Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1946 [PAGE 1128]

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1946]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

II2I

be spent in conferences all over the State. Prodigious difficulties beset any plan for a branch of the University in Chicago. Central to the whole situation, however, is the budgetary situation of the University. A major part of the current building appropriation for permanent student housing has gone into temporary housing. T h e r e are now no more funds for either temporary or permanent housing for either students or faculty. The budget for 1946-1947 has been made out in such a way as to use all available income in sight up to June 30, 1947, before the first semester has been completed. T h e University is limited, so far as any increase in its operating budget is concerned, to the additional income from student fees which must be appropriated to the University by the General Assembly either now or early in January. Dozens of staff members are leaving the institution because funds are so limited that we can not compete with the offers they have received elsewhere. Only the most urgent adjustments in our programs for veterans have been made. Proposals for refresher work and new types of subprofessional training have been left dangling in midair because we have not the funds to support them. The almost complete abolition of graduate work during the war has stopped the flow of trained young people, and the salaries now offered in industry to older and more experienced people are so high that University teaching and research are no longer attractive. This report w a s received for record. CHICAGO BRANCH OF THE UNIVERSITY O F ILLINOIS (33) On April 22, 1946, I sent you a report of the Committee on Branches of the University of Illinois. This report was presented in very general terms, but it set forth the policy and main features of a plan for a Chicago branch of the University. Subsequent to that time, the Provost of the University has held a conference with Mr. James B. McCahey, President of the Chicago Board of Education. President McCahey offered the full support of the Chicago Public School System. Mr. Charles Havens, Director of the Physical Plant, and Dr. E. F . Potthoff, Director of the Bureau of Institutional Research, have recently examined the facilities on the Municipal (or Navy) Pier in Chicago. They find these facilities to be the best available, so far as is known at present, for the development of a two-year branch of the University of Illinois. I recommend: 1. That the Board of Trustees authorize the President of the University to negotiate and execute contracts with the City of Chicago and the Navy for the use of the above-described facilities at the Municipal P i e r for the period of one year, with option to renew the lease. 2. T h a t the Board of Trustees authorize the President of the University to negotiate and execute contracts with the Navy for the purchase of Navy-owned facilities and equipment at Municipal Pier. 3. That the Board of Trustees authorize the President of the University to employ the necessary personnel and purchase additional supplies and equipment that may be necessary to provide instruction for 4,000 students beginning September, 1946, and to provide for the operation and maintenance of the facilities leased. T h e Provost commented on this matter. O n m o t i o n of M r . M c L a u g h l i n , t h e s e r e c o m m e n d a t i o n s w e r e adopted. INVESTMENT RECOMMENDATIONS

The Finance Committee, on advice of the First National Bank of Chicago, investment counsel, approved on January 23, 1946, the purchase of $12,500 of United States Series G 2*4% Bonds of 1958 and 150 shares Insurance Company of North America at 106 as investments of endowment funds. This action is reported for record. This report was received for record.

RECESS FOR L U N C H E O N A N D CONFERENCE T h e B o a r d recessed for luncheon, a n d for t h e conference on admission of s t u d e n t s , t o m e e t in t h e office of S u p e r i n t e n d e n t N i c k e l l f o l l o w i n g the conference.