Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1916 [PAGE 159]

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1914]

PROCEEDIKGS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES.

159

The water analyses have been made by the Water Survey of the State under a cooperative arrangement by which the products of the work are available to both parties. * Other chemical determinations have been made at State Laboratory expense in the chemical laboratories of the University. The biological station houseboat, or floating laboratory, which is the portable headquarters of all our Illinois River work, was rebuilt during the last winter at the expense of the University of Illinois, to which this property actually belongs. Our equipment for field work is consequently now in excellent condition. At Urbana an important work has been in progress, in the determination and incorporation of large additions to our extensive insect collections, and a complete reorganization of the Whole to bring it up to date. The time of the systematic entomologist of the Laboratory, Mr. C. A. Hart, is virtually all given to this work. Our very large recent collections of aquatic animals and plants from the Illinois River region are an important addition to the permanent collections of the Laboratory, available not only for our own present studies but for detailed work by others for many years to come. One family of insects (Chironomidae) whose aquatic larvae are particularly important as an element in the food of fishes, has been thoroughly worked up, and a monograph on the family prepared for publication by Mr. J. R. MaUoch, an expert in this Department of Entomology, now permanently on my staff. I have also improved the opportunity of establishing a new laboratory for exact research on aquatic animals at the University, where a newly appointed Professor of Animal Ecology has been engaged for part-time service on the State Laboratory staff in an investigation of special subjects requiring a fixed equipment of complex apparatus. He is now at work on the precise effects of contaminations due to gashouse wastes upon the various species of fishes exposed to them in our principal streams. Many subjects are now opened to us for the first time by the establishment of this new laboratory. There are also several important matters already in hand requiring further field work for their completion, and an active investigation of new problems must consequently be continued during the coming two years. Our field and experimental work having now run far ahead of our report manuscripts, it is my intention to give the greater part of the time available during the coming year to the preparation and publication of bulletins making the results of our studies available to those interested. There is, in fact, in my hands a great accumulation of materials in various stages of preparation for publication, much of it obtained many years ago; and I would like it if my employments and responsibilities might be so adjusted that I could bring these matters to the point of final report and publication without further delay. Respectfully yours,

This report was received for record.

STEPHEN A. FORBES.

LITIGATION AGAINST THE UNIVERSITY. (5) A communication from Judge O. A. Harker, Counsel for the University, stating the present situation in regard to certain cases against the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, pending and undetermined in the courts. November £5, 19U. To President James and the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois: As Legal Counsel of the University, I beg leave to submit the following report as to cases against the Board of Trustees pending and undetermined in the courts:

WALTER J. NORTH, ADMINISTRATOR OF THE ESTATE OF JAMES W. NORTH, DECEASED v. T H E BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

This case was brought before the Illinois Industrial Board under the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1913, to recover for the death of James W. North, which occurred on the 5th of December, 1913, by his falling through an elevator shaftway, at the College of Medicine, Chicago. North was employed as curator at a salary of $70 per month. The University denied its liability on the ground that North's death was attributable to no negligence of the University, and because the University had not elected to come under the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act. Upon the hearing, counsel for the respondent moved to dismiss the case upon the ground that the University was without the provisions of the act, never having so elected. The motion was overruled, and decision entered against the Board of Trustees requiring it to pay the representatives of the deceased $8.08 per week, commencing December 5, 1913, and continuing until such payments aggregate $3,360. Application was at once made to have the cause reviewed by the Supreme Court upon a writ of certiorari. The writ was obtained, but it cannot now be reviewed in that method because the Supreme Court has recently decided in another case that the provision of the act authorizing a review by certorari in that court is unconstitutional. We were therefore compelled to apply to the Circuit Court of Cook County for the writ, and the cause is there pending. If that court should decide against us, a writ of error will be prosecuted to the Supreme Court. It is highly important that this should be done because of the uncertainty concerning certain provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act and the desirability of having the Supreme Court decide whether we are within its provisions without filing election to be within it.

MARIE SEEBACH V. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

This is a suit pending in the Circuit Court of Champaign County brought by the plaintiff, a former student, who was dropped from the University for poor scholarship. It is an ex contractu action in which she complains of the refusal of the University authorities to allow her to continue as a student, and she seeks