Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1944 [PAGE 123]

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120

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[October

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(c) The strengthening and extension of the services of the University Research Board of the Graduate School to review all general research programs, both proposed and in progress. It renders a most important advisory service in accepting funds from donors, and in making grants for hundreds of projects. ( d ) Instruction in social administration and a recently completed survey as a basis for a new school of social service. ( e ) T h e latest addition to the Library stacks (cost, $222,216), increasing the stack capacity by 500,000 volumes. ( f ) T h e erection of Gregory Hall (cost, $888,713) to house the College of Education, the School of Journalism, the Radio Station, and various departments of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. This building provides air-conditioned rooms for summer instruction and is the largest and finest classroom, laboratory, and lecture room building on the campus. 10. New Programs Closely Related to Teaching: (a) T h e Personnel Bureau of the University, for student counseling and guidance. It helps freshmen especially and advises all students on choice of field of study by determining vocational aptitudes. Its biennial budget is $87,000. ( b ) Establishment of the State-wide H i g h School Testing Program, providing an important service to the colleges and high schools of Illinois. Reports were made on 33,300 students in 1942. This program is very useful to the Personnel Bureau. (c) Increased facilities and staff of the Provost's Office and the Bureau of Institutional Research, to study educational costs and to review all budget estimates for operation, maintenance, and new buildings. T h e University Building Committee studies all requests for new buildings and additions and advises the President and the University Council. (d) The accumulation of all memoranda prepared for the President by the Bureau of Institutional Research during the past eight years, including 257 titles, for reference and comparison year by year. 11. Abbott Power Plant: T h e construction of this new power, heating, and lighting plant and distribution system is resulting in a saving in operating costs of approximately $50,000 a year over the obsolete old plant and system. A fundamental improvement affecting the physical services (power, heat, and light) to all the departments of the University at Urbana-Champaign, this was one of the principal objectives of the present administration and involved a State appropriation of $1,675,000, plus $10,934 from general university funds. 12. Men's Residence Hall: T h e first unit in a men's housing program, long overdue, was constructed at a cost of $690,563. Self-liquidating, it required no funds from the State. It initiated a badly needed system of supervision of housing for male students, establishing better standards of living—another principal objective of the present administration. 13. Illini Union Building: This new. building at Urbana was constructed (without State funds) at a cost of approximately $1,500,000, of which alumni subscribed nearly $250,000 for furnishings. T h e Union provides a long-needed social center for students, faculty, and alumni, and is, in the field of extracurricular affairs, the most important objective undertaken and executed by the present University administration. 14. Special Administrative Policies Effected: (a) T h e new University Retirement System of Illinois authorized by an act of the General Assembly and extended to the five State Normal Universities and Teachers' Colleges and the three State Scientific Surveys. ( b ) T h e transfer to the University of the administration of Civil Service as it applies to University personnel, by an act of the General Assembly, under which all classifications are fixed and all examinations and appointments are made by the University. (c) A program of conferences with the five State Normal Universities and Teachers' Colleges to discuss matters of mutual interest and to promote efficiency through cooperation. ( d ) Improving the student-faculty health service by a greatly increased hospital benefit program, and a 44-bed addition to the McKinley Hospital at a cost of $181,101. 15. Engineering, Science, and Management War Training: A state-wide program to serve the war industries in Illinois was promptly established by the