”THE PRESIDENT.—The next feature of this evening’s program will be the report by Chairman Ware on Professor Miller’s paper on the conditions and needs of the University of California.
REPORT OF SECTION OF EDUCATION
Mr. WARE.—The Section of Education met September 9, 1907, to discuss the paper presented to the Club by Professor A. C. Miller, entitled ‘The Condition and Needs of the University of California.’ The following members of the Section were present: Professor C. D. Marx, Mr. George E. Crothers, Mr. P. J. Van Loben Sels, and myself. After a careful consideration of the paper and the issues suggested thereby the Section unanimously adopted the following report:—
FINDINGS OF FACT
I. Findings in reference to conditions and needs of the university:
(a) The university is in need of increased revenues for general maintenance, and especially for more adequately meeting the expenses of instruction.
(b) This need of greater revenues will in all probability be an ever present problem because of the prospective continual growth of the student body and the consequent multiplication of courses of study and the development of departments, as well as because of the general increase in the complexity and costliness of higher education.
(c) The necessity for increased revenues can not be avoided by further economy in the management and expenditure of the funds of the institution without impairing its efficiency.
(d) At the present time many of the members of the teaching force of the university are underpaid, and the raising of the salaries of these men to a proper level is the most urgent financial problem of the institution. The following minimum scale of salaries is recommended :
Salaries of professors to be not less than $3,000 per annum; Salaries of associate professors to be not less than $2,400 per annum; Salaries of assistant professors to be not less than $1,800 per annum; Salaries of instructors to be not less than $1,200 per annum.
(e) The disaster of April 18, 1906, threatened and for a time caused a serious diminution in the current revenues of the university; but the legislature has met the issue with special appropriations sufficient to cover all probable shrinkage until April 18, 1908.
(f) The most urgent building need of the university is the need of a new library, and this demand is now being met by the construction of a suitable building from the proceeds of the Doe bequest.
(g) Construction of the Boalt Hall of Law is soon to be commenced with the fund of $100,000 donated for that purpose.
(h) Other new buildings are needed. This need is a never wholly satisfied one in any growing institution, and it is not unusually acute in the university at the present time.
(i) If the need for new buildings is satisfied from time to time in the future as in the near past by public and private appropriations, the university will have been well served and its building equipment will not fall so low as to impair its efficiency.
II. Findings in reference to ways and means to secure larger income for the university:
(a) The State of California now expends 41 per cent of its total disbursements upon the maintenance of general public education.
(b) This proportion is generously large and, considering other demands, is a rational maximum.
(c) The ever-increasing demands of grammar schools, high schools, technical schools and normal schools are no less varied, urgent and well founded than the demands of the university and must receive proportionate consideration.
(d) The increased revenues demanded by the increasing necessities of the university must be sought (1) in the gradually increased returns of the ad valorem tax of the State University fund, due to the gradual growth in assessed valuations; (2) in increased special appropriations, when the same may be made without slighting other educational demands and when such increase will not raise the present ratio between expenditures made for education on the one hand and for general State expenses on the other; (3) in a further development of the growing practice of rich men and women to serve the State and the cause of education by donations and bequests to the university; and (4) in the adoption of an adequate system of fees whereby all students, and especially all students in the technical and professional colleges, may be brought to sustain directly a portion of the cost of their education.
ALLISON WARE
Chairman Section of Education”…
Reference Data:
Transactions of the Commonwealth Club of California, Vols. 1-2, by Commonwealth Club, 1903, pages 427-7
