Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1960 [PAGE 291]

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288

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[February 19

by the Board of Trustees in 1946 after consultation with the Governor of Illinois, the Chairman of the Illinois Budgetary Commission, and other leaders in the General Assembly of Illinois 1 to provide additional higher educational facilities needed by the University to accommodate the large number of students seeking admission to college and particularly veterans of W o r l d W a r II to whom the state of Illinois and the University had a special obligation. With the cooperation of the Governor, the Mayor of Chicago and other city officials, the University was able to lease and remodel quarters at Navy Pier for the new division and to accept students at the beginning of the academic year 1946-47. T h e educational program started with, and still consists of, the first two years of college work in liberal arts and sciences, commerce, engineering (including architecture and a r t ) , and physical education. T h e original concept of the Chicago Undergraduate Division was an emergency facility in its present temporary quarters but capable of development in a permanent location both in physical facilities and in educational programs as the needs of the state and the obligations of the University to meet these needs might require. T h e r e is no longer any question of the need. It is apparent that the Chicago U n d e r g r a d u a t e Division is a permanent part of the University's organic educational structure, and it has been so recognized by the General Assembly of Illinois. T h e r e remain, however, the questions — and problems — of its physical facilities and the expansion of its educational programs. Navy Pier was and is a temporary h o m e ; it has never been considered a permanent one. T h e reasons are well known but bear repeating for the record: Navy Pier is not a suitable place (and is becoming less so) for educational work at the college level; the amount of space available there is not adequate for the necessary expansion to meet the inevitable increase in enrollment; and the city of Chicago needs, for other purposes, the space the University now occupies. This report of your Committee deals only with the matter of relocation. T h e development and expansion of educational programs are still under study by the University faculties and the administration, and a future report will be made relative thereto. The Board of Trustees has employed the Real Estate Research Corporation of Chicago as consultant on studies of site selection for the permanent relocation of the Chicago Undergraduate Division. This Corporation's first assignment was to develop criteria for evaluation of sites to meet the University's needs. T h e criteria it developed are hereafter set forth in detail. At this point it should be noted, as the Committee on General Policy and the Board of Trustees has previously stated publicly, that the prime objective in University planning for the Chicago Undergraduate Division is to have the buildings and other facilities needed to carry on the present educational programs on a permanent site ready for use in 1963. This timetable is based on known data on the number of students who will be seeking admission to the University during the next four years. T h e present facilities at Navy P i e r simply can not accommodate the potential enrollment. Subsequently Real Estate Research Corporation catalogued all potential sites, obtained substantially all pertinent information concerning them and submitted a comprehensive report, "Analysis of Sites for the Campus of the Chicago Undergraduate Division." Eighty-three sites were considered and investigated. In its studies Real Estate Research Corporation has had the architectural and engineering assistance of the architectural and engineering firms of Skidmore. Owings, and Merrill, Naess and Murphy, and Sargent and Lundy, all of Chicago. Its report, dated October 20, 1958, was presented to the Board of Trustees on October 23, 1958, and was made public. Copies of it were supplied to all public officials concerned and to other interested parties. Following is an extract from the Real Estate Research Corporation's report which is pertinent to this report of the Committee on General Policy:

1 The General Assembly of Illinois was not in session in 1946 but the supplementary appropriations for the biennium of 1945-47 needed by the University to provide for the establishment and operation of its Chicago Undergraduate Division (and also one in Galesburg which was in operation from 1946-49) were promptly made as emergency legislation when the General Assembly convened in January, 1947.