Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1956 [PAGE 1101]

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1098

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[June 27

EXPANSION O F ILLINI UNION BUILDING EMPLOYMENT O F A R C H I T E C T S (33) W h e n the Illini Union Building was constructed, there were some 10,000 to 12,000 students enrolled in Urbana-Champaign. Within a few years the enrollment will be almost double that for which the Illini Union facilities were planned. For more than fifteen years the Illini Union has served many student needs. It has provided daily services, not only for thousands of students but for members of the faculty, other employees, alumni, and the general public. In sponsoring, as it does, numerous worthwhile extracurricular student activities, it has supplemented the University's educational program. It has done much for the social life of the student-faculty community. In the future, the Illini Union can maintain and increase its contribution by developing and enlarging its facilities for all of these services. The Board of Trustees Committee on Buildings and Grounds has considered a program for the expansion of the Illini Union to provide additional space for meetings and social functions, educational and recreational facilities, food services, and general services. A more detailed statement of this proposal is hereby filed with the Secretary of the Board for record. The program recommended to the Committee contemplates an increase in the Illini Union service charge which would provide the additional income needed to finance this expansion. The present service charge is $7.00 each semester and it is proposed to increase this to approximately $10.50 when the additional facilities are completed. This will still be less than fees charged at some other colleges and universities in the Midwest; in ten universities, all in the Big Ten group, this fee runs from $12.00 to $35.00 an academic year as compared with $14.00 an academic year now charged at Illinois and the $21.00 proposed. The first step in this program will be the preparation of architectural studies to determine the feasibility of expanding the Illini Union facilities by construction of an addition to the present building. If this is feasible, plans will be developed with the expectation that construction may start in the fall of 1957 and the addition be completed in the fall of 1959. The Committee on Buildings and Grounds has also considered the employment of architects for this project. I now recommend authorization of this expansion program and the employment of the firm of Eggers and Higgins, New York, New York, as architects to furnish complete design services for the addition of the Illini Union Building, including consultation, preliminary drawings, complete design studies, outline space, review of materials and interior treatments. This firm has proposed a fee of 1.3 per cent of the actual cost of construction work involving its services. Later a recommendation will be submitted for the employment of an Illinois firm of architects for the completion of architectural and engineering services on this project at a fee not to exceed 4.7 per cent of the cost of construction contracts. On this basis, the total combined architectural and engineering fees to be paid will not exceed 6 per cent. Funds are available in the operating reserves of auxiliary enterprises, including the Illini Union, and with the approval of the Board may be advanced to pay for these services with the understanding that the advances will be repaid from the proceeds of the bond issue to finance construction when such funds become available as the project moves forward. The Committee on Buildings and Grounds is prepared to support both recommendations.

On motion of Mr. Livingston, these recommendations were approved.

GRANT FROM CARNEGIE CORPORATION OF N E W YORK

(34) The Carnegie Corporation of New York has made a grant of $277,000 to the University of Illinois to develop a new high school mathematics curriculum. This program was initiated four years ago by representatives of the College of Engineering, the Department of Mathematics, and the College of Education and the University High School. Its goal is a revision of the high school mathe-