illustration of the unsatisfactory basis on which our present budget is made out. We have gone to the Legislature for large special appropriations for the Agricultural College. We have gone to the Legislature for large additional appropriations for the Engineering College. We have gone to the Legislature for an appropriation to establish and support the School of Ceramics, etc. Each one of these departments in its growth makes, as has been seen, heavy demands upon the Department of Chemistry. But we have not succeeded in obtaining corresponding appropriations for the Department of Chemistry. In fact. the special appropriation of ten thousand dollars per annum is ridiculously inadequate to meet the expense of a department which has more than 1,200 students enrolled. I think there is no doubt that one of the buildings which the University* ought to ask from the next Legislature—and ought to put if not first in the list, at least so high up in the list as surely to secure the necessary grant—is the addition to the Chemical Laboratory, with the equipment and furnishings which must necessarily go with it. Four hundred thousand dollars would be, in my opinion, a reasonable sum to ask for this purpose. The University of Minnesota has just accepted plans for a Chemical Laboratory, which will cost when completed more than $600,000. What I have said of the Department of Chemistry is equally true of two other important departments, though the pressure has not shown itself in such a decided way, namely zoology and botany. These are fundamental subjects in the College