Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - 16 Years (Edmund James) [PAGE 231]

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Sixteen Years at the University of Illinois

building was completed and occupied in the spring of 1913 and its anticipated advantages have been fully realized. The students in business administration have been made to feel an individuality previously unknown, the professional character of their training has become more distinct and the instructors have been brought into more intimate touch with one another and with students. With the new facilities and equipment the work in accounting, statistics, banking, railway administration, commerce and other subjects has been developed to a degree of practical efficiency unattainable in the past. It ought to be a matter of pride to the citizens of Illinois, as well as to the University administration, that, in developing its facilities to train men for useful careers in public and private business administration, the State has placed itself in the vanguard of educational progress. The most important step taken in the development of business education at the University of Illinois was the decision to erect the courses in Business Administration into a distinct and separate College. The University Senate at its meeting in June, 1914, voted to recommend the separation of the Business Courses from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in which they had hitherto been virtually an autonomous administrative department. This recommendation was adopted by the Board of Trustees and a resolution passed authorizing the establishment of an independent College of Commerce and Business Administration co-ordinate with the other principal colleges of the University. The College was formally organized in 1915. This change led to important modifications in the business curriculum and allowed the introduction of a larger number of technical and semi-technical courses essential for efficient business training. In 1903-04 the business courses were conducted under the general direction of the Department of Economics. Upon the organization of the College of Commerce and Business Administration in 1915 the work was placed under three separate departments, namely, economics, including finance and statistics ; business organization and operation, inoluding accounting and business law; and transportation.