Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1930 [PAGE 52]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1928]

UNIVERSITY O F ILLINOIS

49

of $60,000, due in 1932. I a m advised that the land alone on which the building stands is doubtless worth that amount. O u r Chemical Laboratory is crowded to overflowing, and w e shall need relief within the next two years. A n annex can be erected south of the present building. T h e need for the addition to the physical plant is so obvious as to require little comment. W e cannot operate without heat and light, and our present equipment is taxed to the limit. T h e University water varies in color from the ordinary color of water to red and inky black from the vegetable and other m a terials in it. T o make it palatable and to make it more usable for sundry scientific and engineering purposes, it needs to be filtered. Moreover, w e need an additional well, both for fire protection and a larger water supply. For years the College of Agriculture has been asking for the completion of the cattle feeding plant and an Agronomy Seed House. These are estimated at $75,000 and $40,000 respectively. A W o m a n ' s Gymnasium has become a pressing need. T h e W o m a n ' s Building is overcrowded, and the young w o m e n do not have opportunities for physical education and the upbuilding of their physical condition equal to those of the young men. This work should be taken out of the W o m a n ' s Building and put in a new building over in the vicinity of the Residence Halls and the W o m a n ' s Athletic Field. If the above are, as I think they arc, our most pressing needs, the amount required to supply them will be $1,000,000 out of our $10,500,000 appropriated, and a supplementary emergency appropriation of $1,500,000 will be necessary for the buildings proposed for the Chicago Departments. While I a m not much impressed with requests for new buildings in order to have more attractive quarters or because other universities have such and such buildings, w e cannot ignore altogether comparison with other institutions in this respect, for the reason that the facilities offered students determine whether students will come and also are part of the basis of rating the work of the institution. It is proper, therefore, to give some consideration to the facilities provided by other institutions. Considered from this point of view, great as our progress has been, it has been much less than that of several of our sister state institutions. This is particularly true if w e include the gifts and appropriations for these institutions. For example, during the past six or seven years the University of Michigan has received as gifts $2,647,850 for buildings and other capital purposes, while at the same time the Legislature has appropriated $11,750,000. This does not include the appropriations to the Michigan Agricultural College which must be added in order to m a k e a proper comparison with our appropriations for buildings and capital purposes. These appropriations since 1921 have aggregated $3,664,250, making the total appropriations and gifts for the work in agriculture and the rest of the University in Michigan $18,062,100 as against appropriations of $7,500,000 and gifts of $1,805,000 for Illinois, or a total of $9,305,000. In the same period the University of Minnesota has had $8,824,371. Iowa University and Iowa State College, the College of Agriculture, together have had $7454,576 in appropriations and $2,318,000 in gifts, a total of $9,772,576. California might also be cited as well as several of the endowed universities. O n deciding on the amount which it seems well to ask for our Medical and Dental Buildings, w e are bound to take into consideration what other states and other universities are doing in these lines. Moreover, it would be worse than useless to appropriate money for these purposes unless the amount were adequate to give us an equipment first-class in character. The State of Illinois cannot afford to do these things on a scale so small that the provisions would be unproductive of results of thefirstimportance. The State of Iowa, three or $5,000,000. cost, includingplant land, hospitalabout totale cost the supplement a over aggregate n Northwesternerection I ofmedical $4,500,000.University of $5,000,000; great years has medical the and ofrecall,has buildings, medicalfacilities of atgift erecting a ago, for the University at erectedaddition to buildings four of that amount appropriated, as four hospitals. expended $2,670,000 andleast in $2,500,000 exceeding Chicago an Minnesota e w Michigan has spent has at a T h w making a total $5,900,000. n e is