Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - Banks of the Boneyard (Charles Kiler) [PAGE 51]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

Escapades

55

I secured these figures from the University comptroller, the ever-reliable Lloyd Morey, and he smiled as he told me that it now takes $275,000 to run his department for two years. Attendance figures went from 469 in '89 to 855 in '95, and then began a steady climb until the University of Illinois now has one of the largest student bodies in the country. The physical plant at the University of course had to increase with the attendance and appropriations and we have today one of the best equipped institutions to be found anywhere. Furthermore, notwithstanding our lack of lakes and ravines, of rivers and hills, the campus compares in beauty with any other in the land. Dr. Burrill didn't believe in fraternities but he "tolerated" them, and President Draper recognized in them a distinct place in student life, gave them his whole-hearted support, and today every national fraternity of any consequence is on our campus and most of them are better housed than those at any other institution I have visited. Guests from other parts of the country are amazed at the number and quality of our fraternity houses; these are constantly being improved. Thousands of dollars are spent every summer restoring the buildings, adding new furniture, and keeping up to date these valuable houses; it is safe to say that our students live as well as those of any other student body in the country. The University demands certain standards of excellence of the rooming and boarding houses, thus aiming for the best kind of living conditions. For sheer beauty of building and furnishings, our new Union Building has no equal in the country. Realizing that I am taking in a lot of territory, I want you alumni to come to the University and check my statements. With the change in administration from Peabody to Burrill, fraternities began to return to the campus; Kappa Sigma was granted a charter early in May of '91, and Sigma Chi was restored to its place in University life at about the same time. Then they came in quick succession. With Dr. Burrill's advent also came elective courses of study, liberal ideas in our athletic policies; where we had been held down to local competition with small colleges in Illinois, we have already told you how we expanded, helped to organize the Western Intercollegiate Athletic Association which soon grew into the Big Ten, and it can not be denied that we have long occupied an honorable position among American universities.