Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1930 [PAGE 51]

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48

B O A R D OF TRUSTEES

[October 13

T h e aggregate amount necessary to erect these buildings—and these are not all that are suggested—would exceed $8,000,000, an amount which, as I have already remarked, exceeds what w e could get if w e asked for it and what w e should ask for if w e could get it. For the appropriation of such an amount in a single biennium would mean a far heavier burden of taxation for our purposes, than, in m y judgment, w e would have any moral right to propose. However, it is possible to group these various proposed buildings according to the intensity of our immediate need for them. W e must try to supply what w e m a y call our "bread and butter needs" first. B y these words, I mean the buildings without which the work of the University cannot be efficiently carried on. W e are bound to ask for those and leave it to the judgment of the Legislature whether it can furnish sufficient money to erect them. It is m y opinion that the University should aim at a stabilized, approximately permanent budget. W e cannot go on adding new buildings and new work indefinitely. There must be a "supply" of operating means, including staff and material equipment, which m a y be called sufficient to satisfy the normal "demand" for teaching and research. This should continue from year to year expanding under ordinary conditions and only to care for increasing numbers and to take over occasional important new problems of research. Our budget needs are to be determined not by the gross annual enrollment of the University but by the peak load of enrollment. This comes in the first semester of each year. If w e have sufficient means to care for this number of students in one semester, w e can care for the same number in the second semester, and possibly also in the S u m m e r Session; but the enrollment in the second semester seldom equals that of thefirstsemester, and that of the Summer Session, of course, never does. While our gross enrollment for the year has run up to 14000 or more, the peak load enrollment is 2,000 or more less than that, and shows an annual increase of about 425. However, there have been years when this annual addition was much exceeded. For example, in 1923 the addition was nearly 1,000, and in 1919, under immediate post-war conditions, it was nearly 2,500. I a m speaking of peak load figures only. T h e number of graduates from four-year Illinois high schools has increased between 1925 and 1927 by more than 4,000. But the number for 1927 was approximately the same as that for 1926. W e get about nine or ten per cent of the graduates of the four-year Illinois high schools from year to year. T h e probability is that there will not be a great increase in the next three or four years over that of the past five. After considering all the proposals in consultation with Comptroller Morey and Professor White, I have come to the conclusion that the most pressing buildings needs are for the Chicago Departments of Medicine and Dentistry, for an annex to the Chemical Laboratory, for a Gymnasium for W o m e n , and the necessary addition to the Physical Plant. Professor White, after frequent conferences with the Chicago Deans concerned, has reached the conclusion that to furnish a complete building and equipment for Medicine and Dentistry, in accordance with modern needs and standards, would require $3,000,000 or more; but that certain divisions or units of the buildings can be put up as w e have erected our new Library Building, these divisions or units being determined by the departments of work which can be transferred from the present old buildings to a new building without impairing the unity of the work of the colleges. H e advises me, therefore, that $1,500,000 should be the amount asked for, because that amount will furnish building facilities sufficient to care for the laboratory, classroom, and office work of divisions which can thus be set apart. They are probably anatomy, chemistry, physiology, and pharmacology. That the College of Medicine particularly needs more facilities is shown, apart from all other considerations, by the fact that for five or six years n o w dents capable should is torememberedhaveyearDentalany mortgage the50hto need stucountry. facilities increased It unablethe worst building used to is Building has on Tthis building w e ahave been of Yearbevery evident. thathad thehnumber wasfrom been edescribed, I" m informed, being by admit w eThis for admission. as admitted.all applicants by turn away 159. requirements year, Our there o a college of dentistry in for w could meet 100 the