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Caption: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1944
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1032 BOARD OF TRUSTEES II SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS T H E UNIVERSITY A "POLITICAL EMPIRE" This study began with the main purpose of finding objective, reliable answers to two questions, the first of which was: Since 1934 has a group of hand-picked political puppets virtually built a political empire at the University of Illinois? The evidence examined which bore upon this included: 1. The composition of the Board of Trustees 2. The manner by which persons become members of the Board of Trustees of the University 3. Powers exercised by the Governor as ex officio member of the Board of Trustees of the University: (a) as head of his party; (b) as chief executive of the state 4. Relations of the Board of Trustees to the internal administration of the University 5. Influence from outside sources on university educational policy and personnel 6. Use of noneducational university personnel for patronage purposes. Concerning the charge that "since 1934 a group of hand-picked political puppets have virtually built a political empire in Champaign and Urbana and have cloaked their operation and defended their illegal activities behind the shield of education," the Commission unanimously and unequivocally states that it has not been able to find any evidence to substantiate such a charge. THE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1934 The second question to be answered was: Has the University of Illinois been on the downgrade since 1934? The evidence pertinent to this question was much more extensive and varied in character than that concerning the first one, and perforce includes several features. 1. The first one of these features examined was the quality of the student body. Was there a drop in the quality of students admitted? What were the comparative records of student scholastic achievement? What was the relative student mortality ? [14 —A.C.E. Report]
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