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Caption: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1944
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EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:
U N I V E R S I T Y OF I L L I N O I S I037 quire power, nor has it probably been the conscious intention of the President. The whole situation is rather the result of a combination of causes, conspicuous among which have been the rapid growth of the University, the desire of the President for statistical information and educational advice from the most reliable sources (aids to which he is certainly entitled), and the excellent work done by each of these agencies. Nevertheless, the outcome has been that these agencies have assumed administrative functions which properly center in the President. Viewed from one angle this situation represents a distinct advance over 1934. From another point of view, however, it is genuinely potential of dissipating the educational leadership which should be exercised directly by the President, through the establishment of too many centers almost coordinate in rank but uncoordinated in the actual discharge of that leadership. To summarize the evidence examined under the eight subdivisions explored to determine the educational trend of the University since 1934, the Commission finds no ground for the sweeping assertion that the "University has been on the downgrade" during that period. Not only has no actual deterioration been disclosed but the facts indicate that the University has made in some features noteworthy gains, that it has kept the status quo in many others. This is in general what a similar examination of any comparable university would probably disclose, although it should again be cited that the most significant weakness of the University is not absolute but relative. It has failed to advance during this period at points where other similar institutions have pressed forward significantly toward improvement. RECOMMENDATIONS This concluding section gathers together and states briefly the recommendations which have been made directly or by implication in the body of the report: ' r. The Commission recommends that the University of Illinois make a careful study to determine whether there is not another method of selecting members for its Board of Trustees which will remove that selection and the operation of the Board, as far as possible, from partisan influences. [A.C.E. Report—19]
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