Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1918 [PAGE 186]

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182

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[December 14,

ter may, on application, be recommended for their degree at the February meeting of the Senate. 2. T h a t students who are to complete their work for the bachelor's degree in the Summer Session, and who register in advance of the June meeting of the Senate for specified courses in that session which complete the requirements in their cases, may be recommended at the June meeting, subject to the successful completion of the specified courses in the Summer Session. 3. That students who complete their work at the end of the Summer Session may, on application, be recommended at the October meeting of the Senate. 4. That all graduates be ranked as of the class of the calendar year in which their degrees were conferred, i. e., students who receive their diplomas in August or October, with the class of the preceding June, and those who receive their diplomas in February, with the class of the following June. A special committee of the Council which formulated the above recommendations presented the following statement in regard to the m a t t e r : A student who completes his work in August or in February can hardly be expected to take much interest in a commencement ceremony for which he must wait ten months or four months, as the case may be. It is generally difficult and frequently impossible for such students to leave their new work out in the world to return for this ceremony. Many of them have to be excused from returning and thus receive their diplomas after all only by mail from the Registrar. Moreover, under the rapidly spreading legislation requiring college degrees for certificates of eligibility to teach in high, schools, the lack of the formally conferred degree is frequently a real handicap. Last summer one of our men actually lost an unusually good teaching position in New Jersey in spite of repeated and most explicit statements from the Registrar that he had completed all the requirements for the degree and would receive his diploma at the next Commencement without further work of any sort on his part. In one or two other cases a similar result has been averted with difficulty. The number of such cases may be expected to increase. There is nothing in the organic act or in the University Statutes to limit the time of conferring degrees to the end of the academic year in June. It is necessary, of course, to observe the provision of law that the degrees are to be conferred "on recommendation of a majority of the faculty." Sincerely yours,

C. M. MCCONN

Clerk

of the

Senate

On motion of Mr. Carr, this recommendation was approved, to take effect immediately.

H E A L T H SERVICE (6) A report from Dr. J. H o w a r d Beard, University Health Officer, that he had received 940 visits at his office during the month of November, and a total of over two thousand since registration. About ten or twelve