Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1944 [PAGE 71]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

68

BOARD OF

TRUSTEES

[August 29

Credit Students 18 18 35 E53 E18 E53 E18 E50 E50 E50 14 21 13 10 n 13 22 Auditing Students 1 7 1 1 o 2 5 9 1 4

P re-Professional I 939-4°. I> Springfield (Timmons) 1 939-4°. I. Peoria (Timmons) 1939-40, II, Centralia (Timmons) Professional 1940-41, I, Springfield (Klein) 1940-41, II, Springfield (Klein) 1941-42, I, Mattoon (Klein) 1941-42, II, Peoria (Klein) 1941-42, I, Peoria (Fowler) 1941-42, I, Galesburg (Fowler) 1941-42, II, Effingham (Fowler)

Course Sociol. E8 Sociol. E8 Sociol. E8 Soc.Adm. Soc.Adm. Soc.Adm. Soc.Adm. Soc.Adm. Soc.Adm. Soc.Adm.

Extension work was emphasized more during the third year because of the very few students in campus classes. 3. Proposal originating with the Administrative Committee to suspend the curriculum at the professional level was submitted to the Board of Trustees at its meeting of January 24, 1942, by the President upon recommendation of the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. a. Reasons for suspension: (1) Very low enrollment was making costs of maintaining the program out of all reasonable proportion. (2) Prospect of increasing enrollment in near future was practically zero due t o : ( a ) Expanding demands of the war and of war industries for persons of graduate student age. (b) General unwillingness of downstate students to spend more than four years in college to prepare for positions of no greater remuneration than others available to four-year graduates, (c) Unwillingness of students to enroll in a non-accredited professional school, and the related difficulty of becoming accredited without a reasonable number of students. Outstanding workers in the State Department of Public Welfare who were given educational leave to advance their training could not receive leave on salary for attending the University of Illinois, because of federal regulations. 4. On January 24, 1942, the Board of Trustees requested the President of the University to study the situation in order to determine what would be necessary to make the curriculum comprehensive and outstanding. a. In response to the Board's request, the President authorized the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, in which the active part of the present professional curriculum is administered, to secure a professional appraisal of the need, if any, for a complete School of Social W o r k and justification of a greatly increased budget. b. After many attempts and much correspondence in which several persons invited declined, the Dean was successful in securing the services of Miss Leona Massoth, newly appointed Secretary of the American Association of Schools of Social Work, the national accrediting agency for such schools, to make the survey. c. Section II, following, of this present report, presents a digest of the main points of Miss Massoth's findings. ( T h e full detailed report of 35 closely typed pages is filed in the office of the President, along with letters from persons connected with the administration of the curriculum in explanation of certain points in the report.)

II. T H E MASSOTH REPORT

1. Reasons cited for the lack of success of the present program: a. Undesirable characteristics of the organization and administration of the present curriculum: (1) It does not represent a full department or school in the University. (2) The administrative committee is drawn from other departments, while its members still retain much of their original departmental responsibility.