Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1946 [PAGE 1125]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

III8

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[May 29

The following statement will be presented to the conference.

T H E EMERGENCY EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM OF THE UNIVERSITY

T h e r e are now about 13,000 students on the Urbana campus of the University of Illinois. This is the largest enrollment in the history of the institution. The present student body is somewhat larger than was predicted by the officers of the University for the first year of this biennium, but it is 5,000 students larger than the prediction made by members of the General Assembly when the University was asking a year ago for its biennial appropriations. About 2,500 students will drop out by graduation or for other reasons at the close of the present term. More than 3,000 new students will seek admission in the summer term. In addition to these 3,000 students, about 8,000 students will seek admission in September. In other words, by September, 1046, about 23,000 students, both old and new, will be planning to come to the Urbana campus of the University. T h e r e are now nearly 6,000 veterans on the campus. In September, over half of the students seeking admission will be veterans. These facts describe the most serious situation which has ever been faced by the University of Illinois. All the large colleges and universities in the nation share the same problem. Over a million veterans have been qualified for college and university training under Public Laws 34.6 and 16. There is a backlog of about 700,000 recent high-school graduates who will also seek admission. The prewar enrollment in colleges and universities was about 1400,000. T h e present demand for higher education is not a temporary problem; it is a permanent problem. After the last war the demand for higher education was increased by more than 40 per cent. A further increase came after the great depression. All the facts show that postwar enrollments in colleges and universities will reach the figure of 2,500,000. T h e enrollment at the University of Illinois may reach a postwar figure of around 20,000. This is both an emergency and a permanent problem of supreme importance. The veterans are in a hurry. They have given their time and energy to the nation for the purposes of war, and now they are anxious for the education which will enable them to live a gainful life in a world of peace. They are good students. Most of them will complete a full program of training. They are not dropping out after a few months of aimless effort. Provision must be made for them, and for recent high-school graduates who also have a claim to continue their education. The entire economy of the nation demands and is in urgent need of trained personnel. Publicly supported institutions in this time of crisis have a special duty and privilege. Their duty is to provide the facilities for training; their privilege is to render the service which the nation so desperately needs. Both the duty and the privilege rest on the states. If 23,000 young people wish to enroll in the University of Illinois, the State of Illinois must give them the opportunity. The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, the administrative officers, and the faculty are fully aware of this situation and have given the matter their most serious and careful consideration. The facts, briefly stated, are as follows. T h e r e are not enough houses for students, all colleges are scraping the bottom of the barrel for staff members, there are no places where staff members may live even if they could be found, and classrooms and laboratories are being crowded to the doors. By straining every facility in our possession, we hope to be able to take care of 15,000 students on the Urbana campus. W e are hampered at every step, and not the least of our difficulties is the fact that our budget for the present biennium was, at the insistence of the General Assembly, based on an enrollment of 8,000 students — just a little over half the enrollment we shall attempt to provide for. But even if we provide for 15,000 students on the Urbana campus, there will be 8,000 students, at least half of whom will be veterans, for whom new facilities must be found. T h e r e is little or no room for them in other colleges and universities in the State. W e feel that it is to the best interests of our young people, of our national economy, and of the public welfare to meet the critical situation in some other manner. W e are proposing, therefore, a four-point program of emergency planning in order to provide every possible facility in the State for higher education.