Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1948 [PAGE 452]

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1947]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

451

because Illinois State Normal University is only 50 miles from the University of Illinois while the other institutions are 145 to 200 miles from the University of Illinois. (b) The facilities of the College of Agriculture of the University of Illinois could be duplicated at the other institutions only at enormous and unjustified expense. T o provide facilities at the other institutions appreciably poorer than those at the University would be to lower materially the quality of teacher-training. (c) Adding other teacher-training institutions would lead almost immediately to a surplus of teachers of vocational agriculture and a reduction of teachers' salaries. It could be expected that in a few years the salaries of teachers of vocational agriculture would be so low that only inferior persons could be attracted into the field. 3. A legislative commission which surveyed Illinois institutions of higher education in 1943 recommended strongly against the approval of additional institutions for preparing teachers of vocational agriculture. The professional staff of the Commission was headed by Dr. George A. Works, who spent much of his professional life in the field of agricultural education. The special study of teacher-training in agriculture was made by Dr. C. B. Gentry, Vice-President of the University of Connecticut, whose teaching experience has been divided between a teachers' college and a land-grant university. 4. A satisfactory arrangement for transferring students from two teachers' colleges to the University is now in effect. Working with the officials of Southern Illinois Normal University and Western Illinois State Teachers College, University officials have developed satisfactory working arrangements whereby students spend two years at these institutions and then transfer to the University, where they may qualify as teachers of vocational agriculture without loss of time. The officials of Illinois State Normal University have been interested instead in retaining their students for four years. The University of Illinois is probably the most liberal land-grant college in the United States in accepting credits from teachers' colleges and applying them toward graduation from an agricultural curriculum. A minimum of only 35 semester hours is required to be taken at the University if the student has completed at another institution the subjects he may take there. EXHIBIT C

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Report of the Commission to Survey Higher Educational Facilities in Illinois January, 1945, pages 15, 37-38 The University of Illinois should have responsibility for the State's teachereducation work in agriculture. The State Board for Vocational Education should approve no institution in the State, other than the University of Illinois, for the preparation of teachers of vocational agriculture. None of the State Teachers Colleges should attempt to provide more than two years of education for teachers of vocational agriculture. Reference was made above to the need for over-all coordination of the activities of the State's institutions which prepare teachers, and for proper allocation of certain functions among the institutions. An illustration of undesirable duplication due to lack of effective coordination is furnished by the situation in agricultural education. The University of Illinois is the only institution in the State that has received acceptance by the United States Office of Education for the preparation of teachers of vocational agriculture. The evidence indicates that the entire demand in the State for teachers of vocational agriculture can be met by the University. Nevertheless, Illinois State Normal University has developed a four-year program for the preparation of teachers in this field, and two other Teachers Colleges, Western Illinois State Teachers College and Southern Illinois Normal University, offer three years of a four-year program. Students preparing for the teaching of vocational agriculture at a State Teachers College may qualify by completing their work at the University of Illinois. Illinois State Normal University has been seeking approval of its program, but such acceptance has not yet been granted by the United States Office of Education. C. B. Gentry of the University of Connecticut made an appraisal of the agricultural education situation in the State for the Commission. His major recommendations are: