Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1982 [PAGE 358]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1981]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

347

terest, copies of which were distributed at the meeting, and a copy was filed with the secretary of the board.

OLD AND NEW BUSINESS South African Investments

Mrs. Shepherd made the following statement and motion which were unanimously approved:

As you will recall, the trustees asked Mr. Brady to reply to a lengthy inquiry from the Champaign-Urbana Coalition Against Apartheid and he did so in a letter of June 23. At a meeting of the Finance Committee on July 16, I asked the committee to accept the letter as a reflection of policy and by consensus the committee did so. I now move that the board endorse the letter as a matter of board policy; that the board approve the "enhancement" of policy as described in the letter; and thai the board approve the plan suggested for periodic meetings of the appropriate administrative officers with representatives of the coalition.

Re-siting of the Taft House

(2) The board then considered on referral from the Committee on Buildings and Grounds: the recommendation to preserve and to relocate the Taft House presently at 601 East John Street. The recommendation was as follows: Re-siting of the House Located a t 601 East John Street, Urbana-Champaign Campus On March 19, 1981, the Buildings and Grounds Committee approved a site at the southeast corner of Sixth and John Streets, Champaign, for the Campus Administration Building, which will be constructed with gifts to the University of Illinois Foundation from Mrs. Maybelle Swanlund. The location (601 East John Street) is the site of a house which was the residence (from 1872 to 1884) of Lorado Taft, internationally known sculptor and art lecturer. Mr. Taft was the sculptor of the University's Alma Mater statue. The house has been considered to have historical significance as the result of its occupant and is one of the few remaining structures in the community representative of midwestern residential architecture of the 1870's. It is recommended that the home be preserved by the University through continued adaptive use and that it be moved to a new site which will not be required for academic or administrative facilities expansion. The sites studied for re-siting the house included the northeast corner of Fifth and Chalmers Streets, a site south of the Speech and Hearing Clinic, and a site at the north end of the equally historic Mini Grove. It is the recommendation of the campus and the University site committees that the house be moved to the northeast comer of the Mini Grove site.

The acting chairman of the Buildings and Grounds Committee, Mr. Madden, made the following motion: that the Taft House be preserved and at a location to be mutually agreed upon at the October meeting. The motion was approved.

REGULAR AGENDA

The board considered the following reports and recommendations from the president of the University.