Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1986 [PAGE 340]

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1985]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

329

crements of $1 million for the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences at both campuses, and with more than $600,000 for minority student retention and recruitment activities. A summary of all major program funds follows. — $3.25 million for continued support of the Engineering Revitalization Program to add staff members and equipment, permitting the Colleges of Engineering at both campuses to continue with their plans for enrollment growth. The Office of Advanced Engineering Studies will be able to expand its continuing and professional education activities in Rockford and elsewhere in the state. — $2.5 million to strengthen basic education programs at the University and secondary-school levels. $1 million will be available to the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences at both campuses to add critically needed staff and equipment and to reduce class sizes in many areas. The University will also expand its efforts to improve secondary education in mathematics, writing, and foreign languages through teacher workshops, inservice training, and other areas. — Approximately $1.5 million is available to expand and improve professional education in the areas of veterinary medicine, commerce and business administration, gerontology, nursing, pharmacy, medicine, and agriculture. A new effort to examine ways to curb growing medical costs will also be started. — $1 million is provided for scientific and technological advances in biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and academic computing. — $1.2 million is available to match National Science Foundation grants for the Center for Supercomputing Applications and other private gifts of computer equipment. •— More than $600,000 is available to expand minority student retention and recruitment programs at both campuses, with a portion of the funds targeted on special efforts for engineering students in Chicago and for the Principal's Scholars Program in Urbana-Champaign. — $300,000 to expand current equipment-replacement funds. Although the funds were appropriated in the capital budget legislation, one of the most critically important program elements to be funded for FY 1986 is the Repair and Renovation Program within the Build Illinois initiative. The University of Illinois will receive $7.8 million to begin crucial renovations, particularly in our science and engineering laboratories. These improvements will have an immediate and direct impact on both the scope and type of University research and instructional activities. The University also received significant capital appropriations for a number of especially important individual projects. Including the Repair and Renovation Program, the University received $47 million in new capital initiatives, now awaiting the governor's signature. That figure represents the largest University appropriation for capital funds since FY 1976, when a special appropriation for a new University Hospital was enacted. The FY 1986 capital appropriation is the largest for academic facilities since the construction of the Chicago campus in the 1960's. Capital appropriations for FY 1986 come from two sources: normal funding through the Capital Development Fund and a special new initiative, Build Illinois. Designed as a program to enhance the State's economic base and to attract new commerce and industry, Build Illinois provides explicit recognition that the University of Illinois can be a key partner in those economic recovery initiatives. University projects within the Build Illinois program include: — Urbana Microelectronics Research Center: $10 million