U Ideas of General Interest -- November 2000University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Contact: Andrea Lynn, Humanities/Social Sciences Editor (217) 333-2177; [email protected]
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOISHistory text examines academic, social milieu a century ago
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- An autocratic president, a frustrated faculty, a miserly state legislature, a "comatose" major program (agriculture) and a rowdy student body with a penchant for secret societies and hazing -- these were the earmarks not of a current seat of learning, but of one 100 years ago.
Bad as it may have seemed, the University of Illinois in 1904 was "poised for take-off." Within a few years -- and under a new president -- it would become a leading U.S. university. So says Winton Solberg, author of "The University of Illinois, 1894-1904: The Shaping of the University" (UI Press).
For his book, Solberg, a professor of American intellectual and cultural history at the UI, sifted through thousands of archival items -- everything under the academic sun -- from the president's office to the prohibition club, the "Sinful Six" to campus squirrels, to give a detailed and often surprising picture of higher education a century ago. He devotes the largest part of the book to "the life of the mind," treating the various colleges and schools that developed on the Urbana and the Chicago campuses.
While his book focuses on the UI, it sheds light on national trends in higher education. For example, Solberg explores the "vibrant" student life, with its whirl of social and academic activities, but he also looks at the roles of religion and of hazing on the college campus -- topics rarely examined.
According to Solberg, the UI had compulsory chapel attendance for its first 25 years. "Chapel was a unifying feature," he said, "but when it went, there was a huge need for school spirit. Now we start getting school yells, songs and colors, where students identify with the university, rather than with their class -- freshman, sophomore, etc." However, class spirit continued to lead to rivalries, high jinks and worse, he said. As a matter of fact, student hazing became "an extremely serious problem" in U.S. colleges and universities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. "Administrators really can't control it in this period," Solberg said.
Eventually schools created intercollegiate athletics, but in addition to providing campus unity, the athletic program -- at Illinois and elsewhere -- turned into "a double-edged sword," Solberg said, "and became a corrupting influence." Coaches resorted to drastic measures to get the best players to come to their schools, and to get the opponents' best players off the field, Solberg said. "From the very beginning, athletics undermines the academic purpose of the university."
For his part, President Andrew Sloan Draper (1894-1904) "ran the school like a boot camp," Solberg said, even regarded the faculty as "inferiors to command." However, he had a fondness for squirrels, and wanted to bring them to the campus. The board of trustees buckled under and "approved his quixotic proposal," Solberg said, giving him the princely sum of $250 to squirrel the campus.
The period also produced faculty members and students who were "absolutely committed to creating a university of the highest quality, even under adverse circumstances," Solberg said. "Their abilities and commitment is really an inspiring story."
-ael-
RSS