Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1916 [PAGE 126]

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126

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

[Sept. 11,

field, makes the State Leader the man of influence from the first. I am, therefore, recommending that this place be filled by a competent man, who should also be acting Vice Director, postponing the election of a separate Vice Director until some future date. We have discussed a t great length the man best fitted for this position. We all agree that the man should have training in economics rather than that he should be a technician in any of the many branches of agricultural practice. Thia narrows the field at once amazingly, and it is not too much to say that it is impossible to find an ideal man. There are few in the United States fully fitted for this most difficult work and they are not available. On the principal of safety first, and with all the qualifications practicable to secure, we all agree that the best man to put into this critical position at this juncture is our Prof. Handschin. He has the best training in economics of any one at all available and has the advantage of being on the ground and knowing Illinois conditions. He is. in thorough sympathy with the University's ideals and purposes, and is a mature man of unusual discretion, besides having had extensive and successful practice in actual farming. Those who know him best, believe much in his organizing ability, and if he is made acting Vice Director the opportunity still remains for filling the place of highest influence if a better man can be found later, of which, however, I have little hope. Prof. Handschin is not a candidate for the position but he will take it if he is appointed because of his interest in the general field of agricultural economics, and his desire that the whole Lever work should be so conducted as to Contribute to our knowledge of the economics of farm practices. I. therefore, recommend that Prof. Walter Frederick Handschin be appointed State Leader and acting Vice Director of the Lever Extension Fund, beginning October 1, 1914, or sooner if possible, at the rate of $3,000 per year, with the understanding that the Department of Agriculture will pay $2,000 of'it, the University to pay the other $i,000, together with $1,000 of traveling expenses. In making this recommendation, I desire to qualify it so that, if possible, it may be arranged for Prof. Handschin to devote one-fourth of his time to his present work in farm management, if not that he should give all his time to the county advisory work. The Department of Agriculture believes that as soon as the number of counties have reached the neighborhood of fifteen, the State Leader should have an assistant. Inasmuch as we shall have seventeen counties upon our hands the coming year, and inasmuch as we hope to make arrangements so that Prof. Handschin may devote perhaps one-fourth of his' time to teaching, I recommend that the appointment of an assistant be authorized, appointment to take place when the suitable candidate shall be found. As the work of this assistant would be thrown somewhat with county agents, who are themselves mature and experienced men, and somewhat with counties still in the earlier stages of organization, it is clear that this man should be no boy, and I should' like to recommend that we be able to pay him a salary of from $1,800 to $2,000 per year. In order to undertake the farm management demonstration work in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture, I recommend that the President be authorized to appoint such demonstrator on the "half and half" basis as indicated above, and as soon as a suitable man can be found. For the purpose of giving definiteness to the management of the demonstration work in household science, I recommend that Miss Mamie Bunch be appointed State Leader in household economics demonstration, on part time, and that $1,000 of her salary be charged to the Lever Funds.

On the recommendation of President James and on motion of Superintendent Blair, the recommendations outlined above were approved, to be put into effect when the funds appropriated under the Smith-Lever Bill come into the hands of the University.

LEGISLATIVE BUDGET COMMITTEE. (12) A statement that the Legislative Reference Bureau had demanded that the University should submit a budget in detail under the law passed by the last Legislature requiring the departments of the State Government to submit such budgets. I have called the attention of the board in charge of the Legislative Reference Bureau to the fact that the University of Illinois has never been included under the head of "a department of the State Government," although it is, of course, clearly a State institution. I have also called the attention of the board to the fact that the Trustees have never submitted a budget of the sort asked for. and would find it difficult to do so under the circumstances under which the University must work. The policy of the University has been to ask the Legislature for funds, and, after it has known what the grants are, to proceed to make a budget upon the basis of the money granted. I also stated that the Trustees would ask for the appropriation of the proceeds of the Mill Tax Fund, and that t.h^v would make their budget upon the basis of the sum which this tax would vield.

This matter was discussed and the attitude of the President was approved.

THE NEED OF A UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL. (13) A statement concerning the necessity of a University hospital. It is perfectly apparent that no medical school worth the name can be conducted without a teaching hospital as ope of its fundamental departments, At