Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1950 [PAGE 7]

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BOARD O F TRUSTEES

[July 21

PROPOSAL FOR TEMPORARY ADMINISTRATION AND STUDY OF THE INSTITUTE OF GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS (5) On August 5, 1947 (Minutes, page 493), the Board of Trustees, consistently with House Joint Resolution No. 17, Sixty-fifth General Assembly, which recommended to the University that it establish a "Curriculum in Government," and on recommendation of the President of the University, established the Institute of Government and Public Affairs. The functions and plan of organization were laid out briefly. Professor H. M. Gray, Professor of Economics and Associate Dean of the Graduate College, was appointed Director. After a review of the work in this area and with the endorsement of all the parties concerned, I now recommend a temporary change in the administrative organization of the Institute. I believe that such a change will permit us to present a united front as we seek the best talent in this field and that it will enable us better to study the internal organization of the Institute. Thus far it has been difficult to evaluate the respective functions and responsibilities of the Institute in relation to the Department of Political Science and the College of Commerce and Business Administration. Officers of instruction and administration have attempted to find a solution, but I am convinced that what we need now is a reexamination of the basic structure of the Institute. Professor Clarence A. Berdahl, who will be on a sabbatical leave for the first semester of 1948-1949, has asked to be relieved of his duties as Chairman of the Department of Political Science in accordance with the plan approved in the Department some years ago of placing the chairmanship on a rotating basis. In a separate memorandum I am recommending that Professor Charles M. Kneier be appointed Chairman of the Department to serve out the present biennium. These two actions are in themselves unrelated to the Institute of Government and Public Affairs, except that I am requesting Professor Kneier to serve also as Acting Director of the Institute for the coming year and he is willing to add this to his new duties. In the meantime, Professor Gray has expressed the desire to return to his professorship in Economics in order that he may resume his program of research in that field and has asked to be relieved of his administrative duties. Dean Howard R. Bowen is anxious to have Professor Gray return to this area on a full-time basis and Dean Louis N. Ridenour of the Graduate College is willing to search for a new Assistant or Associate Dean. Concurrently with these changes, I am asking that the Advisory Committee to the Director of the Institute, of which Dean Bowen is Chairman, devote considerable time during the coming year to an analysis of the functions and organization of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs, with special reference to its administrative status. The basic question, as I see it, is this: Should the Institute continue to be organized on a broad horizontal basis, drawing directly upon many departments and outside resources, or should it be set up as a specialized agency of the Department of Political Science, perhaps somewhat analogous to the Bureau of Research and Service in the College of Education or the Bureau of Economic and Business Research in the College of Commerce? Under either plan I feel that we should develop the professional work and the public services of the Institute along the lines approved by the Board of Trustees in 1947. We have no desire to weaken the basic plan, but only to strengthen it. Accordingly, I recommend that Professor Charles M. Kneier be appointed Acting Director of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs for the period beginning September 1, 1948, and ending August 31, 1949.

On motion of Mr. Nickell, these recommendations were adopted.

LEASING OF PROPERTIES OFF CAMPUS (6) The University is faced with an acute problem of finding space for various activities, and especially for 1948-1949. The delays in the building program plus the development of the instructional and research programs have carried the University beyond the amount of space which will be available in University buildings. The vicinity surrounding the University has been canvassed in an effort to secure rental quarters. This has resulted in the following offers: 1. 704 South Sixth Street, Champaign. — Second floor. A business property