Gerald W. Smith Memoir - Brookens Library

University of Illinois at SpringfieldNorris L Brookens LibraryArchives/Special CollectionsGerald W. Smith MemoirSM57. Smith, Gerald W. (1906-1985)Interview and memoir26 tapes, 1560 mins., 4 vols., 488 pp.ILLINOIS COMMUNITY COLLEGESGerald W. Smith discusses his work in Illinois education and Illinois communitycolleges: Moline High School and Moline Community College 1946-53;Elmwood Park Community High School district 1953-60; Executive Director ofthe Illinois Association of School Administrators at the Illinois EducationAssociation in Springfield 1960-66; the Illinois Board of Higher Education andthe Junior College Act of 1965; Executive Secretary of the Illinois Junior CollegeBoard from its founding in 1965 to 1970. Also discusses establishment of a statesystem of junior colleges: reorganization of existing junior college districts andcreation of new districts; problem areas and failures; interim and permanentbuildings and campuses; programs and curricula. Also recalls growing up inArlington and Zearing, Illinois; family, schools, and German immigrants;education at Knox College; teaching in the towns of Media and Alexis; andmilitary service during WWII.Interview by G. Ernst Giesecke, 1976OPENSee collateral file: interviewer's notes, correspondence, and Illinois JuniorCommunity College Development 1946-1980 by Gerald W. Smith.Archives/Special Collections LIB 144University of Illinois at SpringfieldOne University Plaza, MS BRK 140Springfield IL 62703-5407© 1976, University of Illinois Board of Trustees

Gerald W. Smith 200kt me s~mpnarize this and then come back to a little more detail. This isthe Master Plan that they published and as they had said, and as I yeadearlier, this was to go to the General Assembly in 1965. In the winter andspring of 1965 the Governor--Otto Kerner--organized an advisory cowgnit teein his office to take up the recmendations of the Master Plan, to m&edeterminations which recommendations would be accepted and which ones wouldk modified and which ones would be rejected, and on the basis of their decisionsto have a bill drafted, sponsored out of the Governor's office, tobecome the Jdor College Act. House Bill 1710 was, in fact, the outgrowthof the wo~k of the group that met with Governor Kerner and so in the springof 1965 House Bill 1710 did in fact becom a reality. It moved through theHouse and, then, as I said, was slightly revised in the Senate, wax passedby the General Assembly in the closing days of the session, and was sLpdby Governor Kemer on July 15, 1965. All statutory citations with regardto judor colleges in Illinois from that date on now refer to the IllinoisJunior College Act of 1965 as amended.Q. That's the story.A. Yes.Q. It's mazing. I hadn't realized that Kemer had appointed an advborycormdttee.A. That's-why I left part of this out of here because some of the controversythat had to [be] dealt with arose in that codttee.Q. Oh, I see. I was going to say, what powers did that cormittee have?A. The corcnnittee was made up of members of the House and Senate. It wasbipartisan. Then he added to the people designated from the House and theSenate a nwnber of citizens at large, so we had the legislators balancedby citizens. They had no powers beyond making recommendations to theGovernor which he saw fit to approve or not approve, because it was he whodecided what the initial language of that bill was. Of course, the peoplewho had the authority to do something about it were the General Assembly.Q. Yes.A. The Governor used them as advisory people. I know that he was swayedmany times by their different ideas or attitudes with regard to it, but Iknow of one or two places where his ideas prevailed on matters that weresomthes a surprise to the cormnittee. As, for example, and I will t kabout it a little later, the plan for mding capital development. 0 I? toKerner came up with a different plan than people had been think- about.Q. This is the end of their comersation for the day. We will ~swne twodays later, using the outline Gemy worked out this afternoon.This discussion is now cont5nuing on the morning of September 1, Wednesdaymdng, and it reflects the thinking that Gem has been doing since thelast time we were together. I think you said this morning, Gerry, thatyou had done some reflecting and there were sm thoughts that;you wouldlike to put in the record at this time. The floor is-yours, sir.

Gerald W. Smith 201A. I would like to put into this record now some observations on sificant contributions to junior college study and development in theirnnediat.ely precem and during the period of the Illinois Master P1study, which was 1962 to 1964, and also prior to the enactment of thecurrent law in 1965.Q. Splendid.A. Nationally, in that period of time, the amount of planning and discussionsand studies with regard to junior colleges was escalating andexpanding. New York and Florida had already conrpleted master plans by thetime Illinois passed its bill creating the Board of Higher Fducation in1962. Master planning was in progress in some other states at that timeand so, of course, the contents of those master plans and the publicationsregarding those master plans had a bear- on the thinking and work of Dr.Glenny, Dr. Browne, and the ten study cormnittees and all the other peoplethat were involved. So, I think first of all we need to point out therewas significant activity nationwide for all of the decade of the 1950's.Junior colleges had been corning into stronger and stronger focus in educationalliterature, In the special editions of lwge Ylewspapers about whatwas going on, as perhaps one of the methods by which we could do two thingsat least: One, provide for the ever-increasing errollments and the projectionof rapid enrollments in the 1960's because of the birth rate explosionof the 19401s, and, secondly, because of the increasing recognition ofneed for new propams and larger programs in the vocational/technical field,the impact of our technical age, and the demd for more and more post highschool education or reeducation in the technical field. These were bringingthe junio~ college into =eater focus and states were doing that; Illinoisw@s no exception. We had two governors here over a 16 year period--Governor William Stratton, from 1953 to 1961, and Governor Otto Kemerf'rorn 1961 to 1969. Bch of these men had a great interest in the juniorcollege and there was a considerable impact on what happened in the adminfstrationof both of those men. The consnissions that were referred tothecorrnnissions on higher education, the two of them, in the 1950's werecreations in the administration of Governor Stratton. And the first statefinancing for junior colleges in Illinois occurred in the administrationof Goveror Stratton, so that his administration had a considerable Impact.In the next period, 1961 to 1969, in Governor Kernerls a&ninistration, theBoard of Higher Education actually cam into existence. It was a recmmendation of the co~ssion which Gogernor Stratton had appointed; you are--once in awhile there was a little mgunent as to who should get credit forit. (laughs) But I don ' t thinlc either one ever cared. The 1961 pass eof that act, which was the ffrst year of Governor Kerner ls aninistratpn,was the hplementation of a recommendation that came out of Stratton apdmany of the elements that went into the thinking of the Master Plan wereideas and ~lecomendations of the cormnissions that had existed in the lP5O1s.IIn 1960 a publication was developed by William McLure. Dr. McLure, So725 yem was one of the inportant men in the field of educational resephin the Bureau of Educational Research of the University of Illinois;a number of years he was the head of it. He just recently retired.I mLght say, by the way, spends much of his time in a technical

Gerald W. Smith 20 2Parkland Cormunity College at Urbana.year.I have seen him there twice tWsQ. Is he teach- the course?A. No, he is a student--on a hobby that he has. McLure, as I say, mademany contributions to educational research. As a researcher he sometlmshad a tendency to be, you how, apart f'rom the general trend of thinking.But between 1958 and 1960, in a joint venture of the Bureau of EducationalResearch at the University with financing and some help from the Office ofthe Superintendent of Public Instruction, he did a study which was publishedin 1960 under the title, ''Vocational and Technical Education - A Plan forIllinois." It was a rather dayling plan. In this document which receivedan enomus amount of response, verbal and written, a proposal was madeto organize the State into ten regions, of 500,000 people approxhatelyeach, outside the Chicago area; and the ten regions should be the adminrlstrativecenters for vocational/technical education, using the largestpopulation center in the region as the home base, and then having scatteredthrough the ten regional bases certain selected vocational programs and theunderlying junior colleges which he took into accownt. His study went sofar as to lay out on a mp the areas and to spot the existingcolleges and to show their role. !his was to be state created and statemanaged and state financed. I might say that he also went so fw as toprovide for a plan to abolish the elected Superintendent of Public Instmctionand to make the Board of Education hire a state superintendent. Thatagency would be, of course, the administration agency of this plan.Q. No wonder his ideas got a lot of attention.A. They did get an enormous amount of attention and because it was sostrikrtng and because it was so far from the pattern of development inIllinois, it received a great deal of adverse reaction and respome. Onthe other hand, many aspects of the study were taken very seriously and Imight indicate that after the Act was passed and I was working with it, Ihad a tendency several times to go back to his study and observe in someway a pattern that actually developed in Illinois which X think was influencedby many of the ideas that were in his original study with regardto the location of colleges, etcetera.trnBut at any rate, that study came out in 1960 and it generated an enoamount of dialog and discussion and newspapem carried it and magazinarticles were written about it. Organizations that were interested, ocourse, set it up on their annual meetings and discussed it. Dr. McLurewas invited on lllany occasions to come and to speak to us and to answerquestions about it and you will observe that, so fm as I am concerned,this was concurrent with the year I arrived in Springfield to begin qr workwith, the Illinois Association of School Adnbistrators, and with the Associationof Junior Colleges. This study was a significant study and whileit was not the pattern that was adopted subsequently, it made atribution both to the level of the dialog and the amount ofwas generated in 1960-1961 and 1962.

Gerald W. Mth 20 3One of the outcomes of that dialog that was generated was the formtionof a policy cormittee in 1960 by the Illinois Association of JuniorColleges. It was the feeling of the leadership In the Association thbtwith plans like the one published by Dr. McLure and the Superintended ofPublic Instruction and the amount of reporting that was going on throughthe media and educational journals, etcetera, about activities in otherstates, that it was time for the Illinois Association of Junior Collegesto think in a more basic pattern, a policy regarding a system of juniorcolleges in Illinois . . .Q. That cormittee was formed when?A. That corranittee was formed in 1960 and the membership is, I think,worthy of entry here. The chalnnan of the cormnittee was Gil Renner, theDean of the Junior College at Elgin. The other mrhers were Harold Bltting,the Dean of the Lyons Township Junior College in LaGrange; Kenneth Edwwds,Dean of the Junior College in Belleville; Elnaer Rowley, the Dean of ~q:+Jdor College of Joliet; Turner Wimble, Dean of the Amundson-MayfairCollege in Chicago, and also president of the IAJC in that yew; LeeDulgar, president-elect of the Association and Dean of Thornton JuniorCollege; and Robert Birkhher, the educational consultant on the staff ofthe Superintendent of Public Instruction. Over a period of a couple ofyears, these people came forth with several pronouncements with regard tobasic policy for a system of public junior colleges in Illinois.Q. I would expect a group like this ~eally to be a very very fertilesource of ideas and comentary, etcetera. Do you happen to how wheretheir files are so that . . .A. Yes. Tne record would be with the records of the Illinois Associationof Junior Colleges.Q. This is very valuable, what you are contributing here, Gemy.A. Yes, I think we need to put this in. You see, what I am trying topoint out is that these we background facts and this is an underlyingcourse of thinking, etcetera, that was present when the Master Plan sfarted,and that continued during the course of the Master Plan.iLikewise, in 1962, under the auspices of the American Association offIuniorColleges, a document was published which set forth . . . Let me star% thisover again. In 1962, an agency of the American Association of JuniorCdlleges, known as the Legislative Codssion, published a document d alingwith the policies that should be taken into account in establishing ajstatesystem of junior colleges.Q. Do you have the tftle of that study?A. As I recall it, the study was Basic Principles f~r the Establishrrof a State System of Junior ~olle&s. Dr. Elden Lichty'of'Illinois 2University was a member of "that conmission. and the document said ththese seven elements should be found in a &ate system:

Gerald W. Nth 2041. A state survey of higher education needs - a Master Plan.2. A subsequent local survey in accordance with the state plan.'3. Tne authority and responsibility of a state agency in apprwinglocal proposals - something like a state board.4. Local control of junior colleges.I5. A pattern and formula for financial support.I6. Corrrpreh&mive propams in junior colleges.I7. Institutional identity of the junior college.ISo here was a document that came out. I think we need to know that thiskind of a document was in the think- of all of the people who were participatingin our master plan.Then, in April of 1962 an inportant conference on comprehensive collegeswas held on the campus of the University of Tllinois. It was sponsored bythe Illinois Citizens Education Cornnittee and the Jllinois Association ofJunfor Colleges. I think a word is in order about the Illinois CitizensEducation Codttee, since this is the first time that orgmization hasbeen ident;Efied.Sometime after World War 11--I do not remerrber the exact date--the IllinoisCitizens Educatfon Cormittee was formed, made up prhmri1.y of citizens--that's how it got its name--who were interested in educational issues andeducational problems and whose purpose it was to promote discussion on anobjective basis on a wide range of educational subjects and issues, andto serve as a public forum. %e committee had a fairly definite structureand they succeeded in attracting a sizable nwnber of people from all overthe State who were very conscientious about their par+ticipation in theprogram. Now the organization never grew to my pat size. It stillexists.:Q. Oh, really?A. Yes. It never grew to any mat size, but it did pursue its obj c-tives faithfully. It so happens that that group with the AJC held t is conferenceon comprehensive colleges in April of 1962 which turned out o beas good a fom as was ever held in the State of Illinois dealing withthe principle issues that had to be pulled out and focused on with rqgardto a state system in Illinois. It was attended by industrial leadera,people from the business field, lay people just interested in education,by representatives of junior colleges, public schools, and universities.Again, it was not a huge conference, but it was, as I remember it, a2 l/2 day discussion. Appearing at the conference were the people who representedpractically every point of view with regard to junior collegedevelopment you could think of. The more conservative within the publicdomdn, the radicals within the public college domain, Dr. McLure apqearedthere to defend his proposal and then, of course, he was responded tc) by

Gerald W. Smith 20514-Ipeople who had other points of view. This conference was ~eported andid get quite a bit of attention in the press and again I use it todicate that in IllZnois, as in the other states of the country at thatime, the focus on the junior college had reached a point where this kindof conference was possible.Q. This was the finest possible kind of dialog and discourse to becarried on within a body politic in clarifiing issues and laying the groundworkfor making decisions.A. You can well imagine here the arguments on state control versus localcontrol, on local finance versus state finance, on compreh&M-ve institutionsversus a state system of technical institutes, and a state systemof separate junior colleges.Q. When was this ICEC established? You mentioned the date, but I didn'tput it down.A. I said soon after World War XI.END OF SIDE ONE TAPE ELEVENA. When the tape ended, I was saying that it was established soon afterWorld War 11. I am not certain of the precise date, although I have literaturewhich I could pick out, but I don't how that it is that irrrpor+mtfor this discourse. I personally became Involved with it when I was atElrm~ood Park. Mr. Lloyd Morris, a merrrber of the Bowd of mucation inElmwood Park, was among the original member% of the organization and it wasthrough n'y connection with him that I became active and have always helda membership in the organization. The group has always been relativelysmall, but it's mde up of a group of highly motivated and enlightenedpeople and it has never forgotten that its primary purpose is to serve asa fom. It is not an activist group, it does not lobby, it does not dothat kind of thing, but it does continuously provide this fom.Q. This is the first time I have heard of this, which is not surpristng.At some point I hope that we can talk maybe, I don't know whether thiwould be the right time to do it, f'urther and to identi3 some people fwho were . . .iA. I would say if you want to, let's do it later. This was only oneelement of their program and they did it, you know, fn conjunction w ithe Association of Juaior Colleges.Q. This is very, very appropriate here and I don't want us to forgetabout it because, all right . . .A. Again, I would like to say that in that discussion period that we aretalking about in the late 1950's and on up until the passage of the ppsentact, it should be noted that the Illinois Association of Junior Collerepresented in the largest nwnbers by deans, was the core that you fi

Gerald W. Smith 20(running as a thread through all of this. I had mentioned this earliq,but I repeat it here again because I mntioned their policy group in1960 and their joint sponsorship of this fom in 1962. I would lik 4to also point out that in March of 1964 when the Master Plan by the wardof Higher Education was under review and study before final adoption, avery important meeting of the IAJC was held on the campus of IllinofsState University. The outcome of that conference was that the IAJC endorsedthe Master Plan as it was published by the bard with a notationin their endorsement, of course, of cefialn concerns abaut specific it&mwithin it. But they endorsed the system of hi@er education as outlipledin the Master Plan in March of 1964.9. I am b e ~ ~ to n understand g now mch more clearly this phenomenalgrowth that the c m t y college system underwent in this very short periodof time. That this kind of interest and comitment and clarification andleadership . . .A. I do not want to make this section so long and detailed that it becomesboring, but there is another elernent that needs to be introducedhere. Robert Birkhimer came from the position of Dean at Centralia JuniorCollege to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction as a con-sultant in 1959.He was a moving force continously f'rom that time onthrough the period that I am talking about, here in the State of IlUnois.He left Illinois in 1965 to go to Iowa, but in that period of the BobBirkhimer's name appears and Bob Birkhimer's activities are again a verybasic pax%. In the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction,of course, he was consulted by all so&s of groups that were interestedin the junior college.Q. You said he had gone back to Iowa in 1969. That is . . .A. I'm sorry. 1965. And one of the things that I want to point out isthat in this period, partlculmly along about 1961 and 1964, Robert Qirkhhrwas engaged in cornrmnities in several areas of the State where peoplewere interested in developing a local junior college concurrentwith thedevelopment of the Mmter Plan. And prior to the passage of the ComqmityCollege act of 1965, there were in some cormunities rather intensivestudies in progress which made it possible later on for some of thosecommunitsles to move, as we shall see later on, with almost incrediblespeed. That is, in other words, a little later on we are going to betalking about the incredible speed with which the formation of juniorcolleges advanced after the passage of the act. I do want to point out,talking again about poundwork, that had to do both with the Master Planitself, there were comnslnity groups at work and in every instance BobBirkhimer, from his role of consultant in the affice of Superintendentof Public Instruction, was involved. There was much of that going on,I am going to submit into this record at another later session the documentationon that.Q. Very good. Very good.A. I have been talking now for some little time about studies and activitiesin the State which had a strong bearing on the developmnt of the

Gerald W. Wth 207Master Plan and the subsequent organization of the community collegedlstrf ct that occurred in the late 1950 s and on up until 1965. For aperson interested in reading a more detailed account of these, I suggestas an excellent reading source the dissertation (referred to above) byMr. Harden, his chapter entitled "Plans and Planning - 1960 to 1965. ItQ. And I am awfully glad that you put that in here. I am quite famPliarwith Tmls fine piece of work and I am very fond of him and am trying tohelp him in every way I can. I am delighted to have you comments here onthe quality of the work that he did.Q. Thinking back over the names of the men who constituted the poliqycormnittee of the IAJC which was fomd in 1960, there was a very distinguishedgroup of people there, Gerry. Their names are well known. Iknow a nwnber of them and know what outstanding contributions they havemade. C-ould you just put into the record here a little bit of the commentarywhich you made in our private conversation a momnt ago?A. Yes. This group of men was, of course, very much in the lh~light fora consldemble period of years and I might make these obsemrations aboutthem. Gil Renner, the Dean of the Elgin Cornnunity College, who was chairmnof the policy cormnittee that we me referr- to, was subsequently tobecome the president of Elgin Cornunity College when it was reorganizedunder the new law, and he stayed there until he retired. Harold Blttingat Lyons High School, again had been an active leader and remained allactive leader. The Lyons Junior College susequently dissolved or absorbeditself by annexation into the College of Wage and Harold Bitting wentover there as a dean on the staff of that college and stapd there untilhe retired. Kenneth Edwards, who was the Dean at Belleville at the time ofthe policy cormittee, was later on to be the founding president of theIllinois Central College at Peoria. He mned a strong leader untilretirement this last year. Elmer Rawley was really the dean of all thejunior college deans at that time, because he had been at Joliet in thatrole longer than myone else and became the prestdent of the new districtestablished around Jaliet that absorbed the old junior college and stayedthere until he retPred and is still called upon for consulting semriaes.Turner Trhble of Chicago was maybe the unsung hero. Turner was, at thetime he was on this codttee, the Dan of the Amndson/Ma3rfair campus inChicago and, as I said, president of the IAJC at that t*. Twner v@s anunusually able man in the area of legislative Uaison both for the Cityof Chicago and for the Association. In the legislative sessions of 959,1961, 1963, 1965 and 1967, Turner Trimble was one of the principal 1( @sthelative liaison men to be found in Springfield working in the name ofjunior colleges. He was a very able m. After the City Colleges o.Chicago were ~m@nLzed, he moved into the central office as the pfor the city system. He is now retired and llves in California.Dulgar, the Ban at Thornton, was to become the second president of .reorganized Thornton Junior College. James Logsden, who also was a s.force in this period of tim, was the superintendent of Thornton andwas the initial president of the college, but when he retired from WLee Dulgar became the president. I referred to Robert Bi;rkknimer andinfluence. Agah I must say that in rry and, as the histories of thcjunior college movement .we written, Bob Birkhimerls name will show ImerLeiherowheTe,nis3

Gerald W. Smith 20 8with increasing frequency and his contributions will get greater rec9g-nition in the passing of the years than it had at the time he was wo k-ing, or maybe has had even up to this date.IQ. I think it would be appropriate to mention here, iF you want to,he was influential not only in the developmnts in Illinois, but alsIowa.A. Yes, he moved from Illinois in 1965 to the staff of the Superintmdentof Public Instruction in Iowa where he perfomd a role almost identicalwith the one he had perfomd in Illinois, with this additional facet. InIllinois he was the forerunner to the reorganization of our state, whereasin Iowa, the reorganization of the state occurred when he was there. Thekgtlslature passed si&ficant legislation at the time he arrived, so hewas involved in the implementation of it in Iowa, rather than being theforerunner.Q. When you first began talking about this group of distinguished people,I guess I unconsciously assumed that at least sore of those would be superintendentsof school districts or fomr superintendents. Now, are thereany among them who were?A. The only one that I mentioned was James Logsden, who was at Thornton.These other people had performed their roles in the junior college asdeans. They caw into the junior college. I reerrphasize that for a perioddf 25 or 30 years, deans wwe the individuals who gave strong, conthuousleadership. Now, if you will think about it, as we were talking about theearly 1950's and the later 1950ts, there were several superintendents:Oscar Corbel1 at Centralia and Phil Dolan, and prior to hh, Fra,nk Jmsenat LPO, and I could mention that Harold Metcalf, the superintendent atBloom, who was the man there when they organized that college; and PIP.?Pnorrrpson, the superintendent at Elgin in earlier days had played a moreactive part, but by the mid to late 1950'8, you would find what we findhere, the leaders identified with it, the moving force within the Associationof Junior Colleges, which was a strong force, were these administrativeheads of the college itself, and, of course, until 1962 we have to d n dourselves that every jdor college in the State was a part of a publicschool district org~zation, either unit or high school.Q. Were these men and you approxlmtely the same age at this time?A. We were. I would say that.Q. And none of them came out of the public school background like yours?A. Oh, yes. Several of these people came into the junior college. IC:expect most of them came into the junior college, but none of them cameinto the junior college having been superintendents. A good rrmy of themmoved into it from faculty positions. No, I would think that everyone ofthese people had initially been a public school faculty member. Theymoved into the junior college from that roll, but they had not been admlnistratorsin quite the role that I had been. We were in the same, letus say, age bracket withln a decade. (lawter) I've noticed how ma@yI

Gerald W.Smithof them have retired.Q. I would just like to say a couple of words right here, Gerry,the relationship in your mind between the vignettes you have givenmrning of different goups and the main thread of the mrative,what you are saying is that there was a large context within whichformal, legal, formalized developments occurred in the State ofwhich were very influential in the way of creating the climate,receptivity for the ideas, and a williwess to discuss issues,which is really something quite remarkable.A. Yes, I think the rather dramatic development of the junior collegesthat occurred, beginning the fall of 1965, and which we will be talkingabout in the not too distant future, could not have ever been a possibilityor a reality without the kind of backgmund that we have been talkingabout here.Q. Followhg the notations that we just took d m a moment ago, Gerry,we were developirg some other ideas whfch I think are admirable summaries,and I wish you would pestate what you just said for the =cord.A. What I have been trying to say is that it should be, fmt of all,apparent that there was no one indivfdual, no one person, whose name standsout as being the single moving force for our junior colleges. It was nota one-rn idea. The development of the junior colleges in the last half ofthe 1960's was influenced greatly by the participation of m y people, manyof them, of course, well horn and educational leaders as well as laypeople in the State, but t; people in there durbg that period of tine.We talked about PbJor Lennox Low, a distinguished citizen of Chicago andhis work with the first cormnission. We talked about Fred Heitman. Hewas the chairman of the second corrrmission and subsequently a meuber ofthe Board of Higher Education and his contribution. Now both of thesepeople came from the industrial or business world into the progmm. Wewould have to mention the educational leaders in the universities and theState of Illinois. We would have to include these people we have alreadynamed from junior colleges, etcetera. There was just an enormous nwnberof people who put input into it, and the conclusion that I made a momentago was that the kacter of the Master Plan finally evolved in 1964, andspecifics of the Junior College Act as it was passed in 1965, and the explosionthat took place with the rapid development of junior colleges beginningin September of 1965, was all the product of these many ideas, ofthe work and thinking of these many people and of the tremendous amountof discussion that taken place, of the innumerable articles that hadappeared in newspapers and magazines across the State.Q. I know of no other educational development anywhere in the history ofthis country where the entire population of an area--in this case, theState of Illinois--seems to have been so deeply involved and so vitallyconcerned as in these develop~nts that finally led to the creation ofa cormunity college system.Q. I haven't had the kind of experience that makes it possible to relate

Gerald W. Smith 210this to, say, California, Florida, or New York where a Master Plan hadjust preceded ours. I can only relate what took place in Illinois. .Q. But the broad involvement of the public in different sectors and bheleadership in the different sectors and segnents of society--this is veryunusual. The Land Grant College Act, when that becarne law, didn't beginto compare to this. It was on a much mre limited scale.This is where Gerry's and nly conversation ended this morning on Wednesday,September 1, 1976. This discourse has brought us to the point where wenow have the proper point for the next phase of the story that Gerry wantsto share with us.This is now being transcribed on the morning of Septenher 7, 1976, followingthe extended Labor Day weekend. Gemy and I are seated here in our usualplace at the dining room table.Gerry, as I recall, we were ready to start talking today about the reaction,the various Wnds of reaction, *om dffferent groups and different individualsto the publication df the Master Plan. Is this where you would liketo begin this morning?A. Yes. As You know, the first Master Plan was released in January orFebruary of 1964 and soon after its release, it became the subject of aseries of public hearings conducted by Dr. Bmwne, Dr. Glenny, with membersof the Bowd of Higher Education, in several sites across the State of Illinois;and then the final form was published in July of 1964. When theGeneral Assenhly convened in January of 1965, it was then tk for actionwith regard to the implementation of the recomndations in the total MasterPlan, but we're referring specifically to those in Chapter 4 dealt withthe c m t y colleges. It turned out that Governor Kerner decided tobrYing an advisory cormnittee into his office, made up of representatives ofthe General Assembly and the public at large, to which I have spoken previously,to address themselves to the recommendations of the Master Planand to make decisions, or to make recomndations with regard to decisions,on specific points within the Master Plan to be draf'ted into a bill. TheGovernor also elected to give his leadership for the introduction of thehillWhat I want to talk about now are some of the issues that surfacedthe period of tfme I have just described, from Januaryflebmazy 1964,ti1 the bill came out of the General Assembly in June of 1965. We haperiod there of some 15 months for discussion and reaction, beforefic bill became a reality.Q. And this bill that was produced in h e of 1965 was then thetive enactment on which the two houses & the State Legislatureable to agree.A. Yes. And this was signed by Governor Kerner on July 15, 1965, to beknown as the Junior College Act. In those days, however, it was House,Bill 1710, (laughter) across the State. I

Gerald W. Smith 211Q. There was lots of rocky traveling between those bases in those 15months.A. Yes. Now, coming back then to the Master Plan, you will recall thatwe have already put on the tape the specific recornendations of 30, $1,32 and 33, that had to do with the cornunity college. In geneml, therecommendations were favorable, that is, the general idea of a system ofjdor colleges in Illinois to be under the direction of a State JuniorCollege Board as a planning, a study-coolrr32nating agency, the idea thatthis was to be a part of the higher education structure and the plan tostrengthen the programs so that the c m t y colleges becam more trulycomprehimsive in tern of the concept of a conq3rehWive tw-year collegethesethings were all quite favorably received by the existing cornunitycolleges, by the various boards of the higher education system, the Univeristyof Illinois, Southern Illinois University, State Teachers Collegebard which was in existence at that time, by such statewide agencies asthe Illinois Agricultural Association, the Chamber of Comrce, the Leagueof Women Voters, etcetera. Organizations of this type in general becamefavorable. The editorial comnt in the newspapers across the State wasgenerally favorable to the plan. The issues were, of course, in ~sgect tospecific topics.Q. Would it be a fair statement to say, Gem, that the objectives andthe goals and the spirit of the law weye accepted, but the chief dffferencesensued when they got into questions of "How are we going to do this," and"Who is going to do this?"A. Yes, and with particular points. For example, the Master Plan had pr*posed that districts must contain a population of at least 30,000 or havean assessed valuation of 75 rilllion to be fomd. The reaction to that wasdiverse. There was one school of thought that those standards were toolow, that the population base should be higher and that the tax base shouldbe higher. Now that came, of course, generally &om the more populousareas and the wealthier areas of the State. By constrast, in southernIllinois the objection was that those standards were too high because ofthe sparsity of population and the standard ought not to be so rigid. Sothat was a point of discussion throughout the public hearings, particularlyin the winter and sping of 1964,Q. Would it distract you, Gerry, if I raised specific questions as wego along?A. No.Q. The negative reaction of the most populous areas-was that directedat the probability or at the certainty that they, because of the wealthwhere there was a concentration of population, would be called upon topay a large part of the cost?A. It was from a different point of view. !The general feeling in theearly 1960's was that Illinois had suffered too long from too many sraallschool districts. We had come up into the 1940's with 12,000 school

Gerald W. Smith 2141:districts in Illinois and we had gone through a very difficult battl IIn reducing that nuher. The feeling was that on the basis of a 30, 00population we might end up in establishing fw too many districts.was the real base. They didn't want Illinois to repeat what was seea rdstake in the past, by forming far too many school districts on tsmall a population and tax base. It was a concern. Another one re1 edto this matter of size, the Master Plan had recornmended that the districtsbe able to give evidence that within five years of their establishntthey could produce a fill-time enrollrent of 1,000 students downstate and2,000 in the Chicago Metropolitan area. Again, the Southern Illinoispeople, looking at their sparse population, felt that the standard wastoo high. And so, these are really the same objections but they werephrased in two different ways. This was one of the issues--the standardfor the formation of a district in regard to population base, in regardto assessed valuation, with regwd to pmjected enrollment.Another concern that developed was in response to the proposal, that residentsof Illinois be authorized to attend publfc junior college districtsand have a part of their cost paid by local areas rewdless of whether theylived in a dfstrict or not. Now the basic proposal to make this possiblewas supported. The opposition that developed was with regard to the planproposed for the payment of that support from the non-junior college areasor territories. The proposal, as listed in the Master Plan, was that inany school district lying outside a junior college district, funding shouldbe provided by having the county superintendent of schools withold stateapportiomnt payments to that local school district for the purpose ofpaying the junior college tuition, or that shme of it which was to be alocal share. There were nwnberous objectors to that, and one of the mostvocal of those objectors was me. At that time I was semring as the ExecutiveDirecto~ for the Association of School Administrators and in thatrole I objected to it on the basis that we were going to pull money awayfrom elementary/secondauy school districts for the purpose of juniorcolleges, and I did not think that that was a good idea. objectimswere, as I espoused at that time, were as follows:1. I thought it was both administ~atively and morally wrong to allowan administrative officer sanewhere in the State to drain off f'undsthat had been earmarked by the General Assembly for a specific purposeand redirect them to some other place. I felt very stronglyabout that point.2. 1 felt that, and I was able to document, In fact, that the aountof money available fkom that source Sn some codties woal& ndt besufficient to pay the tuition. In other words, a township or a corninunityhigh school district which at that time received a very modestmmt of state aid, might find that its total state aid had beendiverted to a junior college and the junior college would find thatthat total state aid that was coming to them wasn't enough money topay their cLaipl. So this was an inadequate source in a limitedslumber df caseqnot too many. I was able, for example, to documentthat Hall Township High School, which had a sizable number of peioplegoing to the LaSalle-Peru4glesby junior college, would not proenough money through that sowce to meet the claims thatto them.

Gerald W. Sr~Lth 2131As a counte~proposal, I suggested that something similw to theold non-high school tax levied on a county basis against the nonjunior college territory be reacted, and that we establish thatprocedure and that plan for the payment of it. I appeared at thfirst public hearing that the Board df Higher Education ever he1with a discussion of this point and on this issue and obviouslythe Board of Higher Education heard that from superintendents of,schools across the State. So that was a point of issue. Not anissue on the plan-on the idea of having everybody ~ceive localsupport--but on the procedure for doing it.Another issue that came from the existing junior colleges had to do wjththe status of the existing junior colleges as proposed in the Master Planif and when it was enacted into law. The Master Plan specifically proposedthat the existing colleges should be able to retain their existing status,"without penalty." The comrrnznity or junior college people in existingdistricts across the State were unable to accept that statement "withwtpenalty." They felt that the Master Plan did definitely penalize them.!They felt that it penalized them, first of all, because they would have toremain in their existing status. They thought there should be a grandfatherclause in the Master Plan that accepted them in the new statesystem just as they were without any change or modification. I have notmade this point precisely, but the Master Plan provided for this statewidesystem of comprehensive comity colleges meeting standards that wereset forth in the Master Plan with regard to population, with r e w tosize, etcetera. Of course, only a few of these comunity colleges wouldhave been able to meet those standards. They felt that their very exiatenceentftled them to a wandfather clause and the Board of Higher mucationheard mmy objections to that throughout the State at the time ofthe public hearings. The discussion and debates continued right on throughthe six months between July and January when the General Assembly cameinto session, and it persisted throughout the time that the Governor'scormnittee was addressing itself. The arguments came through clearly duringthe drafting of the Community College Act and even after the act wasdrafted. So that was the issue that was alive for 1 l/2 years or more.They felt that they were being penalized because they were not the bemeficiariesof a grandfather clause. They felt they were being penalizedbecause as the Master Plan unfolded, it wasn't specific initially inMaster Plan, but as the plan unfolded more and more with regard toand particularly with financing, it became clear that the Masternot envision the reimbursing of the existing colleges at the sameas those that were going to be set up under the new plan. Therea differential in the level of state financing.Likewise, they were not to be included in the proposal for capital development.There was to be no state support for capital development in thgexisting colleges. In order to become eligible for that it was golng \tobe necessaiy for them to be reormzed to fit the pattern of the prodosednew kind of district in the system. So they said when they heard all ofthese things they could not accept the statement that the recommendationwas for them to be able to go on without penalty. They saw each of theseas a penalty for even being in existence.

Gerald W. Smith 214Q. Would these have really constituted penalties, or is this prettymuch local pride--not wanting to be treated differently from the newcomers?A. Well; 1 think you have to take into account what your definition of apenalty is. I would have felt that had I been the board of education ofa school district, or had I been the b od of trustees of one of theseexisting dfstricts, had I been the dean or president of such an institutionand operating a corramulity college program which I considered cornparable to those of the other districts of the State, but was not eligiblefor the same benefits, I believe I would have envisioned it as a penalty.Q. It is very understandable.A. I think that the language in the Master Plan meant that these peoplewere gofng to be allowed to continue their work, without taking anythingaway fYom them. Which was true. They weren't going to give them anyless in apportionment than they were getting. At the time they weren'teligible for any capital funding and I think that the term "without penalty,"if envisioned as meaning they won't take anything away from you, then youcan accept that, but if you saw yourself as perhaps being a pioneer in thedevelopment of colleges and then all of a sudden they were going to startanother one alongside you and give them advantages not available to you,you would feel that was a penalty.Another issue that developed during the period of tW that I am speakingabout was related to tuition. The Master Plan had recommended that thenew Illinois cornrmnity colleges established under the proposed new atatesystem should operate tuition free. The language says lttuition not becharged to any Illinois resident;" and that became an issue. And it becamean issue, for example, from several areas. Within the comitycollege system itself there was a difference of opinion. Some of thejunior colleges in Illinois charged tuition; back in the 1950's the deanshad struggled to get legislation that authorized the collection of tuition.Those distdcts that were charging tuition were in favor of continulthe tuition. There were districts in Illinois that did not charge tu "f tionand never had. Chicago had been operating since 1911 withoutThe Southern Illinois junior college district generallytuition. Those junior colleges were opposed to aso that there was a difference wfthin the area.leaders in higher education, there was a difference of opinion.END OF SIDE TWO TAPE ELEVENQ. Please go ahead Gerry with your discourse.A. There were those people among the institutions of higher educationand in the higher education cornunity who were of the opinion that if thecodty colleges were being made a part of the state system of highereducation, then tuition there was just as appropriate as it was in the seniorinstitution. They noted that it had always been a policy In Illinois to

Gerald W. Smith215IWge tuition at our state institutions and they thought that this asalso appropriate in the jwor colleges. Among the lay population o thestate the same differences existed. There were many people in the S ateof Illinois who felt that we owt to extend fYee education to the 1 thand 14th years in the jwor colleges without tuition, as ft was in thepublic school. There was another segment of the general population thatagreed that at some point in an educational career the student should beginto individually bear some of the cost. They believe that phllosophically,that this was appropriate beginning with the entrance into college,whether it be a two-year college or a four-year college. And so there wasa rather sharp divtsion.Q Well, I suppose the difference between these two points of view mayhave revolved around the two different concepts of the comunity college.If you look at the community college as just another of higher education,then presmbly there is no =ason why they shouldn't pay the same tuitionand the same way as the students in the university. On the other hand, andthis is a concept which was probably not too clear at that th, if youthink [of] it in terms of a means of getting large sepnts of the pcpulationready for higher education, who for one reason or another have notbeen able to make it to the level of achievement where they begin at theend of the high school year to pursue university studies, that mybe thenit could be justified as a public service which would be made available inthe same way as the public schools. To what extent were these differencesin philosophy apparent here?A. Yes, well I think that they were within the fra.mework that you discuss.I think those differences were articulated rather clearly. I think therewas a considerable amount of cofision. Some people were still thinking ofthe early William Mney Harper concept, of the Leonard Koos concept of theearly days of the junior colleges as an upward extension of the high schools.If it was an upward extension of the high school, then it was perhaps logicalto think of making attendance there tuition-free, just as it was upthrough the twelfth grade. But then there was this other school of thoughtthat said, welre no longer talking about comunity colleges as an upward+extensionof a high school. We're talking about a special education institutionin this state, with a special mission. It's post high school. Therefore,it's higher education, and therefore all aspects of it ought t beaddressed in relation to a branch of education operating within the ricansystem of higher education. Now, obviously this debate was notstricted to Illinois only. It was true in many states, and it was the samekind of debate In many states. At any rate, this was another one of $heissues that developed. Dr. Glenny and Dr. B m e remained articulate spokesmnfor the tuition-free institution throughout the total discussion andthroug21out the decision making period. Dr. Glenny who had done a number ofstudies in the fleld of higher edcation, was convinced that tuition was anobstacle to attendance in the post-high school yew to many people, andthat tuition in the junior college therefore would be an obstacle to attendane.Dr. Bme then was of the same opinion and he was totally devatedto the concept of the tuition-free institution. I believe if he were perewith us this morning, he would reiterate that position.Q. He wrate an article on this topic for Frontier1 s some time ago, whichhe said just that.1

Gerald W. Smith 216IA. I believe that these are the principal general issues that smfac dduring the period of discussion on a master plan -&Lately after itwas published in the period just prior to the beginning of the legisl -ture and when the cormnittee and the Governor and Dr. Glenny and Dr. B ownewere trying to agree on specifics to be drafted into a bill.Q. I keep thinking that this is a beautif'ul example of the nature of theprocess that a society like ours has to go through in order to arriveat any kind of consensus, a workable consensus, for doing something alongthe line of what was being proposed. Nobdy's pure wishes found fulfillment,but enough of everybody's wishes found f'ulfillmnt as the thingfinally developed that there could be a concerted agreement and consensus,let's do it, let's go ahead. That must have been a very exciting thing toparticipate in, Gerry.A. Yes, it was a lively discussion, somet~s a heated discussion (laughter)and it caught the attention of the legislature, it caught the attention ofthe press and the other news media, it caught the attention of almost everystate-wide organization that had any kind of a platform regarding the developmentof education in the State. It was a subject of a multitude ofmeetings, educational conferences, and so forth. I believe unless you havesometh- else in mind that this would be a good time now to speak directlyto the resolution of the issues.Q. Very good, Gerry. You know the story and you pmticipated in it, andthis is what we want to get. Let's shift over to the resolutions of thedlf ferences .A. Alright. Now the resolution of some of these differences appears inthe final edition of the master plan itself. Others were taken care ofduring the work of the governor's corranittee and his office just prior tothe drafting of the bill, and some of them came out as amendments to thebfll, House Bill 1710, after it was introduced, so the resolution of themoccwred in stages. The principal change that the Board of Higher Educationmde is a result of issues brought to their attention in the healpingsand had to do with the concern of the people in southern Illinois overthe standard for the size of districts. They did modim in the form inwhich it appeared in the final publication of July, 1964, and their mqdificationwas a paragmph which dealt with an additional standard. They retainedthe original stmda3-d of 30,000 population and $75,000,000 assessedevaluation. Now, interestingly enough, in spite of the fact that theyheard considerable discussion, they did not raise it. They retained mat.But they put in another one which pointed out that if the total part of 3counties not contained withh a junior college district, joined togetherto form a cormunity college distrkt, then theye were no specific standmdsas to population or assessed evaluation, and that was written into tha msterplan and subsequently into the law. Interestingly enough, no one evertried to do that, after it came into existence that did not become a problemor an issue.9. So that the 30,000 population and $75,000,000 rfhimum became the Fevailingpat tern.

Gerald W.SmithA. And m n I'll speak more to what evolved with regard to thatreach that par% which deals with the irtplementation of the junioract.I would have to editorialize here for a moment. It used to frightensomewhat, after I became executive secretary for the state board, to k hinkof what the potential consequences of that modification really were; thatreally there was no population minimum if you would put together 3 countieswith an eegate population of 18,000 people and such would be possiblein some limited places. Under the law such a district could have beenestablished. I think there were some safeguards in the law that could haveprevented that, but anyway, just on the basis it worried me somewhat, nottoo seriously, because we weren't really faced with any rnajor issues of thatkind. So that modification was placed in the final version of the masterplan.The matter of tuition was a difficult one during the deliberations ofthe cormittee to which I refer that worked with the Governor and duringthe perfod of time they were trying to arrive at a recommendation or theoriginal drafting of the act. The cormnittee was just as split on this subjectas the general public has been and they addressed themselves to thatsubject with the same references to the appropriateness of tuition, or notuition as I've already stated them. They could not resolve the problemamong themselves, and they arrived at an Wasse. They made a survey ofexisting junior colleges and they got a 50-50 split. !They were unable tohave a clear resolution of that issue. The solution then turned out to bea cornpronrLse in which they reconmended that an act be drafted in which itwas treated as a local option, that the local commity college board begiven the option of operating its college with tuition or without tuition.Again, we'll speak of that later. But that is the way the law passed. Thatwas the resolution of that paYlticula3: issue.Q. ?hen it seems to IE that they were creating the necessary mrlnimal standardin whfch adjustments could be made to suit individual peculiar circumstances within local districts. I guess that was what they were lookingfor, weren't they?A. Yes. The modification with regwd to the status of the existing collegeswas interesting also. In this modification one recomndation was t-texisting colleges be paid state apportiomnt at the same level as thenewly proposed districts for one yea, after which they would revert tosomewhat lower level. And, of course, this was a compromise which gam anwnber of the existing districts the to convert themselves to the new typeof district, md therefore really never suffer.Q. Is that the way it really worked out then?A. Yes, that is the way it worked out. mere was no modification withregards to the matter of capital funding the district in order to reachthat or be eligible for that rwlding. It was necessary for them to convert.As we shall see when we get further into the ~roblem the matter of the conversionof the existing Class I districts t&ed out to be historical1short duration. By July 1, 1969, there were no Class I1 districts rem T oflining.

Gerald W. Smith 218Q. That was speedily done.A. The matter of the payment of tuition for students living in non-.jdor college territory did not get resolved by the Board of HigherEducation nor by the comnittee that met with the Governor. The recornmendationwas that the Mtial act would provide for the same plan ofreimbursement by withdrawing the money frcm the state aid of the localdistricts as had been outlined by the first matter. That issue did notget resolved until near the end of the legislative process on House Bill1710 and came about as an amendment to the House Bill ITLO. The resolutionto the problem worked as follows: a sizable nwnber of people, includingwself, continued to push for special taxation to pay this tuitionfrom the non-junior college territories. Initially my recomndation hadbeen to establish a county-wide tax to be levled against those territorieshere within the county on the same pattern as had been used in the earliernon-hi& school temitory. As the discussion went on and there developedmore acceptance of this idea, a modification was proposed; I no longerremember where it came from, but it was acceptable to me. ?"nat was, insteadof levying a comty-wide tax and having a county-wide agency handleit, that each school district that had tert3itory not lying in the juniorcollege district that each school district vhich operated a hi@ schooldistrict, that would either be a unit district or a tmhip or communityhigh school district, that each one of those be authorized to levy a taxabove and beyond their other taxes, specifically for the purpose of paying'that, and that they be the administrative unit for getting that done.Namely that the junior college district would bill that specific schooldistrict for anyone coming from there, and then the district would pay itfrom this speclal fund that they wem authorized to levy. This was themodification that was offered and it was the amendment to the communitycollege act that became effective. It became !mown, interestingly enough,in the general language as the "chargeback."Q. This is still the pattern being followed, isn't it?A. Yes. If the pattern is still being folfowed except that the authorityto levy that tax expires with the taxes extended for the 1976 year. TheGeneral &s&ly is going to remove that problem and of course in 1977there is time for the extension of that tax authority if the General Assemblysees fit to do it. Such efforts were unsuccessful last year when theGeneral Assembly was in session, so I'm unable at this point to prophesywhat will happen, but by virtue of things we will talk about later, $hereis not a very sympathetic attitude within the General Assembly for allowingpeople to stay outside a junior college district. And this Is one wayof encouraging them to get in.Q. The munt of land that is not in one junior college district or anotheris very limited. The lmest chunk is around Normal, around Bloomlngton.A. But there are several pockets.Q. Well, that covers that phase of it. Now, I believe you said thiswould be a good time to,intmduce the deliberations and xrgwnentatioupsthat 'went on in the Governor ' s committee and their recommendat ions,Yd

Gerald W. Smith 219to continue with it in that way.A. The cormittee that worked in the Gwemor's office in the winter pndspring of 1965 continued its work to saneti& in April. The issues towhich they addressed themselves have already been discussed. Jt took'longer into the Spring than had been anticipated because of the three orfour frrrportant matters: 1. The issue of tuition, to which we have alreadyspoken, was a matter that did not get resolved until ~latively late 2ntheir deliberations. 2. The matter of capital hding for the c m t ycolleges which was recormended to be at 75 percent of the cost from statesources was another matter. It had been, I guess, just taken for grantedby almost all of us that the funds to do this would be approprfations bythe General Assembly. It turned out that Governor Kemer had a differentplan. It was his idea that this funding should be routed through theIllinois Building Authority, an agency which imd been established severalyears earlier for the purpose of constructing and selling bonds for supportof that constructfon for many public institutions. By 1965, practicallyall state constmction, all construction in the universities and so forthwas being handled by that process of going through the Illinois BuildingAuthority. It perhaps should be noted that for the record here the rationalebehbd the creation df the Illinois Building Authority had grown out of thelimi€&d bonding power of the State of Illinois under the old 1876 Comtitution.The bonding authority of Illinois was specific, the limitation wasvery specific, and the State could have done very little constmction bythe bonding process. And until the Building Authority was created aboutthe begidng of the 196ots, the General Assembly had always made directappropriations for building projects.Q. That's what I recall.A. It was the Governor's idea that the emunity college constmctionshould be included in this. No thinking or planning had been given to thatand so it was necessavy late in the deliberations to bring into the picturespecial law firrns that were specialists in this mea, to deal wLth thedrafting of the legislation that would be related to a proposed system oflocal districts, partly with capital development pmially locally fundedand partially state Med. You see, the same plan that worn& ror the -university where-it was all state funding was going to be different, thanit was in a cormunity college district. So this had to be a matter ofconsiderable discussion and some very inportant meethgs were held inChicago with the law firm of Chapman and Cutler, who are the outstandingauthorities on bond issues in Illinois. And that held up the final writingof the bill.Those of us on the outside waiting and waiting that sprlng were becorrdngapprehensive about the lateness of the time when the bill was ping tobe introduced. The resolutions to all of the topics, hwever were in duetime found and an attorney was selected to draft the initial bill. TQebill then was drafted on the basis of all the instructions that had bdengiven to hlm. A total bill was introduced into the House andnumber House Bill 1710. Eugenia Chapman of Wage County wassponsor of the bill, although by that time the support of the masterwas so great that there were many sponsors listed for the bill.

Gerald W. Smith 220The bill as introduced contained several sections. Article 1 dealt sfically with the definitions that were necessam and the names of theboards; the definitions of a comprehensive c d t y college, thetion of a district and the definitions of the khds of dfstricts.or the act dealt solely with the State Junior College Boa,rd, authori kedthe creation of the bad, described the makeup of the bard, the qua i-fications of members, the powers and duties of the Board, the mandatethat they employ an executive officer and other mtters related to theboard, the dischaqe of it's duties in relation to the Born of HigherFducation and to the Cormunity College districts.Article 3 of the act was the one which described the type of district thatwas to become prevalent in the state system of junior colleges, as envisionedin the master plan. This dealt with the districts which at that timewere designated as Class I districts. This section of the act providedthe standards on which such a district could be created, the steps fororganizing such a district, and the procedures to be followed by the localarea and the state board and the Board of Higher Education, a matter ofthe referendum, the election of a ,oard of mteex for the district, thepowers and duties of the board and other mtters pertinent to the creationand operation of the comprehensive codty college district which wasenvisioned in the master plan as the district of the future for Illinois.Article 4 of the act dealt with the existing districts which had beenspoken of in the master plan, and these were desiwted in the act as ClassI1 districts. There was one unfortunate connotation to that, in that manyof the Class I1 districts translated Class I1 to mean second class becausethey were still sensitive to some of the differentials that existed betweenthem and the Class I districts. But at any rate, the act provided for thecontinuation of the existing districts. And interestingly enough it didone thing that I'll put in here right nay. It provided that, on August 1,1965, any or' those existing districts which already had a separate taxrate for educational and building f'unds were to be reorganized inmediatelyas separate districts f'rom the school district of which they weye tbm apart. Namely the board of education of such a district should on Augpst 1,constitute itself as a separate board for the Class 11 junior collegeIdistrict. So they became a part of the system of higher education by theprocess bf having the board of education constitute itself a new and eparateand different board. There were also provisions in the act that dealtwith those existi= junior colleges in school districts for which noseparate taxatidn had yet been authorlzed. I'll speak to that later n.The act went on to desc~ibe the procedures by which these districts w reto continue to operate and then there were related in this section somatters that were covered in Article 2 dealing with the state board, theprocedwes by which such districts could be converted under certain c r-cumstances k.om Class I1 to Class I. I will describe these in detail at alater point in this mative.-,Q. Just to help the listener get aebetter perspective: how 10% did ittake approxirrately to convert all of the Class I1 districts (second classdistricts) into first cdass districts?- * - -- I

Gerald W. Smith 221A. The principal project was finished in about a year and a half. Hgwever,the last Class I1 district went out of existence on June 30, 1969.So, it really didn't take long at all. For the most part, other thanthat one district which had certain problems, it had been accomplishein two years. It went rapidly.Q. So that all of the dfscussion and argunentation and negotiating wascertainly well worth while.A. Oh yes, I'm sure that the act itself dealt, with this matter in mchsharper terms and in much clemr terms than it would have, had we nothad all that dialog in that year and a half period prior to the passageof the act.Article 5 of the act dealt with capital funding. This was the new sectionthat had to be written, that dealt with the procedures for funding the actand set forth all of the procedural matters that were necessary, as wellas the standards that were necessaq for the district to qualify for the75 percent state f'unding. Interestingly enough, although the act didin a short statement provide for the possibility of the direct appropriationby the General Assembly, 98 percent of the language had to do withping through the Illinois Bulkling Authority, so it was clear that thatwas to be the route.Article 7 of the act dealt with districts lying in cities over 500,000,whlch obviously is Chicago.Article 8 was a catch-all section that dealt primavlily with the substmtiationof actions taken with regmd to junior colleges in previous law, andthe severability clause in the act which provided that any single sectionof this act was found to be unconstitutional it had no bearing on any otheract. This was the outline of the act. The bill was introduced, I've forgottenthe exact date, but it was getting up tow& May of 1965 when thebfll was introduced. It moved through the House rapidly and passed withouta dissenting vote. It was sent over to the Senate. During the periodof time in which the bill was in the House and was being discussed, it wasthe subject of detailed study by members of the School Problems Corrrmi$sion,leaders in the General Assembly, by the Illinois Association of Junio!College officials, by representatives of every single jdor college istrictin the $tat@, by the Board of Higher Education staff, and such statew deorganizations as were taking an active part at that time in the support ofthe idea of the legislation, such as the Chamber of Commerce, the Leagueof Women Voters, the Illinois Agricultural Association, and so forth.Q. How much time did you yourself devote to these hearings, and to attendingand doing things related to this process, Gerry?A. 1 spent a considerable amount of time. I no longer have a log of it,but I would say that during the months of February, Mch, and April,-Iprobably worked somewhat with the issues thah were before us at some timeduring the day, every day. I attended, of course, a significant nu&meetings of the Administrators Association, the Junior College Rssocarepresentatives of the School Evloblems Conmission, and so forth. Gnctr of;ion,: the

Gerald W. Smith 222bill was introduced during the period that it was at the passage stwhich was a matter of some 6 weeks I believe, then againday, and frequently the total day, was given to matters related tthat legislation, because it was at that particular the thein the legislature, because of the magnitude of the act andthe act. So I spent a lot of time, but s6 did a lot of other people.Dwhg this period of study it was concluded by the leadem of the Associationof Junior Colleges, concurred in by Dyl. Glenny and Dr. Browne andcertain other people, (it was decided) that the act In order to be madeworkable, to be implemented with reasonable ease, had to be the subjectof a major amendment. The attorney who had drafted the bill had draftedit in essentially the same fomn that I had described. He had cbafted itin accordance with the recommendations of the master plan, I think and veryfaithfully in relation to that. He had followed the instructions that hadcome to hh from the Governor's office, faithf'ully. However, he had notbeen active in the administration and operation of junior colleges in Illinois.There were many things of which he was not aware as he was draftingthis act, and so the bill was faulty in tern of inplementation and interms of adrdnistration in many of its paragraphs and sections. As I haveindicated, the Association of Junior Colleges at a meeting March 4, 1964,had gone on record as supporting the master plan in total, which would includedifferentiation with the Class I1 districts. Now there was a lot ofdiscussion and a lot of debate and considerable heat with rewd to certainsections, but the idea was accepted.It was decided by a meeting of the Association of Junior Colleges after thebill was introduced and while it was going through the House, that the amendatoryprocedure was of such magnitude that it had to have a concentratedeffort. And so the ssociation decided to employ an attorney, Allyn F'ranI.defrom Chicago, well versed in legislation generally and in school legislation.He was engaged to work with the cormittees on a line-by-line reviewand amendment of the act. Eventually the association spent $5,000 on thiseffort.Q. But he did not have the major responsibility. The firm that you mentionedearlier . . .A. I did not mention the firm who had the contract . . .Q. Chapman and Cutler.A. Oh no, Chapman and Cutler simply had input in that section thathave to do with capital. hds.Q. Oh, I see. 1A. And we hired Allyn F"rankie, (I say we because I was part of that).Allyn Xi'rankle was in a law firm in Chicago but Allyn was hired as an jjndividualbecause of his expertise in school law and in the writing of schoollaw. His firm was legal council to mmy school districts in the Chicqgoarea. He was picked as an individual on the basis of his expertise, asone to work with the cormnittee.

Gerald W.SmithQ. And who was it that provided the chief legal consultation or guidancein the preparation of the draft thak was submitted to the house and acceptedby the house?A. Well, that was an attorney employed by the Govemorls office to writethe bill. He was working for the Governor and did that original act. 1want to repeat again he did, I think, as good a job as he could have donewithin the time frame had had and the experience that he had had. Whilethe bill was in the Senate merhers of the House and the Senate primar3l.yPepresented Ralph Claybaugh of the School Problems CorrmIission and SenatorDavis of Bloomlngton, Illinois also in the School Pmblems Cdssion.Q. Which Davis was this?A. Senator Davis1 first name is David.Q. He's in Bloomington. He was also a member of the School ProblemsCdssion .A. These two legislators, and of course Mrs. Chapman who was the chiefsponsor of the bill, were involved in all consultations. These people fromthe General Assembly, Dr. Glenny and Dr. Browne, several representativesof the junior colleges, and I worked in the office of the Board of Kl&erEducation for a series of days and evenings on re-writing the proposal.END OF SIDE ONE TAPE ZWELWA. And it was decided that Senator Davis would handle the bill in theSenate and that the bill would be put at the second reading and the rewrite subfittedas an amendment to the original nwnber 1710. And so the bill asfinally acted upon by the Senate concurred in by the House was in fact therewrite of the original bill to which I speak.I want to point out that no changes were made in the outline of the act.The outline was exactly as it had been submitted through the Governor'soffice arid was passed in the House. The rewrite was the caref'ul and detailedrevision of the language in the act designed to make it consistent widthother matters of school law and to rr!ake it in the judgmnt of those eoplewho did this rewriting a bill that could be inplemented effectivelyquickly, once the whole system was in existence. And so the bill th n passedthe Senate without a dissenting vote. It went back and it wss conchdin by the House without a dissenting vote, and on July 15, 1965, GovernorOtto Kemer signed the Eubllc Junior College Act of which I have previousLysaid is the act now in existence and known as the Public Junior College Actof 1965 as hnded, which means that it is now hmvn as the Illinois CommunityCollege Act, because in recent thes it was decided that the word"Cormmity" was more appmpriate than the word "Junior" and a total rewriteof the act was completed once again to change all instances of "juni~r" to"comity."Q. Now can we spend a little time on this rewrite activity? The rewiteactivity began approximately when; and when was it completed?

Gerald W. Smith 224A. The rewrite activity began sometime during the mnth of May inaf"cer it had come out of the House. I would say thatmately three weeks to do it. The groups that did the yewritingevenings a week while they were dbing it and then Allyn Franlcie,attorney, as I recall at one the came to Springfield and stayed heseveral days. Of course he worked throughout the day and theconcert with Dr. Glenmy and the representative of theColleges.Q. When you speak of the representatives of the Association of the JuniorColleges then Gerald Mth was certainly one of those representatives.A. I was there, Kenneth Edwards was tkiere, Gill Renner was there, TurnerTrimble was there. I am almost afraid to list the names because in thecourse of the total work so ~r!any were involved, but these people that Ihave named--Renner, Edwards, Wimble, rqqself, and Robefi Birhimr, I mustn'tforget him. We were a group of people that were there almost continuously.Wayne Stonekhg, who at that time was executive secretary of the IllinoisEducation Association, also participated in this rewrite. Wayne had beenin research in the IEA for a long time, and was an expert in writing legislation.And again I want to say here, I apologfze for any names I maybe over looking in this narrative because in the total picture there wereso many who were involved.Q. That would be quite understandable, Gerry, and I how that, you havemade it abundantly clear throughout this long narrative, you're trying veryhard to be fair, but you're h w and you do have a human forgetfulnessof mmbers.A. Yes, and again I am providing this story in ny perspective, pointingout that merous other people have wrttten the more detailed factual storysince the Act was passed, in the form of stories or disser%ations, and soforth.Q. I think it would be of very real interest if you would say a few words,Gemy, here about the kinds of contributions you thought you particul$rlywere in a position to make to this rewrite. The kinds of ideas, the $inasof critfcisms, or whatever form it may have taken, if there is somethalongthese lines, I think that it would be very appropriate.A. Well, I don't how that I had any special contribution. I think probablyqy role would have been helpful in this sense. For 5 years I hadbeen working in this state in terms of the total state. I thereforebrought, I think, to the discussion, a state wide perspective which illsome cases was different from the perspective of a representative of #-iind5vidual institution. I had been active with all of the school disl$rictsas the Executive Director for the School Administrators Association au)d withall of the codty colleges as secretmy for their association and mereforeI think I understood the necessary relationships that had to be itakeninto account with regard to those matters. I believe, as I recall it, thatqy input on the mtter of powers and duties and on the mtter of procqdures,in many instances was helpfil as we tried to write the language.I was not and that was a bill drafter. I made no effort to tryspecific 1-e. Whenever that needed to be done I went to A1

Gerald W. SMth 225who was skilled or to Wayne Stoneking who was a bill drafter or of cowse,we could go to the Legislative Reference Bureau, an agency of the GenAssen-bly which would help draft bills.Q. Fsom the wide range of experiences youfve had by this time you m d thave known where a great many of the raw places were and f'rom that you~ould deduce where-other raw places might-orignate if certain changeswere made. I can see that together with that, your natural way, or OUTdeeply ingrained way of viewing all of these processes in which you havebeen engaged throughout your entire life, essentially as educational processes.A. I might say A1 FYanlde and I wepe able to work quite well together becauseduring my seven years in Elmrood Park h1.s law firm had been a legalcounsel for our school districts there. No, I had worked with A1 forseven years in the Elmwood Park schools on bond issues, on the sale of taxwarrants, aJld on the matter of taking our new high school district inElmwood Pwk to a supreme court decision on two occasions. And we knewone another very well and understood one another very well, as did some ofthe other deans, some of the deans from those districts where they had hadsimilm experiences.Q. You were fortmte to be able to tap somebody like that. But now, thatwas in 1965; this is 1976. Basically, impression is that the instrument,the bill, the law under which this whole development has coe abouthas rdned very much the same as it was at that point. Are there somesigdficant changes, perhaps, that could be considered weaknesses? Arethere comments to be made at this point an the quality and the durabilityof the law? Perhaps this isnft the tim you want to do thls, but I do thinkthis is the question that any listener has at this moment. ,A. Yes, I can refer to this. The answer to your first observation isaffirmative. The Illinois C d t y College Act, as it is now known, hasremained in effect now for these eleven years without basic change. Theoutline that I gave to the act in presentation of it remains the same ,it has the same n&er of articles and so forth. And so the state caplnaxnitycollege system was set up and is operating wfthin that basic me-work. There have been some significant amendments to the act. Onefirst ones came in 1967. It was found during the first two yearstion that the sections of the act which dealt with the operation ofChicago City Colleges was inadequate; the financial procedures andin Chicago were so different from the other parts of the State thatrewrite had to be done to article seven, to which I refer thatthe cities of 5000,000. Ifm going to tell I think an interest- stabout that later on. There was a major rewrite of that sectfon.It was also necessary to write clarifying language wlth regard to thepowers and duties of the cormunity college boards in article three of theact. Thm have been numerous revisions to that, primarily to sharpen it.Another MOP change in the act which really doesn't do ayly.tliing to thebasic structure has been the addition of some large sections to the act.In the original act matters that had to do wlth maZcing tax levies, arfl

Gerald W. Smith 226mtters that had to do with bond issues, and matters that had to dowith the budgeting procedures in the Comty College Act were covepdby reference to the exist- language In the comon school law.are long, rather lerghty and detailed sections; instead oflanguage and Including it in the original act they wereIn other words, on the mtter of the budgetary procedures you did this inaccordance with Article 3. Three or four years ago the Association ofCommity Colleges and the Cormunity College Board decided that it wastime to encompass the total language within the act itself. And so thosemjor additions were made to the act. In fact they were lifted almostin total from the Colranon School Aet and rewritten to be appropriate to thefact that they are in the Cornunity College Act. No major change was madein the procedure. The act is considerably longer than it was because ofthe addition of material with regard to Chicago and those three mattersthat I have just referred to. And then as I indicated, everything in theact has been changed from l1 junior1' to ltc=ity . If But the basic patternof the act, the basic operation of the act, and so forth, are almost identicalwith the act as it became effective on July 15, 1965.Q. I'm interested in your saying that the powers that the bow& or theauthority (I have forgotten the exact wording) as originally set foAh inthe act had to be refined amd changed somewhat. Can you elaborate on thata little bit, the nature of the changes?A. I think the changes that have taken place and the additions that havebeen made or the clarif'ying language that has been made, has emanated almostentirely from the request of the boards themselves. The initial languagewas sSmple, rather broad in most cases, and h m time to time the boardsas they wrestled with one little matter or another little mtter havewished that the language had been mre explicit as to a power. Say, moreexplicit as to matters that have to do with employment and bond- of aschool treasurer, or matters that be more explicit as they have to do withthe matter of employment and setting the working conditions for staff.This ?dnd of mtter that has been the subject; or here and there the trusteeshave felt tha$ there is an implied power which they wished were explicit.It's this kind of thing. I cannot think of anything that hasbeen done that I have spoken about in there that really changed it. Itsimply was more explicit or made it clearer.Q. Well, the thing thlzt I have heard, the impression one gets is that theindividual institution including the boards and trustees are beginning tochafe at the inf'ringement upon their discretionary authority by the Cowmunity College Board itself. Now, it sounds to nae as though you're sayingthat the local boards, being reluctant to contend with the ambiguity perhapspresent in the initial act, themselves brought about this sharperlimitation, Is that a fair observation or interpretation?A. Well, I guess 1'11 have to respond to that somhat generally. Firstof all, I want to point out to you that that concern and that chafing issomething not of recent development; that began on July 15, 1965.Q. That4s wonderful. Well, this is very pertinent.1

Gerald W. Smith 227A. Generally speaking, the trustees of the districts have had a tendencyto react quite vocally to the restrictions on their powers and authoritttesand with regard to the regulatory measures that have been iqosed uponthem the Illinois Codty College Board and the Board of Wgher Education.However, what you say is true,T!he feeling has been that particularly sinceabout 1969 there's been an escalation In that regulatory authority, a feelingand a concern of the cormunity college districts which I might say isalso shared by the Board of Regents and the bard of Trustees in the Universityof Illinois and the Board of Governors and so fkth that this is atotal picture in our system. The interesting thing with regard to that isthat mst of that has corn about, however, without d o r legislation. Mostof-that has cane about by interpretation of the law as seen by the AttorneyGeneral or by the Auditor General or by the Bureau of the Budget or bythe Illinois Codty College Board or by the Board of Higher Education.Q. And by the legislature itself.A. And by the General Assembly itself. Certainly in 1969, when the Bureauof the Budget came into existence, that whole new piece of legislation hadlanguage in it, which impinged upon the public % d t y College Act mdthe act ~legardlng the University of Illinois and so forth, and which impingedupon the Co-ty College Board and the Board of K&er Education.It's these kinds of things. No, there have been no significant rewritesto the (pmmmity College Act itself which have tended to be any mre restrictivethan it was originally, nor have there been any that have tendedto release them from restriction very much. No, this has been the mtterof the interpretation, and the trends.Q. The Wends and then I have gotten this impression not only of them, nottalklng just of a community college people and system, but also of mamyaspects of our society, our other institutions. There is a growing reluctanceon the part of the individual to engage the Individual president, theindividual of trustees, the individual professor, to engage in the kinds ofrigorous tough-minded argumentation and discussion and clarification thatmust have gone on throughout this entire explosive process that you havereferred to, that created the system in the first place. And I think whatyou have said, I have heard you say something that I have felt for sometimeso I am not ascribing it to you but to qy own interpretation, thatpeople have relaxed a little bit too mch. They thought,"oh, we've got agood scheme golng here--welve got a good pattern, a good system workingand I can go about doing my own business or some other business.ll Butthere's the old saying about eternal vigilance--it seems to me that is justas urgent today as it ever was before.A. Yes, thatts-very true. You know I spoke about the trends; when GpvemorOgilvie became Governor in 1969. It wapl in his administration the Bureauof the Budget was created. Governor Ogllvie came to the governorshipwith a strong ccamritment to and feeling about the need for the ti&terfingof central mmgerrsent in state govemnt. He was an avowed advocate ofthat idea. He was very articulate in speaking to it. I still recall oneof the closing sentences in his first message he ever made to the GeneralAssembly, when he said, "As a beginning Governor, I propose to mamge4theState of Illinois as it was never managed before.I

Gerald W. WthQ. I didn't realize that.A. And he proceded to work within that spirit, you see. And all,tFthrOughhis term I think that Governor Walker has had essentially, the smb cmerit to the central management and central control. All agenciesstate government are subject to that feeling.Q. Not only the state agencies but every institution in our societyactually is undergoing this kind of change. Well, that has been a veryuseful and a very interestirg discussion, Gerry, and I think that you havemade a real contribution through it.A. Now I believe we're ready to go to the next section, which I have entitled"gettirg under way."Q. Well, good mx-ming, Gerry. This is the day af'ter Septenber 8, 1976.You were telling me a moment ago that there are some additional elementsthat you want to add to yesterday's discussion about the content, thenature of the act itself and the reaction to it. So before we get on withyour voyage, qp2jl-E this would be a good time to include that.A. Before we begin the theme of getting underway with the new act, it doesappear that it might be well to offer some comnts with regard to specificsin the act, which for the most part were either supportive of the generalconcept of the master plan for a state system or which were detailed legislationin response to the issues which were being discussed, about which wehave talked considerably~ And so I've put down about five topics here towhich I'm going dm make some comment.First of all, with regard to conrprehensiveness of the conarmnity collegesor the comprehensive college. This concept vdth reg& to the campEhensivecollege as dilscussed in the master plan, as dilscussed in the hearings andso forth, was written very cleavlly Into the act. The act first of allrefers to the term ltcomprehensive college" in the definitions that a~ inthe first article. And then it goes into detail as to what the GenenalAssembly meant by a comprehensive college, by dbfining a comprehensi~college as one which offers the liberal arts and sciences, general ewcation,adult and continuing education, and then because the General Asemblyunder the influence Dr. Glenny and Dr. Browne wanted to W e ce-inon this matter of the occupational programs, they wrote into the definitionthat at least l5 percent of the courses offered must be in the accupational/vocationalfields, no more than half of which might be listed in thearea of business edcation. They were trying to give a thrust to the comprehenssWmess-theywere trying to give a thrust to the matter of oacupationalpropams and you'll recall that I also noted earlier tkt thesepeople had discovered in their study tqey thought, a wealmess on the partof the existing system. So this was mitten specifically into the efinition.Q. Am I right in this, Gerry, that it was prwily Dick and Lyrrm thatkept pushing for the vocational and technical kind of programs in the college?A. Let me say they were the people who spoke to the subject moyeI would have to say that Ithinlr that many of the supporting agenciethe general movement were very mch in favor of this. There was

Gerald W. mth 2 29climate fop it. But the two men, and particularly Dr. Glenny, were theones who you find mst fkequently in public meetings speaking to that,subjectand making certain that it was in the definition of a comprehens vecollege.PQ. I'm glad this comes out the way it does. I think this is an hprrt%antpoint.A. The comprehensive emphasis again appears in Article 3 of the act whichdeals with the Class I junior college district. That is, the type ofcollege that was bo be created from here on in the Illinois system ofcolleges, and in.the very first section of Article 3 which begins with theprocedures of creating a new junior college district, it sets forth thebasic criteria with regard to population and assessed evaluation, and soforth. And then it proceeds to speak to the areas that had to be revlewedin a feasibility study with a strong emphasis upon the needs of the comi-ty in all of its educational aspects, in tern of the comprehensiveness,and again with an emphasis upon the occupational. And then in that s mf*st sectfon, once the comfty had completed a study and had petitionedthe Cormunity College Board for the privilege of having a referendum, Istated that the Cornunity College Bowd should then make a stuw of the proposeddistrict to determine whether or not in their judgnent such a districtcould operate a comprehensive program at a reasonable cost. It alsostipulated that, if the decision of the Community College Board or StateJunior College Board was in the affirmative the state board then forwardedthe proposal to the Board of Higher Education, and then assigned to theBoard of Higher Education one specific responsibility, namely, to reviewthe proposal to determfne whether or not the proposed district met thecriteria for a truly comprehensive college.Q. You couldn't be mch more explicit than that.A. So, I think that I want to point out that these a~.e illustrations thatI can give. Now, there are other places where the act refers to this, ButI think those two are particularly specific.Q. There are a lot of people in the business today, who don't know that,do they?A, Yes, I thirk that is probably true. I found qyself, I might say, afterthe actawas passed, frequently being interviewed by" people wha wanted , towrite feature aricles with regard to the c m t y college. Because erewas such a heavy emphasis upon the occupational progmm-md I think inIllinois that emphasis was very specific because of the feeling that heIllinois commity colleges had previously-not done as much in thks area asthey should. There are some times when I thFnk it became a Little bit distortedin peoples finds that it is a vocational role. So I i'ound myself,for expample, being interviewed for a feature article for Time or Newaweek,or a person who wanted to write a feature article in a 3 u n ~ i s - i s s u ~~hlcago Tribune or the St. LouPs Dispatch or s w publication of that type,and interviewing me sometimes for an hour or more. And I learned to know,almost to anticipate, that at some point 531 the conversation while we were

Gerald W. Smith 230discussing the vocational role of the c m t y college n'y interviewerwould almost be certain to say, "But this is what the c o ~ t yare all about, you know vocational, I' and T always RxmI wself.that and saying, "No, if you read the Illinois Correnunjtg Collegeis the comprehensive character of the community college that isthe vacatlonal role is very important, too, but only aa a partprogPam. "Q. Perhaps we can take just a ment to elaborate that a little bit filmthey or to broaden the context of this discussion to hear what you aresaying now. In some states the comrraznity college system is for more lwited,more nearly lirriited to the vocational and to the technical kinds of training,in Ohio, for example. Now, among the existing junior colleges or comdtycolleges in the State of Illinois, at the tine that these deliberationswere being carried on, were there some who were prirrmily vocational Intheir emphasis and in their focus, that might have been considered kind ofmodels for this other kind of philosophy?A. The only two year institution in Illinois that existed was a vocationaltechnicalinstitute at Southern Illinois University which had been operatinga number of years and was a two yexr institution drawing its enrollmentstatewide, and doing a splendid job. The public junior colleges in Illinoisassociated with the school districts at the the the act was passed wereall of them basically comprehensive in nature, in theory at least. And Iwould like to add here as did Dr. Glermy and Dr. Browne in their comntsIn the master plan, that whereas they charged that the junior colleges asa whole in Illinois were weak in the vocational field they also obsemedthat some of them had done an excellent job of developing that and this istrue. We had some cornunity colleges in Illinois that were really excellentexarrrples of the comprehensive concept.Q. Can you mention one or two that might?A. Yes, I think that Joliet would have to be given credit in that role.The Chicago City Colleges were a good example of that. In Chicago becausethey were a multiple canrpus, they were able to accomplish that; by havw,for example, Wright Junior College an outstanding college in liberal sand the Southeast College an outstanding college in the vocationaland so forth.Q. Specialization of the institution?A. Yes, of campus, but as a state institution, I think Belleville _hag madeexcellent progress in that direction.Q. No, I dadn't mean to make this a comprehensive examination but simplyto examine a limited nwnber,A. Well, at any rate I think that I have spoken sufficiently to the pointthat an emphasis in this act addressed itself to the comrehensiveness ofthe comprehensive program in the ccanmunity college.A second topic that I wanted to discuss is a matter of tuition. 1'11

Gerald W. Smith 2 31discuss this as it was written into the act as a follow up to the discussionthat preceded the enactment of an act which we, I think have talkedabout considerably. I also want to cmnt about it because that par€&-cular subject has been one of continous discussion in the eleven yearssince the act passed. It didn't end with the cormittee in the Governor'soffice or with whatever language they wrote into the act. I want to speakto that llttle bit now. And I think there is one element about the discussionthat I'll add to this particular discourse. Namely, that in thediscussion with regard to the matter of tuition not only was there the discussionon the matter of whether community colleges should operate tuitionfreein Illinois or whether they should include tuition but there was aconsiderable discussion as to the principle on which tuition would bechanged, and the levels of tuition that would be allowed. During that prelegislationdiscussion to which I have referred. one of the conce~ts thathad been identif id, interestingly enough, considerably in the state ofNew York was the idea of operating the codty college with incore on whatthey talked about as a third, a third, and a third: one third state, onethird local tax, and one third student tultion. New York is not the onlystate that did that, and, interestingly enough, that dialogue wasn't lirrdtedonly to the junior college. There were people in the United States anddifferent pockets around the country who thought that was a good principlefor all of hi&er education, but in our case it was addressed more to thecornunity college. Well, this was one of the elements, as I indicated therecornendation that finally came out was that the local districts be giventhe option whether to charge tuition or not. So the specifics of the actas it was passed in 1965 were as follows : it stated that the Board of mucationand now called the Board of Trustees of the c m t y college, havethe authority to charge a tuition fee not to exceed one third of the percapita cost in the academic programs. NOW the reason far specifiying theacademic programs was that there was speculation that, as these new collegesdeveloped, it was quite probable that the levels of mamy of the occupationalprograms would be substantially higher than the liberal arts or the academicprograms.Q. By level you mean the cost level.A. The per capita cost level. Yes, the unit cost level would be conside*.ably higher. And so in order to prevent a community college from using pehapsthe highest unit it had, it specified that it shou1a be one third,that it could not exceed a third of the per capita cost of the academicpmgram in the cormn"unity college, and so that was the way that it was done.Q. What about the vocational areas and the technical areas? Is there anyething specified about the level?A. No, if they charge tuition, it had to be across the hap3 on the . . .Q. It could not exceed more than one third the cost of the academic p mgram. That is, in words. Their over-all programs, let us say, might haveended up, let us say, $50 per semester hour per capita for a student, whereasmybe libeml arts might have been let us say, $45 and the occupational program$55. They could not have used more-khan $45 if that was the aca?emLchigh. Those figures that I use now are purpose of demonstmtion.

Gerald W. Mth 232is no relevance to facts or regard to it. So that was an interestingitem.I might also say that it was an interesting topic, which leads me now toone that I am going to add to my notes. In talking about tuition chargeper capita and levels of cost, I am reminded that the act also stipulatedthe level of state apportionment for the junior colleges as it came outwhich was for the first year $11.50 per semester hour credit, for . . .QThat was across the board.A. Yes. This was the state apportionment: $11.50 for all colleges, theexisting colleges and the new ones. It stipulated then that after the firstyear that was to be $11.50 for the new colleges and $9.50 for the existingcolleges. Now, the master plan stipulated approximately 50 percent of thecost of operating the colleges should come fmm state revenue and yet wecame up with only $11.50 per semester hour credit and there is a matterthat ought to be spoken to with regard to that. In attempting to arriveat a figure to write into the specific act, it was very difficult to determinewhat the average semester-how costs for operating Illinois juniorcolleges really were. And this grew out of the circumstances of the day.Black Hawk College was the only institition operating as a separate orautonornus institution. I had been doing so for three years. Each ofthe other colleges was a part of a school district and their accountbgsystems were far from uniform. They were almost, each of them, indiwfdual.So these were the circumstances as we tried to compute the average percapita cost. A few of the existing colleges that were operating in connectionwith townships or community high schools were operating with accountingsystems that revealed very clearly the cost of operating the 13th and14th years. There was a specific accounting procedure that took in all theelements, so for two or three of them there were very excellent data. Insome of the cornunity colleges the accounting procedures covered pades 9through 14 with no buleak-out at'all for any of the 6 years that were inthat institution and it was very difficult to arrive at my specific ffgwesfor the jwLfor college operation of it. And then there were a few omu unitycolleges didn't cost very mch. And so they were saying, for example, thatwe would be heating the building, we would be light% the building, wewould be providing mintenance on the building, we would have custodialservices, we would do a11 those thin@$ whether the high school or tqe communitycollege was here or not. And so their accounting really in Tactassigned a disproportionate share of the cost of the high school opq~ationand displayed a very small cost to the operation of the junior college.Q. You believe what you want to belleve.4IA. Yes. I'm not willing to stick neck out here and identify th se institutionslaut I could do so, I could give examples if you wanted to,but in all fairness to these people, I'm not going to. Well, as yo seethis made a very difficult thing. So the interesting thing is that althoughwe lmew that the $11.50 was a low figure for state financing on the basisof 50 percent of the opeating costs, in terms of documentation we didn'thave any thing better to give. I'm talking about the Association of CbmmunityOolleges, I'm talking about the research of the Board of Higher

Gerald W. Smith 2 3Education; I'm talking about the support of the Chamber of Comrcethe I1lhois Tax Payers Federation Association and so forth. All ofwere involved in this klnd of thing, the Illinois Educatfon Associaexcellent reseamh depwtment. These were the best we could come upI thlnk this ought to be explained in there, and it points out thatfrom the day that the act passed, the new colleges as they came intotence began to argue that the level of state support was too low andtainly substantially below the 50 percent level.ndusionf swith.almostexiscer-END OF TAPE TWELVE SIDE TWOQ. So, Gerry, I think you are probably at the poht where you are wadyto talk about point 1.A. Yes. With regad to the Act itself, the subject here relates to thecharge back, or the payment of tuition, or a portion of the tuition forout-of-district students 5r-1 the junior callege districts. You will pcallin speaking about the Wter Plan that the observation had been made thatthe Master Plan proposed that all citizens of Illinois, regardless of theirplace of residence be entitled to attend a public conarnnnity college, and,to have a portlon of that cost paid by local taxes.And, SO, when the Act was passed it had two provisions in this direction.F'irst of all, it provided that if a student lived in a c d t y coldistrict, and desired to and was eligible to follow a program notin the ham district, that student could then attend a junior collee insome other part of the State that offered that program and have a portionof the cost paid by the h m district. So there was this reciprocitybetween districts and the guarantee that...that all citizens of Illinoiswere eligible to take part fn programs in cormunity colleges wherever theywere. Even going from one home district to another if that pmpam wasnot available in the home district.Tne other facet had to do with those people whose residence was not In ajunior college district which are, in just popular language, labelednon-junior college territo ry.... or non-junior college district. You won'tfhd that language in the statutes. 'That was the popular language weused. And...again, this Act then as it came out, provided a procedure bywhich the residents of these out-of-district areas could select a collegeof their choice and seek reinbursent for a portion of their costs fmrntheir home camsnunity. It turned out that the admhistrative agency forhandling this, to which I have previously referred, was the school dPstrictwhich operated the hi& school. If they lived in a township or cohigh school district that's where they went; if they lived in a unit dis-T:mtrict then, of course, they went to the office of the unit district.they filed a statement of intent to go to the junior college which innediatelycamltted that district to bear that port;ion of the cost and thenuponenrolbent and proper certification by the college that the student attended,the local district could be billed to pay that tuition on the basis of atax whfch the district was authorized to charge.

Gerald W. Smith 2 34I want to put into the record this matter of that tax. As againA%indi atedearlier, in this discourse, the original Phster Plan proposed that tcharge back be taken care by the County Superintendent of Schools byholding or diverting as mch of the state appofiiomnt to that pschool district as was necessary to meet the c1ah-s of the c m t ycolleges. You will also recall that there was objection to that pmprosaland that I was one of the principal objectors and perhaps became the onewho spoke most fkquently to that. We did not get that provision out ofthe proposal until the amendment stage. This was one of the thims thatoccwred in the re-writing of the Act, to which I referred. The Board ofHi&er Fducation, Dr. Browne, Dr. Glenny, never accepted the objectionsthat we eve and continued to support; their point of view, that this shouldbe done by havlng the County Superintendent as an adfninistrative agent todivert that money. In a hearing before the joint comittee or joint educationcomittees of the House and Senate, I spoke to this subject. Themembers of those comfittees concurred in the point of view which we werepresenting, namely, that that should not be diverted f*rom that. Whereuponthe assigmnt cam to me to write (chuckle) an amendment to the Act thatwould Wte that. And, so, accept- the principle it seemed had alreadybeen generally speed upon, that we would use the local district, as theadministrative unit to handle that. We did write an amendment which proddedthat the student would give a statement of intent to the localdistrict and that the charge back would go to the local district.There was one little incident that I would like to put in here because Itcould probably fit, as well as any. In writing the amendment we decided,and I guess maybe I could probably say, several of us did. I don't rememberwho all of us were on that, I'm sure we conferred with Wayne Stone- ofthe IEA and I conferred with Dr. Glem and others. Anyway, the amendmentthat we wrote proposed that the local district be authorized to levy a taxabove and beyond any other taxes they levied sufficient to pmvLde themney for the tuition. And that was the way our amendment went In. Itdeveloped that there were some objections to that larqpage, the IllinoisTaxpayers Federation, for example, objected to unlimited taxing power, asa basic policy they usually supported specifics. Representativeof the School Problems Canmission supported rry contention that tnot an unlimited tax, that the language specified that it was tcient to pay and that the money could be used for no other pwrpthere was no advantage in leveling extra tax. However, Senator Dcame to us one day and said, ''We want thPs Act to pass we wantwith possibly no objection, Would you -be ~2llLng to7- put in a 1rate in order to get the total support without conside~able flack wregard to that?"As far as I was concerned, the legislative principle is: when youf wonthe point, you are willing to concede on the specifics. We'd won o$ pointwith regard to the general principle .,. and ... so, yes, we agreed. SwatorDavis and I, stand- in the aisle of the Senate- one evexhg, on tMspoint were discussing if we were going to make it a specific figure, howmuch should it be. And so right out of the thin air, sorrmhere out of thechandelier (chuckle) In the Senate ch&r&r$, somewhere, we decided 'ahatfor the first two years we didn't know what It was go- to cost but weI

Gerald W.Smlth23Fjbut we would say a tax not to exceed 34 on a hundred dollars assesseevaluation. There was no scientific base for that figure..,no objecbase for tW figure. We put the 34 in there ape@% that it oughtget us along for two years. And... so..the figre was changed to 34.One of the people who was opposed to the.statement, "a taxpay", was Mr. Maurice Scott, the Fxecutive Director for the IllinoisTaxpayers Federation, a very able nan and a supporter of the bill. qetween1965 and 1967 this was the provision that was in the Act. I want tot adda little human interest item. By 1967 data were available, of course, fora rnore objective basis on which to assip a figure and it was obvious by1967 that the 34 rate was inadequate in many parts of the atate md 80 theIllinois Corrnraxnity College Board, as a paYct of its rec~lgnendations to theGeneral Assembly 1967 reccarnzended that that of the Act, be amended.Trying to arrive at a f i v and keeping in mind the origlml objecttonto our language which had been seen as open-ended, the proposed amendmentstLpulated that the tax that might be levied should be at a rate not toexceed 216 on a hundred dollars assessed evaluation because by that timewe had at least one school district 3.n Tllfnois, namely Riverside-Ehmokfield,that needed that mch to pay their out-of-district tuition. And, we wantedthe rate to be high enough to covey the most expensive place in the State.And, so, the amendment was put in at that level. The amendtnent was introducedand a day or two after it was introduced I had a telephone call fk.mMaurice Scott, in office, saying that he was quite concerned about, inone amendment, increasing that authorized rate 34 to 214. I explained tohim the basis on which it had been done and his questlon to me was, "Wouldyou object if we went in and offered an amendment to your proposal thatwould read a "tax sufficient to pay (chuckle)...the cost ." Mch, interestinglyenough, had been the original language that we had introduced,which we changed to satism Mamice Scott and others, and now it wasMaurice Scott askkg m if I would agee to tbat language. That languagewas put in then in 1967 and has remained there ever since.I n~Lght also say another thing about the charge back. The chargefigure Fn the bill was Initially an authorization allowed to thefor a three yeas. period. In 1965 it was stipulated that thatauthority to the districts through 1968. In other words, itthat the General Assembly and the people who were counseling theAssdly intended that the push should be for theJunior College mas sometime in the distant f'uture, and so they p#terminal periods on that type of legislation.IA@n, I rd@t editorialize here by saying that in the 1969was another extension and then subsequently anotheralready observed at the mmnt, the terminal year iswhat happens to that r e s to be sen.Another topic to which I want to speak with regan3 to the Act was dhemtter of the Open Door Admissions policy. Or, so to speak, the aWssionspolicy of the C m t y College. In the literature and in the discussionsthe term "Open Door1', as you OW, has been widely used for many, manyyears. The Illinois system as set forth in the Act not only was to provide1"

for a system of ccenprehensive colleges, but the Act also had astatement with regard to the Open Door. And... because thatntsinly in Section 103-17, of the Public Comkmity Collegebecame a model referred to in the legislation of some other statesthe literature that addressed itself to the Open Door Ito read the speciflc language of the Act, as it was written InI don't believe that the authors anticipated that they were writing @model, but it turned out that that was what they were writ%.Q. This defines the le@slative intent with respect as to the question,"Who should be able to attend a Conmmity College?"A, Yes.Q. Yes, that's good to put into the record.A. It is entitled, 'Admission of Students'.Q. If you w ill read it slowly enough so that it can be transcribed.A. It is therefore in Article 3 under the duties of a C m t y CollegeBoard. I thWc. there are two things here, one duties and the otherpowers which are obviously optional, but here it's a duty. And thisthe language, quoting: "The Community College dfistricts shall admLt a11students qualified to complete my one of their program l.ncluding generaleducation, transfer, occupational, technical and temhal, as long asspace for effective instruction is available. After entry the collegeshall counsel and distribute the students mng its propam according totheir interests and abilities. Students allowed entry into college transferprograms must have ability and competence similar to that possessed bystudents admitted to state universities for similar programs. Entry levelcompetence for such college transfer propams may be achieved throwsuccessful completion of upper prepmatory courses offered by the college.If space Is not available for all students applying, the c-ty collegewill accept those best qualified, using rank in class and ability ~d achievementtests as guides, and shall give preference to students resid- in thedistrict, unless the district has entered into a contractual agree1nt forthe mutual exchange of students with another c&ty college diLs rict,in which case equal enrolbent preference may be @anted to studen s residingin such contracting district ." Now that last phmse is an endmentsince the original Act. Initially2& only said that they should give preferenceto their home students. Since there is this reciprocity tlpen thishas been added. This is the language of the open door and I hope I readit so that Lt gave enrphasis to the fact that they shall admit all studentswho are qualified to complete any one of their pmgmns and again, you'llsee that they recite the specifics of the comprehensive.Q, I had forgotten how mch detail and specificit$ was in that. Can youidenti0 the section and...A. It's in Section 103-17. Well, so the Act was then very specific onthe matter, that this was open to all students and did, however,obviou~~ -

Gerald W. Smith 237point out that in the case of shortage of space in programs that the Localdistrict students were to be given preference.Q. Now this is point rimer El, was it? .A. I think this is point nwnber 5 now. I believe it is ... the point Iwant to emphasize agab with regard to the Act is that hsofar as theexisting colleges were concerned, the language in the Act as it finallycarre out, pa& of it in Article 2 deal- with the State Board and p@of it in Article 4 dealing with existing colleges, the so called Clqs I1colleges, the language was very specific and turned out later on to $howthat it had been well written regardlulg the orderly changeover of theexisting colleges in order to operate as Class I districts rather thanthe Class I1 to which they were shown in the original Act. I want hereto emphasize that this was anothe~ characteristic. Again, let m swrsnavlizeby saying that I have seen fit to point to these Ltems because I believeit serves as a good background for the section that we will now start,the matter of getting underway wfth the new Fublic Junior College Act inthe Fall of 1965.Q. This is now be- recorded on Wednesday morning, September 15, 1976,md we are ready for the take off on getting the show on the road.A. Yes. Governor Otto Kerner signed the Junior College Act on July 15,1965. I shall pmeed now with a smwhat orginized, step by step, reporton the thbgs that were necessary to get underway with the new law becauseagain we have to point out now that the signing of that Act totally changedthe junior college system in Illinois. The Governor signed the bill onJuly 15 as I said. Sequentialy, the first thing that occwred was thereorganization in part of the existing districts on August 1. I won't gointo detail about that now except to say that it was necessary for theBoards of Education in mst of the public school districts that wereJoperatingJunior colleges to constitute themselves as a separate board fod theoperation of the junior college program. That took place autmticaon August 1 by a rrandate of the Act.The Act also provided that the Governor was to appoint the membersnew State Junior College Board that was provided for in the Act.Kemer did this in the month of August. He named eight people toand the Superintendent of Public Instruction, by provision of thean ex-officio member of the B o d and that year that was Ray Page.individuals whom Governor Kerner named to the initial Junior Colin August of 1965, were: Mr. Frank F. Fowle, an attorney in Chithe Act also provided that the Governor desipate the chairman)namd Mr. Fowle as the initial Chairman. Mr. Maurice B. PEtchelof the E;ncylopedia Britannica, was also a member and I mightby virtue of stipulation in the Act he was chosen by thethe Vice Chairman. Maurice Mltchellls office was in ChiG. Bme of Noml, Illinais, was also named to theIt should be noted here that Dr. Browne had only apleted his tenwe as Executive Director of the Boarand been a pioneer in the development of the Master Plan that broughtthis Act into effect. He came on here with his great f'und of know1.-- 1

Gerald W. Wth 2-38with re@ to state Mgher education, as well as the new law. And,I%. John K. Cox, Legislative Secretary of the Illinois AgricultureAssociation was also a nmber. His residence was &-I B1oomingt;on and hehad also been very active in educational affairs in the State of Illipols,for more than a qumter of a centwy. Having once been a superintend$ntof schools in Illinois and then addZng about twenty sm years servin$as a Legislative Chairman of Agiculture. Another mr&er was Mr. Lee 0.&won of East Molhe, Illinois. Mr. IBwson had been a Superintendent ofSchools in the United Township High School in East MolIne fkom 1929 untilhis retirement about two or three years before he took this role.Mrs. Gertrude (Barney) C. Kahn a housewife of Pekin, Illinois. Mr. NewtonN. l"Enow, an attorney in Chicago and fomr Chairman of the FederalCmmavlications Conralssion, was a member of the Board. Dr. AnnabelleB. Prescott whose husband's name was Patrick (now deceased). Ws. Prescottwas the eimth member of the Board appointed by the Govern. Mrs. Prescottwas recently retired @om the administrative staff of the Chicago PublicSchools and her last assigmmt had been to represent the General Suoerintendent,and the Board in the matter of racial affairs in the distriat,Q. And so, she is f'rom Chicago?A. She is a. ..yes, her horne is in Cnicago. These, with Mr. Page, werethe original members of the Board and the law stipulated that they wereto met in the office of the Board of Higher Education for the purpose ofmgmizing on the second Monday after appointment. That happened to fallon September 6, 1965, which was Labor Dw. On the afternoon of Bbor Daythey met there and Lynm Glenny who by that the had become ExecutiveDirector of the Board of Higher Education as the result of the ret-mentof Dr. Browne, was the convening officer for the Board; however, his rolewas primasily formal in doing that because PIP. Fowle was the designatedCnalmnan of the Board. So then in Springfield on the afternoon of September6, they held the organizational rneetFng.The situation on the occasionof their meting, of course, was an interesting one. These people deref'mm varlous parts of the State, they came frm a variety of hdivic@ilbackgounds, personally and vocationally, and of course, they did nqt allknow one another. I think In most cases each member perhaps knew o$e ortwo others, or considerably about one or two others, but as for realpersonal acquaintance this would not have been true. Take for examlple,Mr. Fowle, an attorney, he had been active in state political affairs asa laymn, but he had never held a public office in his life until he tookthis position. Well, he knew W. Mjnow, an attorney, he probably knewof Maurice Plltchell if he didn't know him, and that would have been aboutthe extent of his acquaintance. Dr. Bme, John Cox and Lee Dawson, allhaw been active In school affairs, knew one another reasonably well.Thus, this was the cluster of people who met on the afternoon of Septeuber6th to organize,The situation was an interesting one by virtue of having been appointedand then inmediately going into operation after organizing thmelves.There was no oppo~Lunity at all for the Board to met and discuss a planof procedm, or when they woUd get underway or anything like that.

For example, when they met on the afternoon of Labor Day, on Septwer 6,the people f'rom the Centralia area were there with a cammication askingwhat to do about a referendum for the organization of their districtsince under the old law they already had a new district in progress. Now,automatically the state board took over. Fortunately, that conditionhad been foreseen and the Bow was able to answer that question rathereasily because it was stipulated in the Act what shouLd be done in thatcondition.Q. But now, individually, the board rnerbers themselves didn't know thatMnd of thing, did they? If they didn't how the answer to-that, whomwould they approach?A. Dr. Bmwne knew the answer to that; he had helped write the law.Then, DuPwe County was there with a petition to organize a new districtunder this new law and, of course, no one had any time at all to discoverwhat to do about the handling of a petition. The solutlon that they cameUQ with that day was to appoint three members of their board as a cormnitteeto review the section on the law that had to do with petitions and to makea report;, at a subsequent meeting.Q. I'm sure that Dick &me was a member of this cormittee.A. I don't mrmber whether he was or not because, in fact, the cormitteenever operated. I' 11 explain why that happened a little later on (chuckle).However, they dLd appolnt a cormittee.Q. These human touches that you are bringing out here, Gerry, me justfascinating and delightfbl.A. It aves you a sett ing... for the Bod to get underway. You see theyo@zed in a setting in which there was already business to be takencare of, a considerable amount of business to be taken care of; it was notUke a board appointed in August whose wo~k would begin the next January.Under the circumstance they could not have had the, you know, to plan.They were automatically in business. The Superintendent of Publlc Instructionwas no longer responsible for the junior college system at allas he had been prior to July 15 of that year. Now that Act also providedfor another individual or another office k~ relation to the Board. Mainly,that of an Executive Secretary and the law that provided for it said theExecutive Secretary shallhaxe charge of all the records of the StateBow and keep the same secure at all thes. He shall keep a fill and completerecord of the attendance of the merrbers of the Board...he shall keepa Ml and complete record of minutes of the meetings and then subqequentlyin other paylts of the Act it set forth some other duties and respo sibilltiesof this officer. So they had this to deal with. 7Learning of the munt of activlty that was already in propess, and knowingsomething about things that were going to come up rapidly, the Boarddecided that afternoon that it was 5.rportan.t; that they find such a personirranedlately. They concluded that afternoon that the thing to do was to

Gerald W. Mth 2 40try to locate somebody who would cone on an interim basis, a tempoperson.Tney discussed that matter that afternoon. I was not presentat that meeting and so I do not lolow just what the nature of the discussionwas, nor how mu^, people were discussed. What I do how is thatin the eve* of Labor Day as I was working out on lawn, a phone callcame f'rm Dr. Bme.Q. Where were you living at that time7A. I was living in Sprhgfield because I was serving as Executive Directorfor the adrr;inlstrators and as Admlnistratlve Relations Director for theIE;A, which included the Junior College Association.Q. I knew that Gerry, but I wanted to get it into the record again.A. And...the nature of Dr. Browne1s .~nye:mk%@n- was essentially vdhatI've Just sald. They had to have somebody right now...and the questS?onwas, would I be willing to serve them as an interim person on a tempararybask, bdicating to me that they were not looking for a permanent indivi-dual; they would decide on that at a later th~. I explained to Dr. Brawnethat, yes, I would probably be Interested but I was not a f'ree agent. Iwas employed by the Illinois Association of School Administrators and theIllinois Education Association; consequently the matter whether I could bed e available had to be related to them. So that eve- he called theExecutive Secretasy of the Illinois Education Association, Wayne Stoneking,and discussed it with him. Upon arrival at work the next mrning Waynesaid, "We have samething to talk aboutfr (chuckle, chuckle). Of course,then we also had to bring bto the conversation the pmsldent of theschool administrators whose Executive Director I was. The result was that,I t m , by Wednesday of that week the officers of both associations hadbeen contacted and they agreed that this was a very important piece ofbusiness that was being taken care of In the Sltate, one which they had.supported actively and they felt, therefore, that we ought to make thataccomdat ion.By Wednesday or Thursday I had responded to Dr. Browne by indicating thatI would be interested and that I thought we could establish a workabiearrangement within our own office. It had been agreed that if I did thisRoy Baker who was working with me in that office would take over muc$ ofmy responsibilities but I would retain some because I would go on pqttimeand temporarily.The Board at its meet- on Monday recessed until Friday. On F"ridwlSeptember 10, they met in Fnicago . At that meeting. . . I l rn going to tb toshow you how busy they were, but first of all here's the agendacovered on December 10. They selected Maurice Mitchell to serveChairman of the Board. They designated Newton Minm (who was anto draft a tentative list of rmles by which the Board would operate.put John Cox and Mrs. Kahn on the matter of what to do withthey approved the petition f'rom DuPage College. That approval was jwt aninitial step. At any rate they did approve it and sent it on to the,Boardof Higher Education for their review. They received petitions fkmn $Lack

Gerald W. Smith 241Hawk Cammity College to be reorganized as a Class I, (it was a clash 11);they had a petition hmn Ottawa with regard to the organization of a 61strict;they met with a camittee -an Chicago, discussing the statusepfthe Chicago Junior College District; and then on the matter of the Ex cutiveSecretary they vatea t ;~ k&re m, Gerald Smith, and appoinkdFrank Fowle and Dr. B m e as a comdittee to meet with me and to wor4 outthe arrangements of my employment, with the power to act.Q. Then you were not present durFng this meeting? IIA. I did not attend either the Sept-er 6th or Septder 10th meetdngs.The meting on the 10th was a recessed continuation of the fbst one,So you see howmch business was beforce thts new pup of peqle wheq theymet. The following week, on Tuesday, I believe, Mr. Fawle and Dr. B~mecame to Springfield and they did meet with me and we worked out the ternof my employment, which were as follows: I was to give seventy-five percent of time to the office of the E~ecutive Secretary to the Bod.They had in mlnd some other designation, but I'd had little t3t-e to thinkabout it during the week and suggested to them that I did not believe Iwould be interested in trying to carry out the responsibilities that weregoing to be necessary with any designation less than that stipulated inthe Act. Mr. Fowle and Dr. Browne agreed without much wgurnent that thatwas a good point, so I was to come on as the Executive Secretary, to giveseventy-five percent of my tW.My relationship back with my old job was that the twenty-ftve per c& Iwas to use there I was going to continue to perform as ExecutTve Directorfor the Administrators and let Roy Baker take over all the other roles.I might say right here that s exactly what I did. This arrangement, by theway was to continue until June 30th, 1966. 1 was to come on with them inthis role of Executive Secretary. They were planning at that time to go ona search for a f'ull-time Executive Secretary ... t h w in terms of a manwhose credentials were different f'rom mine. For example, they want& anindividual wlth an emed doctorate, which I dTd not hold. They wqted aw-son ~5th a national reputation In the junior college field to he$d upthis new state system, andl I think they we= probably th- of aipersonwho had done more work at the national level in junior college field. Atany rate, these were the characteristics, so the terms of our agreerpentwere that I was to come on with them as has been stated through JunI30thand if, during the course of the year they did flnd and, bring on si e a newExecutive Secretary, I was to serve as his deputy until June 30th, t whichtime I was to leave them and come back to role with the Illinois( EHucationAssociation; those were the general terms of ny employment with them.IThe Board met on September 17 which was a week following the 10th..Chicago and that then was first meting with the state bomd. Obf"bythe wa-y, the question was, When do I be&?" . Mr, Fowler and D m _3roynesaid that Tuesday afternoon, "As far as we are concerned you haveWe did agree that for the record, since the state payroll beganand the first of the month, and since this was like the 14th, I w@d officiallygo to work for them on the 16th, which was Thursday.

Gerald W. Smith 242I officially went to work on Thursday, the 16th, and first Board meetingwas Fxliday, the 17th. I want to apply the therne of the munt of actSonthat was taking place at this point, even though references will needa little explaLning later on. At the September 17th rneetlng the Bodconfinned employment under the terms that 1 have already stated. Theyalso noted that the Board of Higher Education was going to meet on September 21, to take their action with regard to the proposed Wage CountyCollege. Then the matter of payment of state aid claim to the juniorcolleges for the previous semester and IW. Page reported that he hadchecked through his finance dep&ment and had learned that his officehad already paid the state aid claims, so that was not a mtter of businessthat any longer required action. Then there was the matter of haw tohandle the existing colleges which were now designated in the law asClass I1 and some discussion was held with regard to that because the existingcolleges were already asking the Mard, '" do we become Glass l?llThen I swsted to lW. Fwle and Dr. Browne at our meting earlier in theweek that this was a brand new Act, rather long and conrplfcated and boththe Board and Executive Secretary and especially the Executive Secretarywas going to need legal advice with regard to this new Act, as to what thelanguage meant and so forth over and over again and I felt that we shouldhave legal counsel -available a-,Now, wlder the law, the AttorneyGeneral is the legal advisor to the state agency of this kind, but theAttorney General's office is not geared to giving you quick-off-the-cuffanswers, so to speak. Their answers have to be more deeply thought out.If you had a diffuclt problem you'd go to than, but you need somebodp that ' scloser to you than that. They agreed with us. Dr. Bmvme and I had eachsaid at that meeting in the af'ternoon that we had an individual in mind,neither one knowing whom the other had in mind. When we canpared notes wehad the same person in Illind, and it was Mr. Kenneth Lemner, an attorneywith offices and home in Havana, Illinois. Mr. Lemr had been the legalcounsel to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction under Geo~geWilMns. When Ray Page took office he reappointed Mr. Gene Hutson who hadfor a number of years been the legal counsel for the Superintendent ofPublic Instruction under Mr. Nickell, before Willdnsl term. When Ray Pagewas re-elected-h@ t#pgs3nted Hutson to his role with hhj the SchoolProblems Cmrsnlssion -employed lb.Lemr. Mr. Lemr waS an experiencedrran in school law and so forth. I became acquainted with him and thowth i m of him and so had Dr. Bmwne. And so, at this September 17th meetingon qy recorrmendation and supported by Dr. Brawne, the Board appointedMr. Lmmsr to be our legal counsel.Q. They didn't qpoint him; they probably authorized you to appoint; him.A. Yes, they authorized me to appoint hQn.Q. I suppose it was because @. Lemr was nat a oardid&% dt that/ the?A. That's right. S m of the other mtters that were before the Boardon that September 17th meeting to again emphasize the munt of activitythroughout the State--witon Wllege which didn't have the same y&,f

Gerald W. Smith 243was there wlth a request to be reorganized as Class 2.Q. What was It called then?A. It was called Distrtct 301. There was a petition re- the 4rgmimtlonof a district in the LaSalle-Pem-Oglesby area. There was apetition fl.omthe Peoria area to orgmize a district. Freeport; was &kingfor money to help do a feasibflity st*. There was question at RockF'alls regard- their newly organized district. The Effinghm Chamber ofComrce had a letter announcing that they were doing an eight-countyfeasibility study in connection with Illinois Eastern University. Themwas a propsx report on some activity in DeKalb County. There was aninvitation for members of the Board to participate in a plannlng conferenceIn Palos-Wirth area Jn Orland Township in South Cook County. So, thosewere the kinds of things before this new Bod on the l7th, fowlteen daysafter they had organ1 zed. That big meeting came the second day I was workingfor them.The Board recessed on that September 17th meeting to the 21st, late Sn theafternoon, to act upon the Wage petltion because the Board OF HiaerEducatfon would have met In the morning. At that meeting just two thingswere done, They did receive an affb-mtive action f"ram the Board ofHigher Education, and they set a public hear- on the matter of theWage propam for October 8th.. .holding the* fimt public hearing amonth af'ter they were organized. They also appmwed TQT recarmendationwlth regard to Mr. Lenaner as the legal counsel.I want to make just one more observation with regard to the speed withwhich things took place. The next regulw meting of the Board followingthe l7th, was October 1, which was two weeks later. I mld just like topresent to you the agenda for that day and some of the things that weretaking place on that day.Q. Now would this have been the first agenda that you put together?A. Yes, thls was the first one that I prepared for the bard, the firstmeeting-that I actually set up.ILLINOIS JUNIOR COLLEGE BOARDMeetingOctober 1, 1965, 1:OO P.M.Shemnan HotelBal-Tabaxan PwlorsSixth FloorAGmA1. Call to order.2. Roll Call.3. l!thutes of previous meeting.

AGENDA (conttd.)4. Cammications5. Introductions of ~p~sentatives of Tri-County Junior College St6. Report on status of junior colleges,Mstricts without separate tax rateDistricts with separate tax rates.Area junior collegesProposed districts c l e d for referendumPetitions pendingStudies and area actionPetitions for Class IRequests for grants under Section 4-97. Appointment of hearing officer DuPage, Cook, Will County districtsOctober 8, 1965. Rules on hearing. I9. Report of Executive Secretary:OfficeSecretary (Mrs. Germaim H. m)~ttornei (MY. Kenneth H. Zemmer)Assistance of Dr. Lichty and PIP. Sam BishopDiscussion of additional staffRequest for authorizationto purchase office equipmentTentative budgetDiscussion of procedure for area studiesUniversity Civil Service(1) Conference with office September 27(2) mloyee benefits - Resolution(3) Executive officersTuition charges and charge back10. Discussion of future calendar:a. Guides far action on applications of Class I1colleges to become Class I - October 15th??11. Otherb. Guides for procedures and action on petitions fordistricts - October 15th??c. Action on applications 8or Class I1colleges to becane Clasg I - Novembe~December??d. Policy on feasibility sunreys for new colleges - October 15th??e. Action on Wage, Will, Cook County if petition of hearhgcorr@leted and report received - October gth??f. Plan for receiving and acting on initial applicationsfor recognitionII

Gerald W. Smith 245The following is excerpted f'mm the above noted meeting:COLLEGES :1. Written report showing roster and existing collegesand their classification under the definition inHouse Bill No. 1710, and the naxs of certain administrative officers .2. Districts cleared for referendum - Centralla.3. Petitions on file:(a) Ottawa and surrounding m a(b) Illinois Valley (LaSalle, Putnam, BureauCounties and others)( c ) R1-County Junior College (Peoria, Tazewell ,Woodford Counties)4. Studies and area action: A brief ovlal report wasmade describing studies for area junior collegesLn progress throughout the state.Freeport area, Stephenson, 50 Davfes andC m l l CountlesDeKalb and vicbityAurora and vicinity including portions ofKane, DeKalb, Kendall CountiesJoliet including most of Will and portionsof Kendall and G&y CountiesKankakee including all of KankaScee Countyplus all of Will, Gdy, Livingston, Fordand Iroquois CountiesGalesburg and Momuth including most of Knoxand Warren Counties and possibly a portionof Henderson CountyChampaign including all of Champaign Countyplus por+,ions of Ford and Imquois CountiesMcLean centering around Bloomington-NodEight County study is the area of Effhgham,Mattoon, Charleston. Sane of the counties /and areas in Clay, Jasper, Crawford andLawrence Counties 1Mt. Vernon. A study under the name of Rend{ Lakefor a college i;o include portions of JeffePson,W~E, Hamilton, Franklin and Perry Counties

Gerald W. Smith 246(I) Four County Study. A study of the feasibiWtyof a college to hclude Willlamson, Jacksonand portions of Franklin and Pew Counties.(m) Six County Study. A study of an wea betweenBelleville and Carbondale Including Monroe,Randolph and por4Aons of St. Clair, Washington,Perry and Jackson Counties.(n) Ha~risbvrg. A study is just getting undemwconcerning the feasibility of expansion ofsoutheast Junior College at Harrisburg.The studies referred to above are at varying stages ofdevelopment. Some are well advanced and some are justgetting underway.The Executive Secretauyls offfce is In corrYnunication withthe leaders of each of the studies referred to above.5. Application for Class I are on file *om:Black Hawk College, Moline, Rock Valley College,Rockford, Mton College and District 301, Palatine.6. Applications for a pant of $100,000 from Black HawkCollege is on file. The Executive Secretary was instructedto process thfs request and arrange for thepayment when the application is in proper form.(End of excerpts from IJCB meet- on October 1, 1965)At this meting the Board appointed Mr. Lamer as hearing officer for themeeting at Wage, and then they dissolved their standing cormittees whichthey had created at the first meeting. Again, upon my recamendation, itwas n'y feelin@; that ather than an occasional Ad Hoc cormittee, comtteebusiness should be taken care of by the Board as a cormittee of the whole.With a cormittee of that size I felt that it would be inefficient andwastef'ul of time to do that. The Board concurred and they did that, Weannounced at this met- that we had acquired Roan 606 in the Stat$Q. Now where was the location of your former office?A. l'@ offlce had been in the Illinois Fducation Association build3J-g onEdwards Street, just across Porn the Centennfal bbuiding. I had beenworkkg the first couple of weeks there, Likewise, the Board approvedthe recamendation of Mrs. Germaine Aikman to whom I will hereafter referto as Gemy Ailmm. She had already gone to work on Septeder 23rd as asecret= for our office. At that Board meetlng I pointed out that besidesGem$ Ailanan, Ken Lerrnner and ~self as the staff, there were two otherII

1people who were working wfth me a great deal of the time. One wasDr. Eldon L. Lichty, a professor nT Fducational Administration at thIllinois State University, who at that tlme was on about a 75% leave ofabsence to work fop W. Ray Page, Superintendent of Public fnstructi ,as his junior college liaison man. Mr. Robert Birkhlmr, who had be nperforming that role under MY. WllkZns prim to Mr. Page and withMr. Page you will recall, had left Illinois and gone to Iowa the f"ir$tof July. I might pout out right here that Mr. Page made Eldon Lich'ayavailable to owl office with almst unlimited time. He spent much mretime with us in those four mths, he actually was amst a staff memberbut he was operat* fkom his role with Mr. Page. Another man, MP. SamBishop, of the Illinois Association of School Boards staff had taken a@?eat interest in the development of the Junior College Act and its lmplicationsand with the total support of Mr. Robert Cole, the ExecutiveDFt4ector for the School Board Association, he gave us almost wllirnitedthe in those early days when I was the only staff member. So, I wasable to report to the Board on October 1st that we had this cluster ofpeople at work.Q. Boy, what a help that must of been.A. Yes, the Board at that meeting also authorized employment of an additionalsecretary. We weed that I would submit to the Board a budgetfor the remainder of the biennium, because we only had a one line apropriation,with no breakdown in it whatsoever. Then there was the matte^of procedure with regard to the area studies for the formation of districtsas is shown by the mter4al that I have already entered into the reaord.There were comnunlties all over the State, already at work or mtlr-ag togo to work. And the questlon was, what kind of studies were to be doneunder the law and at was to be the organization of them. The Boardmed that day, I think by concensus, that the policy would be that thec&ty leaders arod the State would be encouraged to initiate prelh3mrystudies, utilizing local personnel and local finances. There waslanguage in the Act that would seem to indicate that the Board could financethose studies, but the appropriation that was made available wouldn'thave covered more than two or three of them. This was policy that wasadopted, and I might say the one that has continued without change. Theorganization of the districts has been under the leadership of commimityleaders, with the local organization and with counsel and advice f"Wn theState Board.Q. It seems to me that's an ideal arrmgment.A, It satd the Executive Secretary wlllmintain active cormmicat onsand within reasonable limits offer consultant and advfsory services f tothe districts. The Boasd on that semnd meet-, the October 1st deting,as a mtter of policy also took action ~5th regard to pollcy under 'theuniversity civil swvfce law. The Act stipulated that the staff membersof the State Board were within the university civil service propam andthey did that at the October 1st meet-.

Q. By staff rraembers do you include yourself?A. The ~Ucy that we adopt& in accordance with that law ms thatsecretarial persome1 d d be enrployed strictly under the universitcivil servlce program, but that the professional staff initially, atleast, would be hi~d without strlct adheranee to the c5vil servlce program,as was authorized in the law.I believe that covers the initial programs and I would like to stop hereand address ourselves for a little bit to sane of the matters that theBoard had to deal with in the perfomnance of its work In relation to allthese things that had already been brought before us. Because there metwo or three things that me very important and particularly, when youtake ate account that for the First year, I would say that 75% or moreof our energy and time had to be in response to the tremendous move forthe organization and reorganization of the districts.Q. Before I shut this thing off and you change the subgect, I just wantto add that the way you have presented these early meetlngs and theseearly beginnings in very human terms, Gerry, it is just a delightful experienceand since I know a number of the persons involved, I can actuallysit here and sense some of the exciteraent, yes, excitement, 1 guess, isthe word that they must have experienced.A. Havhg spoken to the subject of getting underway axrd-with an ilWstrationaf7&e agenda for the meeting of October 1st; for the purpose ofillustrating that the Board had. no time to get ready and that; they werein f'ull swhg mdiately, I would like now to list some of the principalitems of business that required the attention of the Board in the fPrstfew months of its operation, and then come back later on and speak tosome of them at least. I have already said enough to make it very clear,that the Board was faced inmediately with the matter of the organizationand reorganization of a new state system of community colleges under theAct and that that was a major item of business on the first day they met.I may have already said on tape that that was for at least another yearand a half to take a major part of the time and. attention of the St@teBoaYd for the district organization and reorganization, But; the Act alsoprovided that the State Board was to provide state wide plannlng foyc-ty colleges as institutions of higher education, and to coor@lnatethe program services and activities of all camunity colleges in th Stateso as to encourage and establish a system of locally initiated and kis-tered comprehensive comity colleges. That was listed in the fir t dutyof the State Board.1Q. What you just said Is actually a reading of a section of the Act?A. I Just quoted this f'mm the Act. And. so agah for the first fewmonths this matter of plannhg, of study, of coordination, and so forbh,were matters that were covered in one way or another on every agenda ofthe Board meet-, so that we got our pattern for this organizatian.

Gerald W. Smith 249I was looking in the flles the other day and noticed that sometimethe spring of 1966, about six months after we met, we published our 'ffirst document entitled, lPolicies, Standards and Criteria1, which dealtwlth the buslness of the Board itself and Its relationship to theccx-mimity colleges. You will note In there that the conwnxnlty collegesunder the Act, had now cane under the state higher education system.This meant, therefore, mdiately and for the next few months the Boardand its staff had to learn how to relate to the Board of Hf&er Educationin the same way that the Wersities me dolng it. And, by the ww,under the pmisions of' the Board of Higher Education Act, the chamof each of the state systems is a member of that Board. So, PIP. FovJLelmmedlately began to serve as a member of the Board of Higher Educationand I began to meet regularly wlth the Board of Higher Education as didthe presidents of universities and the executfve officer of the StateCollege BD-, which was what we had at the tflme.I already noted that accounting had been a problem with the old sys~emand so we addressed ourselves very qulcMy to the drafiing of a uniformaccounting system. It took a long time to work that out but we dld it,Again, in cooperation with the ccmmity colleges we created a wormcommittee of the business offices of the juniow, colleges across thestate to mke recarnnendations with re@ to that systm.Q. One thing I'm curious about, 4n this connection, Gerry. Was this anawareness at that tlme when these accmtlng procedusres were being developed,that mybe there were s m significant differences in kind between thecodty colleges and the universities? The universities were the oneswho had had the experience wlth this kind of thing and, therefore, thepatterns and standards and criteria and methods developed by the universities,I'm sure were adopted pmbably. Now what effects... .was therean awareness of the effects? ..A. Yes, there was an amreness of effects, but you must remember that wewere unique, we in part patterned after the public school system. Our?procedures for adopting a budget were the same as those in the pubUcschool system and even some of the language that had to deal withand so forth had been pulled into this Act, so it was necessary 3.ning a uniform accounting system or one that would accmcdate t9n our law and the characteristics of our districts which weresimiLar to the public school districts and on the other side re1the hi&er education or university system. So we had to have asystem; we were very aware of the fact that ours was a compositeQ. Yes, well, I wanted to b~ing this lyl here because this, whatI say, the tension that has resulted, that is still very much pthe mhds...yes, of the people who have to make decisions about tCbmmmity Gollege Board or the c-ty colleges and the univethe tensLon Is often very great sirrrply because your trying to jentirely different ~imals ...;by-the sm-standard of beauty.

Gerald W. Smith 250A. Yes, well, we had to go in relation to what we had. Of course,7-inrmedlately upon the organization of the Sate Bard, it was necessfor this Board to set up procedures and policies with regavd to 5,tslationship to the local boards of the junior college districts and sthat was an important item. O w c~cations with those boards anour working relationship with those boards were an Important paYlt; of thebusiness of getting underway. Our relationshrip with those numerous eitizenscononittees across the State who were interested in organizingdistricts was a mtter of inmediate attention that we had to deal with.Then there was the matter of curriculum development in the junior collegesthat had to be dealt with, because the CamrrwLfty College Act or JuniorCollege Act stipulated that the matter of new propm of study was subjectin the local districts to the approval by the State Bawd of ~uniorColleges and the Bow of Higher Education, just as they already were Inthe universities. So, we had to address ourselves to these numeroustopics Imnediately and we had to do it in the face of a situation in whichthe overwhelming force was the organization and reorganLzation of the districts.All of these things had to get underway and as usual, within afew weeks, priorities were established and a working order was developed.The State Board itself became an excellent working team, very, very rapidly.I think that that can be accounted for several reasons. Nwnber one, Ihope that I gave some reasonably good leadership In that role. I saw to itthat every meeting of ow. Board at least, for the first slx months, that onthe agenda we spent sornetlme discussing and developing policies with regardto the workhg relationship between their executive officer ad the Ebaud,and every tlme anything new came up we took tim t~-*@~ s- %hat t@ hada meeting of the minds on the procedure for this just as we had with thedecision to operate as a conmittee or whole on cormnittee matters ratherthan to go with the other. Secondly, we had a bard of individuals whosepersonalities worked with one another well there was no personality clashnor anything that resembled a personality clash among any of these members.They were for the most part people who were experienced in workkg in thiskind of a relationship, of a boaud relatlonship; they were experienced inthe business of mkhg policy and delegat- administrative ~esponsibilities,and so forth. And so that worked almost imkdiately, of course, altho*some of them had had very little contact with the development of the Act.Mr. Powle, Newton Minow, Maurice Mitchell and Mrs. Prescott, or Mrs. Kahn,for example, not one of those individuals had been very mch involv d inthe Master Plan or the wr1th-g of the Act, but within a matter of adays, it seemed to me, they developed a tremendous feel for it, bec e asplendid working team in a very short order. IW. Fowle, Chairman o theBoard, Wd@d rk the comesponderrce he M received, at first me ingwith the Board on September 17. He began receiving mail, you Imow, the dayafter the press mounced that the Governor had appointed him. He dumedthe mil over to me and said with a sense of relief...I can remember himsaying, I have had all this mil and not the slightest idea what bo dowLth it. 'I I can remember again about the first of November, two monthslater, Mr. Fmle saying, "I'm amazed at how quicWy things have falleninto a systematic pattern."Q. The thought came to mind here, Gerry, that I think is germane to thisdiscussion. Do you TemE!mber when you were reviewing the statewidei

Gerald W. Smith 251.developnents earlier which you s m d by use of the word explosion? athink the fact that it was so relatively easy to achieve m t y oq objectivesand harmony of approaches and a@eemnt on goals and thlsof thing, in addition to the qualities which you have mentioned here 1that the individuals have, they rmst have been infected by this ~ o d ,residual wlderstandlng and consensus that nnzst have been present in theState of Ill~ois as a whole.A. Yes, I thlnk that is probably true. Of course they had some excellentresources in themselves. Mr. Fowle was a very able cha.imm. He just hada touch for the role. He had the expertise of Dr. Browne both in termsof self and his long involvement in the state picture. His expertise wasinvaluable on almost every topic that cam up there. Newton Mimw had alot of experience of this klnd of thjulg, although he had not been peicularlyrelated to the junio~ colleges. We had a Board that formed itselffnto a splendid work- team almost irmnediately. It was a splendid sxperienceas we were getting underway. And the relationship with theconanunity groups and with the existing districts, developed very rapidlyand win we probably had same benefit fram that out of nly backpound.I had been workhg with leaders 3.n the existing districts for a number ofyears, so we hew each other personally; we had worked through the draf'tingof this Act and so forth.Q. I'm glad you brought that out.A. And so I think this helped us. I want also to mntion two mre thiwsthat were very helpfW in the fall of 1965. The Illinois Charher ofCameme had been very much interested in the development of the MasterPlan and followed the passage of the Act very closely and had been wryhelpf'ul.. Mr. James Bmman, Jim, I probably refer to h%n usually. Jim hadbeen very actlve in the months of Fhy and June when the Junlor College Actwas at the passage stage in the General Assembly. He had participated veryactively Ln discussfons with regard to the writing of the language and soforth; they took a very actlve participatfon and alrnost inmediately arterthe Act was passed they prepared a publication explaining the Junior CollegeAct in-laymans' tern, excerpting the Act, explaining the procedures forgetting ahead and published that document in great quantities.Q. Do you recall the title of it?A. No, I'm sorry, but 1'11 get you a copy.Q.dI'd love to see a copy of that and we could put that into the r cord.A. Yes, it was very well written.. .and Jlm Broman was the persotha+t. I use his me again because James Browts name will cpeatedly in the development of the junior college system in tyears. He became much closer to it later on. So that pub1available and at a time when our State Board had neither tto produce it. They did produce it and as I: said it wasexcerpted the law; it was a very usef'ul document for stthe state,

Gerald W.Smlth252Q, I can't haghe a better way to introduce the idea of c d t ycollege system to the whole state than to have it done under theirauspices. . . .A. ... and it didn't come out of the bureaucratic organization. Nowlikewise, Sam Bishop to whom 1 referred, with the Illinois Associatianof School Boards, also prepared a publication for the school boardsthrou&out the State and that was produced Pn thousands and thousandsof copies were produced. It was a tecb-dcal book; took the various stepsin the Act for the organization of new dfstricts or for the reorganizationof existlng districts, and it was printed essentially as a handbookfor the Boards of Education which was, of course, the* clientele f o all ~the school districts Fn the State. It was very well done and the docwnentwas valuable. So from office I had two resource pieces with m inmediatelyaLmost for these went out quScHy. They anticipated this move with theslpd of the Act on July 15 and had gone to work with it so they wereavailable early in the fall.Q. Do you have any idea whether there asle copies?A. Oh yes...yes, there are copies avaflable of both documents.Q. Do you have them?A. I how where they are.Q. Could you perhaps get some to be turned over to the library?A. 1'11 get some and twm them over to ,the library. These two docwnentswere available. For example, when I went to a meeting with people overthe Sate, I took enough of that school bod technical document to givemaybe ten coples to a study poup and so forth. It was a technical documnt.This was at the expense of the Illinois School Board and, ofcourse, we couldnlt possibly have done it. Because you must remember onSeptember 16th the Board had one staff mwnber. ..me.On September 23rd,we had a secretary. On October 1st we added another secretary to coverthe business end of our operation. On December lst, we Ured an associatesecretary to work with me, k. Everett Belote, who at that time was Deanof Instruction at Black Hawk College in Mollne.Q. When was he appointed?IA. He came to work on December 1st. Until that time we did not hap butone professional staff menbey,IQ. So Everett was your first professional staff member besides youpelf?A. Yes, that's right. He was nLwlber one. And I'm again referring tothe explosion that I spoke about ewlier.. This explosion was so patthat my modus operandi f o September, ~ October and November was as follows:Ebery mrnlng I went to the office in Illinois Education Associaticp at8: 00 and stayed until 10 : 00 in order to discharge my duties as Exe- --rive

Gerald W. Smith 253Secretm for the Administration Association. At 10:OO I moved over tothe Capitol Building, the office of the Illinois Junior College Boardwhere I stapd the rest of the day. Typic-, about four days a week(I use the word typically because I don't have a complete record). . . .about four days a week at about 3:00 in the afternoon, I left officefor a meeting somewhere ln the State of Illinof s, wfth a comity groupthat was either interested in the organization of a new district or witha school board, school district. ..that was aterested in the reorganlzationof their junior college districts as it then existed. During themnth of November, following that pattern I travelled 5,000 miles in automobilein the State of Illinois, doing most of it between 3:00 p.m. and1:30 in the morning. I really mean that.Q. Is this when you got the reputation of be- an individual who didn'tneed to sleep very much?A. That's right .... that's right. These are just some observations andcomnents with regard to getting underway and speaking to the meas towhich we have to address ourselves and bringing into the picture for yousome of the resources that were at our disposal which were as you knowtremendous. !?he assistance of the School Board Association with particularlySam Bishop as the individual, the assistance of Ray Page asSuperintendent or an ex-officio member of the Board by mak- Eldon Li&ty-st a staff merrd3er. I say Everett Eelote was the first one, he was thefirst one we paid. With that kind of help we did get underway.At this point, I want to stop now and speak about some specifics in theAct with relation to the organization and reorganization of the districtswhich I believe are pertinent.END OF TAPE SIDE TWOQ. This recording is be* mde Septmer 20, 1976. Okay Gerald, &rewe are agab on a lbnday morning ready to contbue with some very interestingdiscussions. The floor is yours.A. To ccarrplete the section which I have entitled "Gettingwill now speak about the organization of the staff forCollege Board office as we completed it during the firstpreviously stated, I was the first and only person on the staffSepteder 16 to September 23, at wlniclj time we employedGemy Ailman, who has been identified earlier, to serve as the recowhgsecretavy for the meetings of the C q t y College Board and to serve assecretary in the office, handling Che correspondnce, helping prewethe agenda for the bard meet-, transcribing minutes of the ~ oad meetingsand dolng all those things that were necessaq for me, and, of course,initially doing everything there was to be done. On October 1, weto the staff Mrs. Marjorie Keller who was a specialist in the mea fstate finances. She caw on as:a secretary but her role was to be drincipallyIn the matter of business operations.

Gerald W. Smith 254Q. This isn't the Wge Keller who is now secretary to Bob Dames?A. Yes. It's the same lady. She was the third of the people to cornon board in 1965. She had had ten years or more expefience in the areaof state finance, an area in which ne1the~-Gerry Ailanan nor I had anyexperience in at all. As a matter of fact, I was so illiterate with regardto financial business that I went to work for the State Board onthe 16th, and I'm not sure whether it was the 16th or the next Mondaymmhg that I went in and asked them, "How do I get on the paymll?"I must add also that they were most helpf'ul to me. Not only did theytell me how to get on the payroll, because here was a new agency justestablished under a brand new law, etc., but before I left the StateAuditor's office that mornbg I was on the payroll.Q. They knew what was important.A. We put Marge on for that purpose. Her primary responsibility, althoughshe was an office secretary, was to be responsible for the payroll,for the purchasing procedures, and f o establishing ~ow fhancial recordsin the office b accordance with state procedures, for doing all thevoucherhg for the office, for property contml...all these things shehad to do, and fortunately we had a woman who was expert at it. Whileshe is no longer doing thak khd of thing as you have already observed,she is still with the office. As a matter of fact, she is now the seniormember of the staff because Gemy Aikmm, who otherwise would be, retiredjust a few months ago.It was rqy plan as we began to work ahead to proceed with the selectionand appobtment of associate staff members quite slowly, for two or threereasons. First of all, I was not interested in trying to create aninmediate, new state bureaucracy. Nmber two, I really didn't have time,I was too busy tryin@; to keep up with the other work. Number three, theappropriation of $300,000 that we had been given for the operation df theoffice for the first biennium had to be handled with very cwef'ul stewardshipso it would nm us until July 1, 1967. But most of all I felt weshould determine what positions we needed, ad then decfde on the cmacteristicsof the people who would be employed.As we mentioned earlier in this discussion, merett Eidote was the nextperson to come on the staff, effective Deceniber 1, 1965, from his positionas Dean of InstructLon at Black Hawk College in Pbline. Everett waa enployedprimrily because of his experience in the area of occupationaland vocational education. In selecting him, he was recruited ultimatelyto be the senior mesnber of our staff, as our chief consultant for thecolleges and chief resource person in the area of curriculm development.Hfs own area could be in the technical, semi-technical field.Q. That was a good choice Gerry.A. Yes, it turned out to be. However, initially this was not his beginningwork. When he came in December and he became just simply another generalmerrber of the professional staff as an associate.- 4

Gerald W. Smith 255He and I then worked together for the first few months givhg more thanthree-fourths of our time to the matter of the organization and reor@-zation of the districts, which had hit us, you know, with the force ofan explosion which I have mentioned.In the meant3rne Everett moved into the role for which he had been recruited,but he was a generalist to begin with. I might say that inthe months of December, January and Febrmary, 1965-1966, we traveledtogether to almost all of the meetings, for two or three reasons. Firstof all, he needed to get an orientation to what we were doing and whatwas going on, so he went along for his own education and for his ownorientation. Secondly, we used these trips up and down the state, whichconthued to be three and four late afternoons and evenings a week, weused this time to study and discuss the ComTRxnlty College Act. We wmkedout our own interpretation, riding up and dawn the roads.An interesting personal touch to that: at Christmas time of 1965, Ideveloped a phlebitis In my right leg which was reasonably severe. Ididn't have time to quit, so for about five dsys I set up office at hmeand had foot elevated, and a e r that I kept on with work. But aswe drove up and down the state I rode 3.n the back seat, cross-ways, withrr~y leg elevated, and Everett drove and I sat there and read the Act andraised questions about it, and then he raised questions about it. Weactually became thoroughly acquainted with the Act. And of course emrymeeting we went to raised new questions on the telephone there werequestions, or the correspondence raised new questions which, if we cauldn'tfigure out ourselves, we referred to Mr. Lemfer our legal counsel; or ifwe had th-s we thought needed Board action for policy statements wethen rrade notes on those and took them to the next meeting of the Boardand sought a policy statement f'rom them. This is a ldnd of interestoperation.Q. I'm sure at the time you and Everett were scooting around theyou weren't thinking of yourselves as making history but, looking baak,that's what you were doing.A. That's exactly what we were doing. I have already indicated thatMr. Lenaner had been employed as our legal counsel; however, we employedhim not as a mil-time member of the staff but on a contractual basiq.The next person to be put on the staff was Mrs. EdZth Wilson as a se retaq.Initially she worked with Mr. Eelote and her role developed qto avery important one very quickly. By the time she came with us as ofJanuary 1, 1966, we we= deeply involved in the developent of the 1 galdocwnents...resolutions and legal procedural papers that had to do w 4 ththe organization and reorganization of districts. These documents thathad to be done with peat care, and interestingly enough not only did wehave to satisf'y m. Lermaer, our legal counsel, and satisfy the nzembeps ofthe C d t y College Board that they were adequate, but we knew thatthese docwnents were to be important as historical In the formation ofthe districts,when subsequently they wanted to sell bonds. So we worked

Gerald W. Smith 256very closely with the fimn of Chapman and Cutler in Chicago, the majorlegal firm in Illinois that deals with the approval of bonds, etc.IWs. Wilson became the expert in our office on these pmceduralmattersand the language of these documents, because she dld them all, underthe supervision of Mr. Lemner; she did them, he re~ewed them, and Ireviewed them also, but his was the only review that counted. So shebecame a very interesting person.The next person to be employed was Mr. E. L. Ihrig. Mr. lhrig had beenin public school administration in Ill?inois for a good many years. Inthe spring of 1965, he was serving as superintendent of schools inCarthage, Illhois...a position which he had held for a few years ... and,he decided to retire quite early, several. years before he was 65. He tookemployment with the newly established Robert Morris Junior College, aprivate junior college in C&hage, that opened in the fall of 1965. Hewent with them to be the dean of the college. By Cluslistmas time he hadconvbced himself that that was not a role that he was really interestedin... worldng with a new institution which had leased the CayrthageCollege campus arad began operation that fall, By Christms time he haddecided that trying to serve in that role was too demanding for his micumMerests at that time, so he decided to gfve it up. He gave m atelephone call one day In early January to inquire if in our new officethere was any chance that I might have some work that he might be interestedin or that he rrllght be capable of doing. I had known him for *tea rider of years...we had been f?lends, etc. I, of course had no ideathat he was Interested in that kind of thing, I did laww what he had beendoing over there, but after listenhg to him for awhile I asked hfm b wsoon he could come to work. mt caught him by surprise. We finishedour discussion and he came over a day or two later and we had an interview,and as a ~ sult he did go to work with us...I believe on February 1of that year, to begin working with Edith Wilson on the matters that hadto do wlth the organization and reorgaaization procedures. He stayedthere with us for -st two years, and he again became expert in thatfield, He and Edith as a team did all of the prelircl2nary work. The revi m of feasiblllty studies, all the follmp that; the CcumkmityCollege Boavd was required under the Act to do. They prepared all ofthe legal documents. He took the responsibility for organizing andmangbg for the public hewings that had to be held on the establisplmntof each of the districts, and subsequently he also became the pwho worked with the cornnunity colleges on the selection of the* sitcampus developent, etc. So that became his specific role while hewith us.By Febrvary 1, our staff, then, consisted of wself as mecutive ~ecrfetary,Mr. Belote still serving as sort of a general assistant to theSecretary but beginning to move into his role of curriculumMr. IhrLg who now mved In and began to operate this tremendouslyrole in our offke, and the three women; Gemy Aikmm withand Marjorie Keller still reportin@; directly to me but in essencethe business end of it, with MY. Ihrig and Mrs. Wilsonon the legal work.

Gerald W. Smith 257One of the people that I also became acquainted with ln the spring of1966, was James S. Spencer, who at that time was completing his doctorateat the University of Illhols and whose gaduate assistant positionwas in the Institutional Research Department under Dr. Gus Froelich.He began to correspond wtth me and came over to see me, and as I lemedof him, I had not known James Spencer befozle this. It became interestingon the basis of his doctorate work at the University of Illinois, histhesis, doctoral dissertation, having been on the criteria for the establishmentof a state system of junior colleges. This was the area inwhich he was studylng and so he was interested in us, and the result ofthfs was that we decided to employ him. He cam to work for us in stages.He began to work with us about one day a week Fn February and March. Ashe moved closer to the completion of his doctoral program at the first ofJune his time became more and more fYee. He got his dissertation out ofthe way etc., and he stepped up f'rom about one day a week until Aprilhe was with us two or three days a week, and then as his graduate assistantjob began to wind up, by the first of June he was with us f'ull time, andof course he came to us as Dr. Spencer.His principal assipent to begin with was to organize and establish ourwork in the area of the criteria and standards for recognition of thec m t y colleges, which was one of the specific charges to the CcarrrmnityCollege Board, to establish criteria. Not only that, but the Act alsospecified that they not only establish the criteria but It said that ona regular basis, through their Executive Secretm, the Board should conducta continuous study of the cornrolnity colleges with regard to themeeting of recognition. This was a charge that had to be organized, andDr. Spencer came on board to be@ that.Also, now for the first year or year and a half with us, he carried 'cheresponsibility for establishing the criteria with regard to the apprwalof capital projects and to handle the applications for capital fhnds.. .things which I w ill talk about later in greater context.So that by the end of the first school year, 1965-1966, our staf'f hadgrown to the people that I have now named. To cmplete the staff organizationas it was done Sylitially I then need to move to the fall of 1966,at which time we added two additional people - Dr. G. Robert Dames, whoat that time was the Dean of Instruction at Triton College in River Groveand who had also been the original dean at the OZney College when itopened in 1962, came to us to serve as a curriculum resource person.1By this tlm I had developed an organizational structure and had rec n-ded it to the Board and the Board had approved an organizational rtGethat was to provide for six of us on the staff for the biennium: meserving as the executive officer of the Board, Dr. Spencer working withthe matter of the criteria and standards and the initial capital dev~llopmentprojects, Mr. mig working primarily with the organization and reorganizationof districts and site planning, Also I might say I madMr. Ihrig office mnager so that 1 didn't have to concern myself widetails of daily office management. When it was necessary to pool

Gerald W. Smith 258girls if there was a great d d ,girl did for the day, etc.it was Mr.Ihrig who decided whatThen, by the fall of 1966 we had three people working in the area ofprogram or cwriculum developent--Mr. Belote as the first officer, soto speak, in charge of that supported by Dr. Dames who had cane withus and then in the fall another person was added, rather it was in thewinter. The reason I remember now that it was in the winter was thathe mved down here the week of the terrible snow storm in Chicago, andthe truck that was to bring his f'urnitm got stalled up there for twoor three days. He came as the third person In the cum?iculum area towork--Albert Marbin, who at that time was President of the Bloom CorrarulityCollege at Chicago Heights. lW. Marctin came here to work primarilyas a resource person in the area of adult and contbuing education, ac d t y service type of program.Q. Do you recall the exact the when Al reported?A. It was approximately January of 1967. You will observe then, thatof the six of us, half of the staff were working in the area of thecomnunity college program development, and the rationale so far as Iwas concerned, and which the Board agreed to, was that this was themost lnrpolytant paY.t of the whole commcity college development. Surelythe organization of districts was very demand-, but in sorne period oftime that would be over. All these other things were Smpolrtant.But if the idea of a state c-ty college system as outlined in theMaster Plan and as specified in the Jmior College Act of 1965, the idea,it seemed to me, was to be judged to be a worthy Idea some ten orfifteen yews down the lhe, it would be in terms of what the ccannunitycolleges were doing, more than .mythkg else. So it semed to me thatin our coordinating and supporting and leadership role for the establrishmentof a state system of comrrunity colleges, we should have the strongestresources In the area of program. So half of our staff by the fall of1966 or Jamxary 1967 were working in that area.Tbm more people were added during that period of tSme, just to compl&ethe roll---Velma SprWel some time during the winter of 1966 as theperson to handle the work roan.Q. You mean in the late fall of 1966?IA. No, I mean January-February-March, 1966. By this the we had so /Richmiling, and we had so much mimeographing, etc., that we hired her as( theworkroan person, and I might say that she is still with the CorimrunitylCollege Board office, and now they have equipped themselves f o offs& ~printhg and those kinds of things and Velma is the person still Fncharge of that. She tmed out to be a very, very able person;with only a limited secretarial backgzlound, but she became a very vperson.As a matter of fact, I can remember, all the days I was she+ the

Gerald W.Smith259we always indicated that any of the professional people could be out ofthe office, as we were much of the time, and never be missed. Even oneof our secretaries could be out of the office a day or two and we couldcover for her; but if Velma was missing in the workroom, everythingshut down.We also employed that year as an additional secretavy to work with someof these new staff members. We had hlred a lady by the name of EdnaTishar, a very well-qualified secretary, and I mention her for two orthree reasons. &cause she was an excellent secretwy, and because shewas ow fpst tragic happening in the office. Af'ter she had been withus a few mnths, a very lovely person, she suddenly died of a heartattack one day, and so we had our first grief in the office.This gives an account of the staff, and I have elected to put this inhere so that as I talk about other subjects along the my I m y referto these people In the context of qr story.Q. This is a very valuable insert or identifkation. I know most ofthese people, some of them quite well, and now knowing just this lfittlebit of history about their career enables me to understand their contributionin a much better light, so this is very usef'ul.A. I might also add that in the case of lW. Belote, Dr. Dmes andMr. Martin, they came here as a result of nly search. I sou&t than outbecause I knew of them and their work. I have Indicated how the otherscalled me. These three people I knew and sought than after consultationwith other people about good people, but I did want people who werefamiliar both with the State of Illinois and wZth the comrunity collegesof Illinois, and you see that we did have.A. kt me just add this one thought here, &my. Knowing these peopleand knawing what you and they together did at the staut, and what hashappened to the system, I find it difficult to hagine how you might havefourad bette~ qualified people than you did.A, I thMc we we= very fortunate in getting the people that we had.They were people of character, they were people who had personality, whogot along well with folks, and were hard workers.I now want to speak to the financial resources that were made availablefor the first biennium. So far as the law was concerned, that July 1,1965 to June 30, 1967. But of course to all practical intents that wasfrom September of 1965, because that was when we got underway.The financial resources were as follows: I have already mentioned$300,000 a single line item for the operation of the Commmlty Coll eBoard for the two-year period. And as I have also mentioned, one o 7 thefirst thlngs we did in October, 1965, was to convert that into a line- -

Gerald W. Smith 260item budget for our awn use, and to work it out. It turned out to saveus quite adequately. Then we had an appropriation for the state appmtiomntto the junior colleges.. .their state f'undhg, $22,900,000 forthe fbt twwyear period. The junior college @;raYth was so rapid thatthat sum didn't serve us, and before the end of the biennium had to askfop $3,119,000 additional, which the General Assembly gave and theGovernor approved, so the resource that actually was made available withthe original and the deficiency was slightly over $26,000,000.Then, in the area of capital runding, the General Assembly gave theJWk-Dr College Board an authorization of' $20,500,000 as the State's contributionto capital Wing for the junior college distficts. This wasnot an appropriation - this was an authorization that could be handledthrough the office of the Illinois Building Authority, to which I willallude in pater detail later on. These were the financial and persqmalh m nesowces with which we worked in the first two years, under thfsgeneral title of lfGetting Underway ." 1Q. Well, Gerry, you have covered two sections, now...the people and hefiscal resources that you had to get underway. What goodies do youin store now?i"4"IA. I think this 2s an appropriate time to change the general section~ofwhich I am speaking of ffGetting Underway,ff to the subject of organizat/ionma reorgantzation of the junior college districts of the state. And, Ialso believe that this can best be handled if I stay with this subjecQ atleast through the first two-year period. I'm not sure but by the tire Ifinish this I may want to stay with it a little longer, but at least ?orthe first two-yem period.iI think we need to begin with the listing of the colleges that were irlexistence as of Sept&er 6, 1965, the day that the State C a t y CqllegeBoard -took over officialu its function as the State Board for the co*dT&tTng and managing of the colleges.Two colleges that were in existence at that time were (I'm going to l$tthem In the order In which they had been established, for history) :Jollet, established in 1901 - not only the oldest existingpublic junior college in Illinois, but the oldest in theUnited States; .Chicago which had been operating calleges shce 1911;ILaSalle-Peru-Oglesby,established in 1924;generally ref'erred to as LPOMorton in Cicero-Berwyn, established in 1924;Thornfon at Harvey, 1927;

Gerald W. Smith26rCentralia, 1940;Mt. Vernon, 1955;Canton, 1959;Wabash Valley at Mt . Cmel, 1960 ;Southeastern at Harrisburg, 1960;This totals 17 junior college districts operat- in the fall of 1965and listkg their dates of origin, each of which was a part of a publicschool district. These were either part of a unit school district orpart of a township or codty high school district, and I am going tospeak of what happened to these colleges in just a moment.Q. These were the ones that were alluded to Ln the Act as Class II?A. That's right. And in certain other language, also. One collegethat, I omitted as I went along the way was at Molfne - Black Hawk College,which had been established at Moline in 1946 as part of the Moline publicschool system, and which continued to operate as Moline Codty Collegeuntil by referendum Rock Island, Moline and Fast Moline joined togetherto form the Black Hawk College by referendum in 1961. That college becameoperational in 1962. This was the fimt separate, autonymus juniorcollege district created in the State of Illinois, and this college wasorganized under a statute passed by the General Assembly in 1959, whfchhad made provisions for the organization of any compact and contiguousterritary into a junior college district. Still under the old Illinoiscormn School law, still under the supervision of the Superintendent ofPublic Instruction, and Black Hawk then was created, by the voters ir~ 9 6 ~ , ~ ~ b e c ~operative -July 1, 1962* - -Also, there were four others that had been created by referendum in 1964and 1965 under the provisions of the 1959 law. These separate andautonymous districts were:

Gerald W. Smith 262Triton at River G m , 1964 ;Rock Valley at Rockford, 1964 ;WillLam Ralney Harper, northwest part; of Cook County, 1965; andSauk Valley in the Dixon-Sterling area, 1965.I need now to make a camrent about these four colleges. !lke stimulusfor the organization of these colleges under the 1959 law was the publicationof the Master Plan which came out in, 1964. These people in thesecomdties, sensing perhaps what was about to develop in this gtate,did not wait for the completion of a new law and the 3snplementation ofit, but they proceeded in 1964, two of them, and before Septder of1965, to hold their referendums and create their districts.Q. The mtivation for these four institutions, the creation of themfour, was different f'rm the motivation for Moline and that is thef'unction of its being 18 yews later in the chain of c~cumstances?A. Yes, in the case of Black Hawk College, the motivation there wasthe success of the Moline Comity College, the &owing interest in thecomnunity college, and the fact that Rock Island, Moline and East Moltneare multiple cities together. They actually held their referendum attihe same t he the General Assembly was just creathg the Board of HigherEducation. The last four - the motivation to get underway was the reportof the Master Plan.One other observation, and I a11 say it later on. While these collegeshad been created under the 1959 law, they, of course, began to operateand flulction subsequently under the Cormunity College Bowd as it cameinto existence in September of 1965. And two of these colleges openedin the fall of 1965.Triton and Rock Valley each began a program of operation in September,1965. Although they had been organized under the Superintendent ofPublic Instruction and the ori- cormon school 1959 law, they actuallybegan their operation under the new Junior. College Act. William RaineyHasper and Sauk Valley didn't begin operation until a year later, so Uheyhad nothing more than just the organizational structure at the time tqeState Baavd was organized.j1I60 there were in existence as the State Board began its operation inSeptember of 1965--22 junior college districts, 17 of them the olderdistricts that had been organized through the years as parts of publischool districts, and the flve new sepamte districts, each of which hhdbeen legally created under a 1959 law, but now began to operate under thePublic Junior College Act. Each of these districts ms under the Publlc

Gerald W.SmithJdor College Act ax it had been passed in 1965, designated in the b was Class I1 junior college district.I point out that the standards for the new state system of junior collegeswere detailed and outlined in Section 3 of the Junior College Act, andthose districts were classified or characterized as Class I districts.In spite of the fact that all of the existing districts had pressed fora @;randfather clause which would accept them as Class I districts, tlpeleaders of the Board of Higher Education -- the Board and their staff,the people who met with the Governor's staff and developed it -- had notchanged their position, and so as the State Board d-we'in the officebegan to take over In September, we had a total state system of 22 districtsat that time, all under Section 4 of the C-ty College Actwhich characterized them as Class 11.However, I mst point out that there were in the Act, both in Section 2which dealt with the powers and duties of the State Board and inArticle 4 which dealt with the Class I1 districts, an orderly procedwefor the reorganization of these districts as Class I distrlcts, and therewere alternative procedures possible.I am going to speak at some length now with regard to the organizationand reorganization of the state system of c m t y colleges or juniorcolleges, beginning wlth the work of the Board in September, 1965, whichhas led through the yews to the creation of a total system of juniorcolleges now meet- the standards of Article 3 of the Act, to the pointthat Article 4 is no longer needed and has been repealed by the Gene a1Assembly. 7In the Act of 1965, there were definitions that dealt with the statua ofthese districts and the districts had to be dealt with in reg& tocertain categories. The Act provides that as of August 1, 1965, theexisting Junior colleges were to be reorganized by the local Board ofEducation, in the case of those 17 that belonged to thexchool distrlcts,as Class I1 districts, and that those Boards of Education were to coostitutethemselves as a second Board and then to proceed with them, so4@hatthe junior college district became a separate district sepmated f'r theschool district, but for the initial step governed by the seven peop e whowere runnhg the school district to which they were attached. Howev r,there were sane carplkations in the Act, in that they were not a11 uniform.Sane of these junior colleges that were part of school districts had,beencreated by referendum in the &strict, at which time tax rates for theeducation and building funds of those junior college operations of thosedistricts had been authorized by the voters. These were clear-cut CJass I1districts, and under the law if they held that status, the Board of 'kusteescould, if they deemed fit, make application to the State Board trohave their Class I1 college accepted by the State Board as a Class Iidistrict.Upon reclpt of the application, the State Board then, ofwent through a procedure to examine the college with regard to the

Gerald W.Smithstandards that were necessary to be classed as Class I, and to make adecision whether or not to order the* reorganization as Class I.If the State Board did that, then the Board of the local school districtby resolution declared that it wished to be relieved of the responsibilitiesfor that district, and on the order of the State Board the CountySuperintendent conducted an election for a whole new board for thisparticular college. This was necessary to meet the total arrangementsfor them to became @lass I. As a matter of fact, the law even stipulatedthat a person could not serve on both the local school board and the newjunior college distrfct simultaneously, so we had that procedure tofollow. However, there were some jdor colleges in the state amongthese seventeen to which I refer, which had not been established by separatereferundm but had been established by resolution of the Boards of Educationunder a 1943 law which had made that possible. And some of these had neverestablished a separate tax rate for their junior college operation or ifthey had established it they had established only an educational rate.They had not established a buildlng rate. The Act said that to be alclear cut Class I1 district eligible for reorganization as a Class I,that they had to have these tax rates. And so we had some of those. Therewas a provision in the Junior College Act which made it possible for1 theBoards of those Class I1 colleges to proceed to establish tax rates.Then, once they were established, the colleges then were in a positionto seek reorganhation as a Class I.However, there was also a pmvision in the Act which was always somewhatconfusing. If the board of the school district operating the juniorcollege which had no tax rate desired to, it could continue to operaEethe 13th and 14th years of school without any kind of reorganization andwe had a couple or three of those situations. So there were really hreesituations that had to be taken care of---those existing as part of theschool district which were reorganized as Class 11, already had their taxrate, and if they wanted to they could seek reorganization as a Class I onthat basis and have a new board elected and begin to operate. There werethose without the tax rate who, if they desired, could establish the taxrate and then take that step; and then there were those who had no taxrate and who had no desire to try to establish one, who the law sayslcouldindefhitely continue to operate the 13th and 14th years. The conf'u$ingitem with regard to that was that this was all in Article 4 dealing withClass I1 districts, and in many of the references it referred to al1,ofthese colleges as Class 11; and yet it seemed to indicate that thereiwassome question as to whether a district without any tax rate was to becalled the 13th and 14th year, or whether it was to be called a Class I1district. I might say that for all practical purposes we treated themas Class 11, even though the language was sanewhat conf'using, and nothingever happened that gave us any problems.The five colleges which I previously named - Black Hawk, Triton, RockValley, William Rainey Harper, and Sauk Valley -- which were autonomous

Gerald W. Smith 265districts, also were described in the Act as Class 11 districts, butobvLously there was no need for any board reorgan5zation because theboards were already solely responsible for those districts, so theydidn't have to do anything different on August 1. That's all they weredo- to begin with. But these were Class I1 districts and there wasa provision in both Article 2 dealing with duties of the Board andArticle 4 dealing with Class I1 districts for a procedure to reorganizethese districts as Class I. Essentially, the provisions were the sameas for those connected with the school districts, namely, they had tomake application, they had to be reviewed as to whether the State Boardsaw them as meeting the standards of the Class I district, and then ifthey were approved as Class I, obviously there was no need for a newBoard election because the Board was already the sole Board for thatdistrict. So this was the status of the junior colleges as we beganour work.Q. Before we leave this area, Gerry, and go on to f'urther discussionnext time, there is a question that's been bugging me this mrmSng, andlet me throw it out and you decide what attention to give it. Hearingnow how these developnents have gone and how the machinery had beencreated through the Act to let you deal with all of these very complexand subtle differences between local situa'cLons, who in the planning process,in the planning of this Act, was @ enough to forsee all of thesedevelopnts in the planning stages?END OF SIDE ONE TAPE FTFTEENQ. Good morning Gerry. This is September 22, 1976 and you have bdicatedthat you would like to respond to the question which I directed to y~u atthe end of our last session.A.. The matter of who dealt with the questions or problems that woul befaced in the matter of the conversion of the existing districts f"rmClass I1 to Class I, and the various kinds of situations that woulo exist,I must say It came fkmn a variety of sources. These matters were dealtwith in the revrite of the Act between the tW it entered the Senatefrom the House and its f W passage -- as I have already indicated Dreviously,basically it was a total amendment to the original draft of theAct. The representatives of the junior colleges across the atate, ofcowse, each read the Act, and they each read it in the f'ra~~work of"What does this mean to us? How would we operate under this Act?" Andthis matter of getting converted f'rom Class 11 to Class I, of course, wasa very aritlcal issue with them and each one of them saw it in tern ofthe* own setting, of their own problem.Q. So they gave it a thorough reality testing before you ever beganuskg the machhery?9

Gerald W. Smith 266A. That's right. And of course on the basis of a long list of questionswhich people wote in the form of letters to Dr. Glenny and to Dr. Browne,which they addressed to me representing the association as their secretary,or which they addressed to members of the General Assembly. We had thislong list of questions that had been raised with regard to these specificsat hand when the cornnittee that did that critical rewriting that I spokeabout for several days began to work. And so the codttee that was helpingto do the rewriting sat d m with Alan Frank@, who was the legalmind helping with the rewriting, then one at a the these issues weretaken up and the amendments to the Act ware intended to try to handle them.Q. Would you consider this a fair statement, then, for me to make atthis point: that the effective way, or the efficient way, in which youand the Board were able to work wlthin the f'ramework of the Act, is furthertestImonia1 to the thoroughness of the process and the corrprehensivemessof the process, ponderous as it was and t&-consuming and mgmmntattiveas it must have been, was nevertheless an excellent mans for hameringout a sensitive, complex vehicle? A piece of mchinery which made it!possible to create this explosion that you have referred to more thwonce that occurred in the creation of this new system? Is that a falrstatement 7A. I would certainly say that was right. I would certainly say thatthe critical review that was made of the Act while it was in the passagestage -- and the fact that the sponsors of the bill and the legislativeleaders were willing to allow time and to allow that almost total rqisionof the language of the Act, was a very important step, and exactly w3tyou say is true. Mr. Fme, the Chainran of our Board and an attorn ,and I rnentloned many, many times in the first twelve months after tAct was passed, how remarkable it was that we were able to ~esolve thespecifics of each of the problems as they came along within the frarnworkof the Act, and as a matter of fact as I talk along on this matter oP theconverson, I think it will become clear how we were able, within the dk.ameworkof this Act as it was amended, to do that. Yes, this was certqya good thing, and of course the fact that it was done by people who eregoing to be affected by it.Q. Let me try one other surmarizing question of this sort to see if phisis an accurate statement to make. I came out of the lengthy discussionthat we had of this explosive period, the ten years before 1965, when: somany discussions and meetings of interest poups met and all this went on.I heard that discussion really as a - what shall I say - as a descriptionor as a statement, an eloquent statement that it is possible in the khdof society that we have in this country to plan sanething thorough and cornplete and ima@;lnative and complex to serve the worthy goals that oursociety is able to conceive of, if we will but take the the to do it,thoroughly. It seems to me that this sunmation that we are giving herenow is really a f'urther substantiation of this kind of thing. I amperhaps gettin@: a little bit carried away here with own enthusiasm,but this is what I hear.

Gerald W. Smith 267A. Yes, I think you are m&bg a reasonable observation with regardto the total dmcratic process, and I thhk you are indicating that ifone was searching for some examples, the process by which the statecorrmwdty college system in IllLnois evolved out of that long period ofdiscussion and the critical review of that Act, it is an excellent example.Again, I want to hasten to say that I am not trying to lnrply here thatthere were not holes in that Act. There were holes that we had to go backand plug up in 1967, two years later. There was even hterestingly enoughone item that we totally overlooked with regard to it and f o which ~ I waschastened over the phone one day by an individual. And it was a totaloversight on a little item. The interesting thing was that here was awhole new statute that had been well enough done that we were never atany time unable to go ahead and do the thin$ that should be done. Again,I think we were helped a pat deal by other factors too. Not only dldwe have the Act that allowed it, but Mr. Fowle the Chairman of the Wardand a lawyer, always operated as the Cham of the Board from the positionthat it was our business to try to make the Act work, try to makeit do what; it was intended to do and if there were same minor legislativeomissions In the Act, to try to We reasonable Interpretations that wouldovercome them, Mr. kmr, our legal counsel, operated fhn that positionalso. The members of the Board of Higher Education and Dr. Glenny did, too.A. It's a thrilling story. That was an interesting diversion f'rom tihemh thread of our discourse, Gemy. Now would you like to resume thenarrative at this poht?A. At this point my outline to be followed for sane period of time willbe as follows: I am going to, fbst of all, discuss the matter of tyeconversion of the Class I1 colleges -- that is, all of the existingcolleges -- to the Class I status, and go into considerable detail forthe historical record of that operation. When I have finished that gegrnentof this historical account, I w ill then move to the organization of mesixteen districts that took place in the first three and a half yearq,that were created out of territory in which there was no ex2stir-g jur@orcollege. Golng, then, to the first part of my narrative with regard tothe conversion of the Class I1 colleges. I likewise have these dividedinto three groups. I have six public junior colleges that were part fa school district and which elected to be reorganized as Class I wit & nthe boundaries and within the f'rarnework that they wepe then existing.I shall then turn and discuss the conversion of the five separate orindependent districts that had been created in 1962, 1964 and 1965, andthen, finally, I will move to the several districts which elected to beabsorbed in the newly established districts, and then also deal with twowhich annexed to Class 1 districts rather than be reorganized.IThe six districts that I am going to s~ak about now -- and I will de 1with than each by name -- were reorganized within their existing fr arb work,are Chicago, Won at Cicero-Berwyn, Thornton at Harvey, Danville, Elginand Bloom, which is now Prairie State, at Chicago Heights. 1 am not go-

Gerald W. Smith 26 8to deal with them Fn that order, but those are the six I am going to talkabout. I will repeat something that I said earlier, and that is thatthese districts, in order to be reorganized as Class I districts, had tohave separate tax rates in order to be eligible for that conversion, andsome of these did not: Morton, Thomton and Elgin. Those tkee did nothave separate tax rates at the time the Junior College Act was passed,and so the fbst step that was necessary to set than up in a positionthat they could apply to the State Board for reorganization was the establishentof those tax rates; and in each case they did it by an identicalprocess. There had been written into the cannon school law, and it hadbeen covered sufficiently in the Junior College Act that it could betied across from the cmon school law to the mew Junior College Act --there was a provision whereby the Board of Education of those school dfstrictsby a resolution could establish those tax rates. This was subjectto the so-called back-door referendum. That is, namely, the Board ofEducation of the school district by a resolution took action establi$hingthese tax rate and giving thirty days public notice within their districtthat it was their intent to establish these tax rates unless there was arequest for a referendwn on the subject. each case when the thwtyday period passed there was no request for a referendum, and so the taxrates became effective.Upon compEetion of them the Boards, then, fn each case prepared the applicationto the State Board, and the State bard proceeded with the reorganizationof these districts as Class I districts, under the standard inArticle 3 of the new Act, and disected the County Superintendent ofSchools of the appropriate counties if there was more than one, to cqnductan election for a new Board of Trustees to take over as the governqboard for the now constituted Class I districts.Q. When you refer to State Board, this is the Illkois Junior CollegeBoard?A. Yes, the Illinois Junior College Board. Whenever I use the wordsState Bom I use it as the statute does. Yes, in the definition thestatute spells it out "Illinois State Junior College Board, here-erreferred to as the State Board." In every case that I use just the @rmState Board, I am speaking on this subject.Interestingly enough, one of these districts - Morton -- had an educationalmte but they had no building rate, so they had to go through thesame process and establish a building rate h order to becane eligibh,and I guess they asked us for four or five different legal opSnions try-to see if there wasn't some way we could avoid that step, but it wasdecided it ought to be done, and so it was done. w, let me4point; outthat, begin- in the fall of 1965, the action on these matters wasinitiated very quicw after the State Board came into existence. S etime during the yeax 1966 in every case they were reorganized. As amatter of fact each of the districts was reorganized sufficiently e&,Ibelieve, thatbyJuly1, 1966, theywereabletoenteranewfiscal/yearas a Class I district dth a newly eiected Board of Tcustees.

Q. That's an unbelievable record.A. I think a little word about the specifics of each of the astrictswill be of interest for thls historical account, as well as significant.I guess I w ill start with Danville.Danville was, you remember, one of the junior colleges that had beenestablished in 1946 by the University of Illinois Fixtension Center andhad operated as a college continuously since that time. For the fbatthree or four yews after Dmville Junior College was organized under theCenter it mwed along very well with a modest enrollment of 200 or smthingin that order. Then the* enrollment began to decrease and theydropped down to a dangerous point, somewhere on the order of TO or sostudents. The Board of Education of the Danville schools then began tofigure that perhaps this wasn't going to be a going concern and they4ought to terminate the program. An English teacher In the school th reby the name of Mary Mller had become the Dean of the operations of hatlittle c m t y college and had become devoted to it. So she askedltheSuperintendent of Schools for permission to organize a citizenfs cdtteeto help her recruit students for that college before a final decisionwas made to terminate it. The Superintendent was sympathetic, and theBoard was sympathetic, and so Mary was given that permission. She broughttogether a very interesting group of outstanding ci~Lc leaders in thecorrmmlty to help her recruit, and the result of that activity for thevery first yeax was an increase of 100% in enrollment -- it went from50 to 100 students. I am not talking about large nwnbers of students butthey went right back up to a hundred students. That group of people ithenbecame very much interested in the college and that cormnittee has beqnperpetuated to this day. Beginning with that, the enrollment began Qoincrease very slowly. As we moved toward the 1965 date of the new Actanother thhg happened at Danville that was very inportant in the life ofthe college. They had had now a period of slowly gowing enrollment, butthey were still a part of the school district and they were still opmatingwith whatever space was available 51 the high school.It turned out that seven buildings lying on about 65 acres of the FederalVeterans Hospital were being made surplus. The federal govemnt wasdevelop- the facility of that veterans hospital to the south. And onthe extreme north end of the hospital grounds which was the fYont entplance,were seven buildings that they had declared surplus. M s was the ha/ldicappedarea of the facility. Ehrerything new was to the south. Theydeclared this surplus and MaYy Miller and her citizenfs carranittee andother people decided that would be a good place for the college. So theyapplied to the federal govemnt through their cor-qessman for the apquisitionof those facilities, and I belleve in 1964, just about the 2methe Act was caning Into existence, they did acqulre those seven buildand that &;round under the federal surplus program, for $1.00 for the byething, So they moved then just as the new JMor College Act was get ingunderway onto a separate campus and were located there, and so they appliedfor conversion Porn Class I1 to Class I in the fall of 1965; they already

Gerald W. Smith 2 70had acquired the 65 acres and were ready to do the conversion and mdificationof those bulldings for the college program. This was the setting inwhich DanvIlle proceeded to do that program. And with the move to thatcampus and with the conversion in 1966 to the Class I status, thetr growthwas imnedhtely enomus and they went From the 300 or 400 students theyhad at that the to 1,000 students in a relatively short period of time.Q. This early shrinkage of" enrollment at Danville - was that in any wayduplicated at any other locations?A. Yes. Slhat wasnft an uncommon experience. Of cowse, of the 31 aentersmst of them a d not htend to be a college. Most of the row collegesthat started did experience, beginning with the third and fourth yeax,some drop. Of course, thLs was partly due to the fact that their Znltialenrollment had this wave of veterans and those veterans moved throw andthey had not yet gotten into the business of recruiting students in dufficientnurrbers to totally offset the movement of those abnormally-largenwnbers. I thhk this happened In some of" the senior institutions alsobut not to the extent that it did at Danville.I might add one other interesting Mstorical note. Maxy Miller was avery outstanding leader and she did a ma&ficent job, and when she retiredten years ago -- no, not ten yews, she was there f'rm 1946 untilher retirement -- she was the Bean of the college and then when it was reorganizedshe was the President. Same time af'ter 1965, I've forgottenthe exact date, she retired. They had a civic affair for her and. theprowam they put on was based upon the three periods of the college withwhich she had been related. They put tt on in the form of a little threeact play. Act I was "Our Humble Begbmhgll that dealt with gettingstarted 2n the Ugh school under the University program. Act I1 was entitled"Agony and Ecstacy" and that had to do with that period when theywere almost put out of business and the appointment of that citizenlscormnittee. By the way, there was another factor of that citiizenfs cmnitteethat I need to inject here because I talk about the period of theagow and ecstacy. Not only did the citlzenfs cormnittee get into the recruiting,but they got very mch interested in the welfare of that college,so they proceeded to do some f'und raising and they raised a million dollms.They form& a foundation and raised a mlllion dollars by local subscrLption.Again, in a period of tb~ when the financial plight Sn public school wasterrible. The zlublic schools were strapped for money, and I think fourseparate crx3nsemt5ve~eferendwns to Fncrease the support for the publicschools failed, and concmntly the citizens out of their own pocketssubscribed a million dollars privately for the support of this college-under the leadership of Mary Miller and these people. So that was actof the "Agony and the Ecsta~y.~' And then, of course, part of theecstacy was the acquisition of the seven buildings. The Veterans Hospitaladdress is on East Main St~et and there was the perlod where they wereconverthg to Class I and had the pmth in enrollment, and so Chapter I11of the Act was entitled "Miracle on Main Street. l1

So this is the story of Danville. I am not going into this much detailwith all of them, by the way, but there is this story about almost allof them. I dont t think I dare to take the time in my account to go intotoo much, but I do intend as I proceed with this discussion, I warn youand any listeners, to introduce much of the h m story as a part ofthis central pattern. You could go to Danville or some other place andfind that people had written it up. I think it has a place in theof chronicle I am doing, and if anyone wants to how why I am do-"r" tI will also say now something that T msii repeat .,,,, ,,,,,.,. ... o.r.;............ we mst keep in mind that by vMue of situation Iwas personally involved in every one of these developments, to some extent.Elgin was another one of the districts that had been stmed in 1946 asa part of the University of I11Snois promotion at the end of World Wqr 11.This college had operated continuously since 1946 and applied for reorganizationas Class I. They did apply. The person In the college at thattime was also the Superintendent of Schools, MP. Thompson, but the maylwho was with the college and had been with it almost all the time sinceit had been organized Fn 1946 and was serving as the Dean was GI1 Rem.Gil was the man who was giving leadership to the reorganization of theircollege and they were reorganized again as all of these I am talkingabout were, in the early pwt of 1966, and without any unusual incidentsor elements. It was a fairly orderly aff& that gave us really noproblem.At Chicago Heights -- the Bloom Cormunity College -- which had startedoriginally as an extension center of the University of Illinois and thenhad terminated Its program for a period of time but then had been recreatedin 1957 by a vote of the people and, therefo~e, had tax rates, becausewhen they voted the district in they voted the tax rate, this college wasat thfs tlme under the leadership of Harold Metcalf who was the Superin-tendent of the Bloom Townshlp High School and Cortnrnwlity College. Theyalways called it a corrmmity college. Mi?. Albert Martin whom I willrefer to as A1 usually, serving as the Dean of the college. Both of thesehad been in the school system for some period of the.Interestingly enough, this was one of the two cormunity colleges in theState that had built a building specifically for the use of the comnavlitycollege. Bloom had constmcted a modest size building across the hiawayfrom the main building and on the front of it were large letters that proclaimedBloom Corrmfdty College. This college applied for Class I statusand agah was converted with just the nomaXprocedure. They lktd beenestablished by referendum. They met all the standards that were set inthe Micle with regard to it. They certainly had a great growth, and sothey were converted.-Thornton Township HLgh School at Harvey, which had been m h g a juniorcollege since 1928 or 1929, was a strong junior college. They had strongprograms in all fields. They could really be descrjbed as camprehensfveII

in nature even as a part of the high school district. This college ailsohad sane separate facilities. !They a wing of the Ugh school buildingthat had been turned over to them. They had a lLbrary of their am.They also had a few so-called portable buildings they had acquired thatstood on the grounds which were for thee sole use. %!his dfstrict atthat time was under the leadership of Jams B. Logsdon -- Jim we calledhim -- as the Superintendent of the high school and junior college, andLee Duggar, as Dean. Both of these men were very active leaders in theAssociation of Junior Colleges, and had played a very active role durbgthe period of the Master Plan study and during the period of the reviewof the legislation as it got underway. Dr. Logsdon had been one of themost vocal of the people who advocated that the junior colleges beaccepted Snto the new system as Class I, with ntll standing and that therebe none of this business of being first a Class TI.I might say that as we mved into the work in the fall he was still beingsomewhat hot under the collar about the fact that they had not been giventhis. He felt that they had been put d m and he was very unhappy aboutit. While he was very cooperative as we went through the procedures ofthe State Board established under the law to convert than, he and I workedtogether, and every phone conversation or every personal conference therewas quite a bit of the chatter that really should not have been necessary.We were good f'riends, and we are good personal friends yet.END OF TAPE FIFTEEN SIDE TWOQ This is September 22, 1976 and I will ask Gerald to continue with thehistory of the junior colleges.A. As I was saying, Dr. 3;ogsdon was still unhappy with that situation andwe proceeded to reorganize that district which wax another of the distwictsthat had to establish tax rates since they had not had them. They diq that.And, so this district was converted to a Class I district,Morton at Cicero -- .the leadership of that college was Dr. Harold Whiqe,Dean of the college, and I'm embarrassed at the moment that I cannot &-call the name of the superbtendent who was very cooperative and very helpf'ul.But again he had sene of the attitude of Dr. Logsdon, that it wasunfortunate in his mind that the college had not been accepted as a Class Iand had to go the conversion route. This was also one of the older collegesthat was about the same age as Thornton -- older than Thornton. It l-mdbeen started in 1924. It was the same age as LOP at Malle. Once theyhad established thelr building rate, this college again was reo~ganiz asa Class I diatriet. The Illinois Junlpl College Board in Mewing t$scollege was snnewhat more critical in tern of what they thought of as theweakness in the total comprehensive area, and they were somewhat criticalof them and did insist on scone reassurances imn the local Board that thecollege would, in fact, move ln that direction.

Gerald W. Smith 2 73Of course, you understand that in each case by the time this applicataonwas made we were no longer dealing withe the School Board but were dealingwith the newu elected Board of Trustees who had just begun their work.And so this college was converted to a Class T college.At Elgin, Gil Renner became the President of that college and stayedthere until he retired about three years ago. At Pxairie State, A1 &&,inbecame President of that college and stayed there until he moved to &ringfielda year and a half later to join our staff on the Illinois Commp?ityCollege Board. At Thornton, James Logsdon assumed the presidency of thatcollege when it was first organized. A note mst be mde here that mceit was reorganized and there was a new board, of course, the superinQmdentof the school district no longer had any connection with it. So in 'hecase of Thornton, that meant that Dr. Logsdon was the superhtendent of thehigh school In one job and the president of the college in the other job.He had actually two jobs sewing two sepmate entities, and then when hemtired, Lee Dulgar became the president; of that college and stayed therefor a period of time. At Morton, Dr. White then became the administrativeleader of that district when it was organized, but only for a $t-rmtbecause he retired and a new person cam In as the president of the college.Moving now to Chicago, and I'm dealing with Chicago last because Chicagopresented some unusual problems In the matter of converting It to aClans I district.Q. At the beg- of the discussion here, &my, could you maybe listthe different Institutions comprMng the Chicago system? Was there onlyone institution at that time, one college on one campus?A. No, it was a multi-campus district in 1965 as we began the operationand I w ill list for you for now is a good the. The Chicago College wasoperating on several campuses In 1965. The oldest of the campuses was locatedat the Crane High School, wMch had been the slte of the origirqlcodty junior college program back in 1911. There is a phque on theside of the old Crane High School building that mks it as the orlgh$alslte of the ChLcago Junior College in 1911. On the far northwest side therewas the Wright Junior College campus, which was the largest of the capuses,and the one Ln 1965 that probably, from a nationwide basis, was best ltnom.Wright had been the center for the strongest 1Lberal arts programs in thewhole Chicago system for mny years, and was nationally hown for its pmgm.It was located in a bulldlng that had originally been built so@after 1910, samewhere around ''13 or 14", as a junior high school In thedays when junior high schools first started. Chicago had gone into thejunior high school structure soon after 1910 but only retained the jhigh school structure a shor% time. They went back to the 8-4And the W~lght campus ultimately was centered In that building. Of cit had modified in many places.On the norbh side, nearer north side, Chicago in 1965 was also operatingwhat was known as the Armxndsen-Mayfair branch. They were using the tmsrltes. The 'Malrfalr bullding -win was an earlier junior high school

Gerald W. Smith2 74building that the city no longer usedf$01- either secondary or elementarypurposes, but the lighting in the buil was very inadequate. Andbecause of the inadequacy of It, they, therefore, had to run their dayprogram at the FkyfaLr and opened up t e evening program over at theh d 8 m High School building, That s the connection, The day programms at Mayre; the evenjng prow was at Ann.~ndsen. That waswhere Tuner Wlmble was the aMnist~~tor, He had been one of' the wtstand-leaders in the state system, 3in the state picture.IQ. What was Ms title? Dean?A. He was Dean of the Anmdsen-Mayfair branch.Q. Do you want to mention the names of the deans?A. No, because I don't recall them all. Turner had so much visibil$ystatewide, which is why I mntion him. In the Loop, the college was Pperatkgon Wbash, or between Wabash and pchigan Avenue on Lake Street inwhat had earlier been the h a of &Pam University, When DePaul mwd afew blocks south In the Loop, the Chicago colleges leased that bulldingand were operating a junior college In that facility, They later purchasedthe building. Then, about 6800 south, nem the site of the old ChicagoNoml School campus, they were operat- the Wilson campus in what hadbeen a fomr Rock Island Railsoad warehouse which the city had purchasedin the days of Ben Willis as General Superintendent of Schools and Mchhad been converted for the use of the jwor college. And again a man whowas a strong leader in the state, Charles Monroe, and who has since writtenone of the excellent textbooks on the junior colleges entitled ''P-rofile ofthe Junior College," was the Dean of that campus.Q. How does he spell his name?A. Monroe. Then, -her to the southyast, in the vocational hi& schoolbuilding, Southeast Vocational High Sch~ol balding, a huge facility andprobably one of the best planned and be$t equlpped vocational high scboolplants in the United States. It had been done during the depression underthe WPA project.Q. Those buildings were built out of a white brick?A. Yes, they are in the mte brick. Ib huge stmctm, and the facilitywas imsgiPicant for vocational programs, They were aperating what theycalled the Southeast Cqus, and this carpus In Chicago was stronglyoriented to vocational programs. Here $hey had the mst hlghly specializedof the vocational programs.Q. And it was Imm as the doutheast Cqmpus?A. It was hawn as the Southeast Campua.

At the far south, a junlor college program was being operated In theFenger High School and was known as the Fenger Branch. And then in thesouthmat part of the clty In the BoganHigh School, a junior college wasbe- operated and was huwn as the Born Branch. These were the sitesof the junior college operation h 1965, and, of course, all under thebard of Education of CMcago. The Chihago system, as yau know, had along history, and Lt had some distirygi6hed people connected with itsjunior, college. Tt had had Leland Medsker, so well known in California;it had Peter Masiko who bee- the hestdent of Miad Dade ComityCollege in Florida; and St had Clifford Erlckson. All of these peoplehad been executive deans of this college as we began to work with themFn the fall of 1965. Clifford Erickson had just moved a few monthsearlier to be the flrst President of Rock Valley College at Rockford;and Oscar Shabat, who had been on the faculty at Wright Junior Collegefor mny years and had performed ce&ain administrative duties, had justbeen named the Fzecutive &an for the city colleges under the Board ofEducation.Q. The chLef executive officer was called the "Executive Dean?"A. Called the "Executive Dean," yes, and he was, of course, on the staffof the superintendent. So the two principal leaders in the cfty with regardto junior colleges were Ben Willis, the General Superbtendent of theclty, and Oscar Shabat, wha was semrlng as Faecutive Dean.I have mentioned there were certain problems that had to be dealt with.Unfortunately the amendments that had been wrftten to the Act to try totake care of the problems that would be rnet in trying to convert them,had not been complete insofar as Chicago was concerned. So there weresome gaps in the language of the Act as it pertahed to the Class I1colleges, and as it pertained to the conversion process with respect tothe situation that exitsted in Chicago. Some of the t-s that weredifferent, for example, and quite inportant, had to do with the fiscaloperation of the college.In Chicago, the Board of Education is appobtedby the lbyor, and because it is an appointed Board, and because thestatutes do not; give that appointed Board tax levylng power - the taxlevies in Chicago for the school system have to be made by the City Council,and while it is prbwily a ministerial relationship, or a ministerialoperation, the facts are that the budget does have to go to the CityCouncil, and they do have to act on it. They are not the budget-makingagency, and they have very limited authorfty as to what they can do aboutit, except that they have to do it. And we had nothing in our Act thatwould take cwe of that kind of situation. In other words, if we createda Class I district and provided for a new Board which would be appointedby the Mayor, and that had been covered h the Act, then we had thisproblem of the fiscal opexlation. As Chapman arad Cutler, again the att r-neys to whom you always turn with regard to fiscal matters as they re1 k teto tax levies or as they relate to bond issues or the sale of tax warrantsand so forth -- this legal fhn was of the opirdon that the Act was very,very inadequate as it related to Chicago: should we separate the school,the carmmity college district fkmn the public school districts? In additionto that, we had a rather interesting personal one, ----

Gerald W.Smfth27'6Q. Before we get into the personal one, could we hold that for aminute. I would like to came back to this other issue. Does thissuggest that somehow the planning and the preparatory process that wediscused earlier at the beglnnlng of the sessfon did not somehow orother m e adequate provisions for the Wcago situation? OT did Chicagoopt to keep out of the process, or what?A. It just sSmply meant that In trying to wfte all of those details, theones tht were written as they pertained to cities aver 500,000 turned outnot to be adequate.Q. I see.A. You can't say that it was anybody's fault, We just did not see allof the hplications that were to come mt of the office of Chapman &Cutler.Q. Whi&-.is not surprising considering the enormity of the job.A. Now, there was Turner TrImble who was there in the rewriting process,and he was well versed in - he had been a representative of the ChicagoBoard of Education - how it was related to the cort9nxnlty college and the&nerd Assembly. He was well versed In the mtter. It just turned outthat the facts were we did not have that subject adequately covered, qndthat presented certain problems.In the case of the personal one, even before the XCCB began to operate onSepterrber 6th, for same reason that I no longer recall, Glenny, whohad just taken over as the Executive Director of the E3oard of Higher Bducatian,and Oscar Shabat, who had just taken over as the Executive Dean,became involved in some kind of debate and discussion wfth regard to whetheror not Chfcago met the standards for conversion, and each of them had someexchanges with one another about that pmcess, which had been picked upin the press and publicized considerably, so both of them had really beengiven a public stance. Interestingly enough we had to deal with thatwhen later on we began to come& them. Each of them, I think, had madesome public staterrents that were more extreme than was the most judiciousor necessary at the t-. In the process of converting that college, itwas necessary to relieve that tension that existed and to proceed in a waythat did not embms either one of these people. I say, I do not evenrerrsernber all the details, but I remeniber the situation that existed.And so this was the problem that we had with Chicago. We studied theproblem caref'ully in great detail; we conferred with Chapman & Cutler.Mr. knmer, our own legal counsel, studied it in @;reat detail and wrotememoranda for our use with regard to the subject. Lyman G1 enny and I conferredpersonally on every detail of the step. The general approach oPour conferences, however, was that Pan, my standpoint, I saw no reasonwhy. we should not proceed to convert them, but Llyman was a little bit inclinedto say, "No, let's make them do werythhg we want them to dobefore we convert them." He rather stood on that position but we werefriendly about it all the way and ultimately, 1% happy to say, the JuniorCollege Board's posltion prevailed.

Gerald W. Smith 2 77FIe ad, In fact, convert them, but we did convert them in the fillknowledge that there had to be some vem hpozrtant legislative amendmntsto the Act in 1967 In order to go on with the problem that theyfaced. And so, Ln the sp~ing of 1966, the Chlcago nystan was convertedto a Class 9: distrlct and, in accordance with the provisions of the Act,the Mayor then appointed the Bomd of Trustees for that district andthey were b a position to take over as the governing board of thecollege on July 1st of 1966.With regard to Lyman Glennyts problems, we at the end had Mr. me^,our attormy, address -elf to each of the specific questions thatwere not satisfactorily answered to that point, in the mind of Dr. Glemy.Fortunately, DP. Glenny did accept the legal qxhfon that b. lkmnergave with regard to proceeding with the conversion even though it was admZttedthat the language of the Act left samething to be desired as itpertbed to the Chicago situation.I am gokg to proceed now on another step with regard to the Chicagodevelopment because I think it is a significant part of the history, - - andI am going to do this before I move topthe next -pup of colleges.Although this has to do with that matter of comecting the lnallequaciesin the law, 1 think this is as appropriate a place to inject It as anythat 1 can think of. Because these inadequacies dld exist, and becausethe Board of Education of Chlcago and the newly appokted Born ofTsustees were not able to ape as early as July 1, 1966, when the newBomd became the goweming Board, because they had not been able to agweon the shwing of assets or on the mangernent they me going to have Inthe f'uture with regard to buildJngs, although the law gave them two yearsgace for the use of those buildings - because the new Em& of Trusteeshad no money -- all of the money was in the orflce of the superintendent,the general superintendent of the district -- it was agreed that fromJuly 1, 1966, through December 31, 1966, the Board of Fducatlon of Chicagowould continue to finance the operation of the district. And again, therewas another situation in Chlcago that was different from the rest of theState. In all other parts of the State and practically everything in Stategovernment in IllinoiLs, fiscal year beglns on July 1 and ends June 30, butIn Chicago the fiscal year begins January 1 and ends December 30, and thetax levies were made in that tax f'ramework. The Board of Education inChicago, then, had made a tax levy for the operation of the junfor collegedistrict and they had adopted a budget far the operation of the jmtorcollege, for the calendar year of 1966. On July 1, they were simply halfway t&ough that budget. They were unwi$ling to wee on a sharing ofassets or a transf"er of assets, but they were perfectly willbg, on thebasis of what they had already progemneed, to take care of that total flinancia1operation for the next a h months. And so, that is what happened.,The payroll, the payment of bills, all of those things were an operatimof the Board of Education for the fkst alx months.The Board of Trustees of the college took over the governance of thecollege as of July 1, and perfomd all governance flxnctlons other than

Gerald W. Smith 278the matter of the fiscal. As the mnths rolled along, it became obviousthat ln the conferences set up between the now two districts, there wasto be no sharbg of assets. The Board of Educationfs position was goingto be that on Decerrlber 31, 1966, it had done what it had agreed to do,and tt no longer had any responsibility to the College baud. It hadbeen agreed that they could continue to use those buildhgs because thestatute mandated the time. Ben Willis, the General Superintendent of theChicago schools, had lnltially been rather reluctant to see the conversionof the Class TI to Class I. He was not just wholeheartedly insupport of the idea that there was to be a new Board of Trustees, thatthis was to become a separate entity. The Board of Education and theSuperintendent of Schools in Chicago, of course, had expreienced sornewhatI suppose you would call a trauma there, because with the developmentof the Mastep Plan they had also lost the Teacher's College. Fromits earliest establishment the Teacher's College had been an operationOF the Board of Education. Then, when the State changed the ChicagoNormal School fCMlm a city institution to a State institution and tookover the total fbance, the gwemce was still left In the hands of theChicago Bawd of Education. The m k l of that authority f'rm the Boardof Education to the State Teacher's College Board was a matter that wasan outcome of the Master Plan. They had just gone through that loss, soto speak - they had just lost control of the* State Teacher's College,now they were about to lose control of theb junior college. So you cansee, they saw their system being taken apart.Q. I used to know Ben Willis pretty well when I was at the University ofChicago and had a great many discussions and. associations with him. I'mcurious. Was the stance you took on this whole thing adversarial, so fmas Ben was concerned?A. Only for a very short period of time. And I would not really say itwas ever really adversarial. Ben Willis was a gentleman.Q. Wst of the tbne he was, but he could also be very different.A. Yes. He could very different, but he was not inclined to be totallycooperative at the very beghnhg, but It did not take very long to convinceBen that the way that statute was written there was really nooption. If Chicago chose to continue to run that college indefinitelyoutside the state system of c m t y colleges, it would have to sufferall the penalties. There would be no state ftmncing for buildhgs andthey would have a lower level of state $.~pport. He was soon convincedthat it was the only reasonable thing to do, and once he made up his ndnd,then he was 100% cooperative. He dld everyth3..ng he could in a supportiverole .Q. He was very mch a realist.A. Yes. That's right, and qy relationship wrlth Ben was excellent. As Isay, lnltlally there was a little of that, of course, he couldnrt blame'

me, but he was not happy about it to begin with. At my rate, theresult was that by July of 1966, after the new Board took over, I couldbe& ta see very clearlly that the situation ahead ms go- to be asfollows: That on Deceraber 31, the Chicago Board of mucatton muld terminateits flmnclrtg of that operation and that program and beyond that,business altogether, and that the new Board of Trustees and Oscar Shabatand Us staff were going to be sitting mund on January 1 with zerodollars and with a budget of sweralmtlllon dollars. So, we had to,then, we had to bean to think how we were going to handle the matter,I held nmrous cor-$erences with Mr. Shabat, and T might say that OscarShabat Za a man who goes to the office very early in the morning and soit was not unceRrmon for me to arrive in rrly office and have Oscar Shabaton the phone callbg me within minutes after 1 had arrived at the office,and we had many coflerences on the phone. By the first of September of1966, I thought T had a clear picture Into their om operation. I tho~@tI had a clear picture of' the situation and maZnly that it was going to bea situation h which on January 1, they would have zero dollars and thatwe had to take same very stmng steps in order to provide them with mney.By Septarber 1, I was also convinced that that had to be acccanplished byseveral steps in sequence. I was pretty we11 convbced that we had tosee if it was possible to make an earlier-than-normal distribution ofState apportlamnt to them so they would get that money by December 31,and have some money on January 1. I saw that it was going to take somelegislative action which would have to be passed by the General Assemblywith an Bnergency Clause whlch required two-thirds vote in the House andSenate in ovder to make the action effective hmediately, because underthe law, Acts passed become effective by the next July after the Governorsigns them unless there is an Emergency Clause.And I also saw that we were going to have to work very closely withChapm & Cutler to convince them that in the organization prodedure allof the steps were satisfactory so that later on, when they wanted to selltax warrants, they would be able to do that. Then I also was convincedby September 1 that this was a responsibility that should be assumed bythe State Board, and it was my opinion that, first of all, that the newlycreated Board that had just taken office on July 1, did not have time togear up for all of the things that had to be done, and, secondly, mostof it had to be done through the State Baard anyhow. So it was judgment,and I suggested to the State Board at our September meeting, thatwe assume responsibility for the leadership that would bring about thethhgs that were necessary to take care of their fiscal emergency beginningJanuary 1,TPle other thing that I had in mind was that I did not wish to see thismtter cane before the General Assembly in a setting in which it wascmlng out of Chicago, because Fn the Illinofrs General Assembly the Sthteis usually divided into three parts: Chicago, Downstate, and SouthernIllinois; and, of course, there's a peat deal of that Chicago-Downstatedivision, and I dld not want to do anything that 1 thought would offermuch oppol?tunity at all for the development of that kind of a dialogueIn the General Assembly. So I thought that, 21 Oscar Shabat and his

Gerald W. Smith 2 80trustees were caning in initiat3m.g this actian, there might be some inclinationfor the people in the General Assembly to pick that up in $hatf'ramemrk, whereas, If we, as the State Boaud, bmwt it in as one ofthe problems we were confronted with under the new Act, that the GeneralAssdly would accept It on its face value, And. so 6he Illinois JuniorCollege Bod agreed In September to do that and delegated to me theresponsibility for proceeding to take the steps necessary, working, ofcourse, with the leadership in the General Assembly and with Oscar Sllabatand Chapman & Cutler, Mr. Lamer, and whoever else was necessary. So,durhg the months of October and November, we dAd la,y out a play to proddefor the fiscal situation of ChAcago starblng with zero dollars onJanuary 1. These were the steps in the plan wMch we set up. Nwnberone was to make a distribution of their state apportiomnent to them soit would be In the* office by December 31. This would be for them thatyeax an amount of something llke two and one-half m;LSlTon dollars, 1:cleared that with the Auditor General's Office and wlth the State Auditorts office to make sure that 1 would not get any hangup through stateagencies when I vouchered for that, because thLs money was going to bepaid to them something like six weeks in advance of nomd time. Theyhad already qualified for the money. me only thing we were doing wasstepphg up the delivery date.The Auditor General and the State Auditor's office said that If theState Board decided they were entitled to that money and vouchered it,it would be paid, so that step was relatively easy.The next step that I proposed was that we have the General Assemblyappropriate tkvlee million dollars to them from the next b1enniut-n to givethem an advance payment on the next biennium which would be beglmhgJuly 1, 1967. Not to be a want but to be slmply an advancement of themoney, and 1 proposed to write a statute that would set forth clearlythat it was an advancement and that the State Board during the nextfPscal period was to wfthhold mds in four equal installments so thatwhen they made a claim to us fowl state apportiomnt, T would first withholdone-fourth of that $3,000,000 and the next time anothe~ one-fourth,so that by the end of the next biennium we would have withheld fram theirstate apportionment the $3,000,000. Of course, thls meant that theChicago City Colleges had to begin to plan a fTscal plan that would makeit posslble for us to withhold that money which had been advanced to themahead of time. And so we drafted that bill and had it introduced.4Then we proposed to provide for the sale of anticipation warrants, foa law with regard to the sale of anticipation tlmrrants and a workingcash fund for them so that if they wanted to, they could sell bonds f ra mrkbg cash f'und which was essentially another way of anticipatbgtaxes, and then by the time the initial state ald claim we were givthem expired and also by the the the $3,000,000 we were paying themadvance ran out, they would either set up a working cash fund and seltheir bonds or they would be able to sell tax warrants and that would;get them then far enough along the mad that we would be into the ne$bfiscal year, and they could do it. I/

Gerald W. Smith 281Q. Let me ask yau a very direct question, Gerry, Were you the architectof all of this?A. I guess I would have to take the credit or the blame for being theprincipal architect, You nwer do anything 5.n that klnd of a role byyourself but I: think that I was the individual who early saw the problemand urderzltmd it. And re-er, Oscar was new In his job and I am sureOscm was not nearly as aware of that, nor did Oscar have the kind offiscal experience at that tlme that would have made it possible for hfmto see the answers. I was drawing upon, first of all, a long term administrativeexperience In the budgetary procedure, and remember I had starbeda brand new school district with zero assets at Ehood Park.I had beenthrough thls process of beginning with zero assets, so T had same backm.Yes, I think Tfd have to say that I was the principal architect.h order to bplement this, then, I already told you how we took carel ofthe state apportiomnt, I got the clearance. I hew we could do it,we paid it. When the Genepal Assdly convened Ln Janu~lry of 1967 -- B"this was In the fall of 1966 -- when they convened in 1967 1 already hadthe bills drafted, so that they were introduced either the first orsecond day of the session. I had already met w3th the leadership in boththe House and Senate on both sides of the aisle, so the leadership understoodthe problem. I had given them manorandm on it; I had sat down rlnconferences with them and described the problem; and so when they cameinto session they bew these bills were comlng In. At that time, theHouse was organized by the Republicans, so the Majority Leader In theHouse had already designated Richard Walsh to handle the bills. We hada sponsor of the bills In the House and we had thm drafted. Now thelongest and the most painstaking part; of that preparation had been thedrafting of the legislation that totally rewrote the fiscal procedure asit applies to cities over 500,000, or namely, Chicago. This we did withthe help of Ken kmr, with an enormous amount of work by Chapman &Cutler, and, with Ricm Walsh, the sponsor of the bills, and I was themiddle man who went f'rm one to the other to the other. So, we introducedat the opening of the leglslatiive session the bill proposing the advanceof the $3,000,000. We introduced the blll which, in effect, set up awhole new Mlcle VII in the Public Comfmity College Act pertaining tocities of over 400,000. We took care of all of the gaps that Chapman &Cutler and others saw in that bill. And in that Article VII we took careof the fiscal procedwe, the tax rate procedure, the budgetary procedure,the provision for tax wamants. The wo~king cash f'und, I decided if 4ewere going to write that that it should not pertain to Chicago only,other districts might want it, so we put that in Article I11 of the A imt tbecause Chicago was governed by all of Article I11 as well as the speaialfeatures that were In this new VII on fiscal procedures, Th3s was a Longinvolved blll, and Dick Walsh turned out to be a splendid sponsor of bhebill. He was precise. At th~s I sort of had to sem as a mediatorbetween h h and Chapman & Cutler because Chapman & Cutler were coming Inwith amendments ,EW OF SIDE ONE

Gerald W. Smfth 282A. These bills to which I have referred were introduced at the openingof the 1967 sessfon of the General Assembly, and they mved throw theGeneral Assembly with remkable dispatch, By the middle of February,the Governor had signed all of the bllls, Within ajx weeks after intrcducfngthose btlls, they had gone through both Houses of the GeneralAssembly. The General Assembly was most cooperative, The leadership,who understood the problem and who had agreed to help promote this legislation,dld everything you could want thm to, and the bllls were hemby the ccmmAttees and the cdttees were very cooperatL~e in handlingthem.T can remember one principal item, Senator Horsley, on the Senate EducationCamittee, was very skeptical about the $3,000,000 being only anadvance. He saw one of two things. He was concerned lest we come backand try to convert that to a grant, or that we would set a precedent andwe would be coming In for an advance In success~ve biel+x-dums. I triedto convince Senator Horsley that he hadw word for it that this was myidea to begh wlth, not theirs, and that I was convincing him that hewould never be In the Senate long enough to see me back on that matter.He was satisfied, and voted for the bill; not only voted for it out ofcormittee, do pass, but he voted for the bill on the floor. There was alittle skepticism about that advance, but at ayr rate it did pass, andso the propam that we outlined did work: they got their early payment ofthe state apportlomnt and as soon as the Governor signed the bill Inthe middle of February, we vouchered for the $3,000,000 and 1 worked itthrough the process over Pn the State Building and within a few days theyhad their $3,000,000 and by that time they had used up their state apprtiomntand then by the time the $3,000,000 was gone those otherprovisions of the Act were taken care of.Again, there was one hitch. There was one little detail with regard tothe working cash fund that did not satisfy. Chapman & Cutler In its finalstage, and Representative Walsh had had about all he would take. Hepassed it without that little amendment, and so when the blll was finallypassed and finally signed, Chapman & Cutler decided that they would notapprove the work3i-g cash f'und until after July 1. They were able to solvethat. But in the meantime they had had, of course, months now to wowlkalong, they were able to handle their fiscal policies, and b-edfatelyafte~ July 1, created a working cash rwbd and then mved ahead to set uptheir m fiscal situation as it had been anticipated in the be@-.It was a very Interesting operation and 1 took considerable satisfactionin the success of the project, I mst say.Q. I should think you muld.A. And so did the CamunLty College Board, and, of course, the Bowd ofTrustees of CMcago and Oscar Shabat were gatefil to the Board for havin@;done it. One little thing about it; Oscar Shabat is a little bit on thevolatile side and he is a little bit quick on the uptake and he had not hadlegislative experience. I rvas afraid that in hearings on the bills, 0s ar,t

not understanding the le@slative process, might get somewhat ticked offby the questions that you get asked, whereas, I wouldnvt because I h&been through this a good many tlme. I am not of such a temperament verymuch myhow. T suggested to Oscar that he remain silent in the publichear- and let me We the gaff. It was very difficult for Wm because,you know, he sat there -- because as you know, he just Itched to talk.Q. Oh, yes, he likes to be in the thick of it.A. And when It ma a11 over he cmntsd, "I: know now, although it wasdifficult for me to agee to roemain silent and it was difficult to besilent, I can understand we would never have gotten that legislationthrough In six weeks, because I would have injected controvers~l itemsinto it." But It was a very sat2sfying operation of the State Board,and I am sure that everybody that was hvolved Mth it really felt goodabout It when It ww done.Q. Because I how pretty well by this th, Gerry, what lies in betweenthese two points in time that I am going to refer to in just a minute, Ican understand just how Gerald W. SmlLth mwed fhm Zeuing, Illinois, tothls operation which you have just described. This was quite a distance.A. Yes, that's right.Q. The following Is a continuation of ow conversation starting onSeptember 22, and it Is now September 24, 1976. Gerald, please carry on.A. In the preceding sections dealing with the six colleges whlch werereorganized f'rm Class I1 to Class I within their established boundariesat that time, I rrade a misstatement of fact whlch I wish to correct herein the record. In cmnting about the tlm span I said all of thesecolleges were reorganized so that by July 1, 1966, their ~orppizationwas effective. That is true for five of the six, but Morton had a specialproblem and the leaders there spent more t5m making a flnal decision onthe direction in wkich they preferred to go, so it was actually a yearlater in 1967 when their conversion from Class I1 to Class I was finalized.I want to move ahead now with this matter of the organizationzatlon of the colleges in the section which deals withthe 22 existing districts that were there in September, 1965, whenAct went into effect. The next block of three about which weinclude the five separate colleges which had been established under t1959 Act that lnade it possible for any campact and contiguous territoqto be established as a junior college district and to elect a board ofttrustees for that role and to be such am institution, Again, althoI think I bve identified them, since I am going to be taUdng abousemfor a little while, these colleges are Black Hawk at MoZine, Triton atRlver Grove, Rock Valley at Rockford, Willlam Rainey Harper In the

northwest Cook County area with a Palatine address, and Sauk ValleyCollege identiffed with the Dixon Sterline areas. Black Hawk Collegehad been organized by a rererendm in 1961, and it began to operate asa separate independent district serving Rock Island, Moline, and EastMollne on July 1, 1962. This college was already three years old whenthe Act of 1965 was passed and began to operate. Some of the othercolleges had been organized, as I have noted, ln 1964 and two of themin 1965. None had been in operation yet when the new State Board tookover in the fall of 1965. In that fall, Triton and Rock Valley did, infact, bean to operate, and although the dfstrlcts had been organizedunder the earller law, thelr initial operation began under the jurisdhtionof the State Board, William Rainey Harper and Sauk Valley waitedanother year to been their operations. These districts, without exception,of course, desfred to be classlfled as Class T districts, butby the very fact that they were already in existence they were as ofAugust 1, 1965, statutorlally named Class TI districts, And so wlthina couple of mnths of the tZme that the State Bod began to operate,each of these institutions was in the process of arranging for its reorganization,and as soon as the application Pomns were ready, each ofthem filed their application for reor@;anization as Class I. The minutesof the Board show that the applications had been received, had been processedby both the Illinois C m t y College Board and by the Board ofJTLgher Fducation to that on February 11, 1966, the State Board approvedall of them for reorganization as Class I districts, and that processwas camplete.It was not a very difficult operation with regard to these institutionsbecause for the most part the standards under which they had been or@-ized in the 1959 law were comparable to the standards that were set forthe orgardzation of Class I districts in the new law. They had, therefore,pretty well met the requirements. There were only two of them that theBoard ralsed imny questions about. In the case of Black Hawk, upon reviewof the inltial application and upon meeting with the officers of the district,the State Board members raised numerous questions as to whetheror not this college really was moving toward the comprehensfve programrequired in the Act. There was a feeling that perhaps this college wastending to be more interested in the libera arts programs, so, whilethere was no tangible evidence, there seemed to be some subtle inferencesthat perhaps the original president of the college, who was no longerthere, had been trying in the previous yews to create a clirrate in whichthis institution might aeek to be a four-year inst2tution rather than atwo-year comprehensive college.IQ. I gathered that there was a hangover there fop several years of ttradition, this mpiclon?A. Yes. In a few cases this was tme and it just so happened that t@einltial president who left there in the fall of 1965 appeared to beencowaghg thai kind of thinking within the Institution. The Junior,College ~oard, therefore, asked the Board of Trustees at Black HawkCollege to conslder what their position was going to be.

Gerald W. Mth 2 85I tbhk it 2s interesting to note that aa a result of that suggestion9theyad a thorough Quad-City survey in the ma of the occupational programsand cam back with convincing evidence that they really intended to mveahead $n that dlrect ion, and so they were apprwed with that one considercation In the process. And I am also happy to say that the local board'sstated ccmrRnrent turned out to be a genuine cmmitment and Black HawkCollege has developed probably as strong a comprehensLve character as anyof the other colleges yau will find Fn the United States,Q. I: can throw a little sidelf@t on this f"rom q own expe~ience. I madeIt rry bminess to becane acquahted early with Black Hawk quite caref'ully.It was either late in 1971 or early in 1972 when 1: went over them severaltimes and spent som days getting acqua3Jnted Mth faculty and deans andthe president and other people. It becam apparent that there was adef"ln1te cleavage between the old origlnal transfer program faculty andthe later group made up of the people who were brought Jn to develop thevocational progams and techrdcal propams and this kind of thing, andapparently the= was a very strong contest of wllls between these twostill go- on at that the.A. You cmld f'ind that going on more than once, The president of thiscollege at that tine or reorganization was Dr. Alban Reid. He came hereIn the fall of 1965 from a junior college background In California and hegve strong leadership,IQ, It was Al Reid wlth whm I discussed this whole story and it was faccinatingto get.A. The other college In which there was also concern that had to besatisfied wars Rock Valley College at Rockford. And, am, it was simplya clarification of the attitude of that board toward the comprehensivenessof its camunity college. The local board, through its President, CliffordErickson, who was the Mtial President of that college in the fall of l65,convinced the Board that there were no concerns, so they were so organized.The bitfa1 president of Triton College was Herb Zeitlin. We had no particularproblms with that college, He had also been recmlted by thecollege frmn California and was in that role. Willlam Ramey Harper'sPresident was Robert Lahti, who came from Great Zakes Cammunity Collegedistrict in mchigan to this role. The psident of Sauk Valley Collegewas Ed Sabol who came f'rm one of the c m t y colleges in New York tohis mction.There are two interesting sidelights wMch perhaps are related to this1whole picture that T might add here, although I am going to speak morelabout this later, By Jmuary of 1966, these five colleges were mving dverydefinitely to form a rather strong administrative structure on behalf fthe new gmdng f@ly of Class I colleges. They and their boards oftrustees were both job& 9n an effort to try f o give leadership anddirection to the whole development of the Class I area, and without exdeptionthose presidents for the next several years were among the verysignificant leaers as we In the State Comnunlty College Board worked 4 Ifhthe colleges In the field. I will speak a little bit mom specificall$

about same of the problems that had to be dealt with in the m a of statelwAde~rganlzation OF the colleges. 1 believe that Is all that really needsto be said abaut the matter of reorganizing of these colleges. 1: indicateagain that once the resolution of the State Board was adopted acceptingthem as Class T, the^ was nothing mope to do, because they already hadappropriate boar& of tmstees.The third pup of existing districts in the fall of 1965 which were thesubject of consideration for reorgu-dzation Include eleven colleges, Nineof these eleven ere absorbed lnto newly created Class I districts, Thatis to say, these rdne Institutions about which we dl1 be speaking for afew minutes chose to become Class I colleges by beb part of a newlycreated district Wch In every case had boundaries mch broader than theboundaries of their LnstLtutlons. The reason for these colleges going; thisroute were varied. In the case of some of them, the institution as anbstitutf on would not have met the standards for Class J: reorganizationwithin their exlstlng structure, In other cases, they would have met thestandard but they had not established a sepmate tax rate, and there wassuch Interest In their connau?ity for a whole new distrlct that they feltIt was just as wLse to go that direction as to be reorgaxized as a ClassI district, and there were, I: suppose, other local conslderatlons. Atany rate, there were reasons why they chose to use thisxnethod of becomingidentified as a Class I district.Q. I imaghe there was very little controversy involved in all of this?A. Not very mch. I think the only controversy that I can remember einginvolved was some carry over of the unhappiness or the concern that t ! eyhad not been absorbed as Class I without any reorganization. No, loc@llythere was no problem.particular problem?A. No. As I recall it, as these districts were organized there were noparticular problems within the mas themselves. There were some problems -a few of" them - in association with other cormnunlties as to what theyshould do. I wt11 speak to that as we talk about these districts.The period of time involved in covering the nine schools which were a@-sorbed In new created districts extended fram the fall of 1965 tntoI w ill identi@ the dates when I refer to the several colleges. Theof these colleges that moved by the process of creating a new distriCentralla Jmor College, In the case of Centralla - I think It hasbeenmntloned in an earlier sectLon - a petitlan for reorganizationnew district under the 1959 laws was already in progess in the lattestages of the Master Plan report and In the period of the passage ornew Act, and so wtth regard to that college the petition had gone toSuperhtendent of Fubl2c kstmction, the Superintendent of Publiction had made the appropriate study, and had apprwed the p~oposeddm. The proposal had been the subject of a public hearing In thearea prior to the organization of the State Board on Septerher 6,At the first meetlng of the State Board, then,minutes show that the Stqte

Gerald W. Smith 287Board received a commdcation f'rom Centralla and responded to it bypointing out to them that under the new statute, if the process of or@-zing a new dbtrict had gone beyond the hema state, Jt was alreadywtthb the provbce of the County Superintendent to call the referendum,and so the County Superbitendent in that area did call the referendum andthat district electlon was held on October 16, 1965. The proposal passedvdth a very cmrfortable mmgin of votes and the Board of Trustees waselected and organized on December 16, 1965, so that by December of 1965,we had ow firat..Class I district under the new Act.If you look at the roster of the dZstricts in the State of Illinois, youwill observe that they are numbered in a 500 Series beghming with 501and that tWa college, Centralia, now known as Kaskaskia, is District 501,The statute provided that the State Board should number the districts, andIn looklng for a nwnbering sequence It appeared to us that no county superintiendentin Illinois was using a TOO series. Publlc school districts arenmbered In each of the separate counties by the County Superintendent ofSchools, and In various of the 102 counties there are a whole variety ofschemes for nunbering but no one had used the 500 series. We thought,therefore, there would be no confusion in the nm-berfng system betweenthe public school districts and the camunity college districts. We alsodecided within a short time after the Board was organized - withln thefbst six months - that we would nwnber these colleges sequentially asthey were established. There were two dates - two key dates - set forthin the statutes. One was the establishment date, and the other was theeffective date of the district. The establfshnent date was the date theState Board either ordered a reorganization, or the day of the referendum.The effective date of my district was the day that the new board oftrustees was organized. We decided to use the establishrent date, and sothat is the sequence -- 501, 502, 503, etc .-- which is the order In whichthey were established. This was not arrived at without considerablethought nor did we have total apeement the system. Jolfet, as youknow, interested in its No. 1 status, would have appreciated It had wereserved #501 for them. Black Hawk, which had been the first sepmate districtin the State under the 1959 law, would have JfLked to have the 5Dlnumber, and so them again some people came around and said, "Now youreally could have done that better and given us a little more of a prestigiousnwnber ."Q. I am curious. What nwnber did you give to Joliet?A. Joliet is, I believe, 525. I thlnk it is 525. I'll tell you; I haveit right here. N&er 525 which means that there were 24 other districtsthat got strmctwed before their turn came, Another interesting littlepoint about this was that, you know, this moved rather rapidly, so in1966 we had sane occasion where two or more proposals were being vote@ onthe same day. Then you had the question of yow nwnberlng sequence,we simply had a mkfng plan that we set up the &ers in sequencesombady -fdsame key person In cbge of the election process there ca ledn10f home, These were always on Saturday. They would call home onSaturday evenhg when the election returns were in, and T assfgned them

Gerald W. Smith 288their rimer on the phone, (laughter) So as you see, Lf there were twogo- that day, the first one to phone irr wlth a report got numberedand the next one got the next mrmber . That was the prwess by which wearrived at those nunhers.Q. That was a tremendous public undertaking, and yet It was a very human,intlrra;te part of the experience,A. Well, Centralfa, then, was the first one, md by that process theywere organized, and their board was orwzed on December 16 and they werethen in operation. The second college to be abso~bed Fn a newly createddistrict was LaSalle-Peru-Oglesby district, now. hm as Illinois ValleyCollege. The thinlcing in the c o ~ t i ewhich s that college sewed hadbegun before all of the action was finished on pass* the laws. They werereally set and ready to go dth the feasibility study as soon after theAct was passed, so that the referendum was held on May 17, 1966, and winit passed and the organization meeting of the Bod of Trustees was heldon July 2, 1966, and that district was In business at that time.I believe that T will back up just a mute here and identify sane ofthe people 5n the school district who were qate strong Sn the organizationat Centralla wMch is the Kaskaskla District. The prime mver with whomwe worked was Dr. Eugene McClhtock who was the Superhtendent of theCent~alia High School and Junior College. There were obviously otherpeople, but sslnce they had gone through those stages prior to our entryinto the business this was the individual wLth whom we worked. He subsequentlybecame the President of the new dlstrict, leaving the high schooloperation. Prior to having came to Centralia, he had been at Moline.In the LaSalle-Perm-Oglesby program there had been a conthuous leadershipin junior colleges because they had been there a long tjlme. 1 have alreadymade reference to the early leadership of 'Frank Jenson, of course, who bythis the had already passed away. So the two individuals in the organizationstate there that we knew the best were Dr. Francis Dolan, thesupexdntendent of the high school distrLct, and Earl Trobaugh who was theDean of the LPO College and who continued as Dean of the new college afterit was established hi1 he becam President. He was not, however, thebitial president.&.He just retired recently, didn't he?A. Yes, a year and a half ago. This had been a rather sizable college interms of land area because it was a townsMp high school district thatwent out quite a wap. But they enlarged their boundaries considerabLy inthe newly established district and went over into Bureau Cowlty as far asPrinceton and went north up In LaSalle County to encompass Mendota andwent south to encompass a sizaBle portion of htnam County. There was oneelement involved in the organization of their distrlct thatdght bementioned here. The County seat of LaSalle County, vihlch fs the principalcenter of theb district, Ls Ottawa which is 16 dies east of the LaS&lle-Peru ccRnromity, and the people of Ottawa, by the fall of 1965-1966, talso seriously considering the mtter of' orgmLza3ng a district Zn 01

Gerald W. Smith 2 89land they were wrking dfligently at the business of organizing a district,This, you see, would be a temitory that would lie between the exist-LOP U&rict at Walle and the existing Jollet district to the east ofthem, and the matter of" what was to be done with Ottawa was a matter ofconsidera6le discussion and, T suppose, miid controversy as fa^ as thatpa% of It goes. As the Executtve Secretary of the State Board, Ottawawas one of the cammities that I began to vislt withln two ozl theeweeks of taking olflce, and one which I YisTted a nwnber of tms, attendingpublic meetings, wor- with citizens comnittees. And after nyfirst or second meetkg wlth them I was comrinced that a better choicefor them was to become a part of the new proposed district at LaSalle,the new proposed Illinois Valley district, for several reasons. In thefirst place, T felt that if we had two dlstrlcts with the*center only16 miles ap-, based upon the population density of that area, both ofthem would end up marginal In tern of populatfon. LLkewise, it wouldbring about a tremendous contest for Streator because Streator was 16dies south of Ottawa. The people had been attending the I190 district insizable nwnbers for qulte a long the. AgaLn, we had Interstate 80 whichwas already established there mkg across fiam the Quad Cities to theIndiana State llne picking up Moline on the west end, LSalle-Peru-Oglesby9n the middle, Jollet pretty well across, and Thornton on to the east.With that splendid transportation system it was w hope that we would notdevelope a tendency to allow too many dfstricts to be established in thatarea. And after a considerable period of" time, and by the way, Sntercstinglyenough, as a result also of considerable pressures fkmn thesmaller cormunities around them, Ottawa was convinced that they hadbetter go with the new district. And so, soon after the new IllinoisValley district was established, they began a mvenaent for the annexa+tion of that territory to that district. 1 think tMs is significant of. . .Q. w, a good illustration of the working out of the public policy.A. Yes, And I am sure that everybody there is convinced of that, now thatit has come to pass. But at the the, of course, the local pride and bekgthe county seat . . .Q. Those things are very real.A. Yes. It also leads re to another statement at tMs point which I mayrepeat occasionally. You recall that the law sald that the rrdm requirementwas 30,000 population and $75,000,000 assessed valuatlan, and thqeven had same pmvislons that under certain ~Frcumstances it could besmaller than that. Xt was our feeling in the State Board, and fortunatelyAt tmed out to Be the general thinkkg of the population of Illinois,that those mlnhms were far too low, and so we were able to discuss withpeople h a very rational wq= the Idea that a minimum population somewherein the vlchity of 100,000 was mch mre reallstlc than the statutorynrhbmnn, and people accepted that rather well. Of cmse, here and therethe= was a person who was SO enthushstic about gettSng a local distelctthat he would p~int out to you 3.n the discussion that the law says 30,'000.

Gerald W. Smith 290Then again, of course, if you had a sizable pup of people working together,and this voice for the small districts was a yery definiteminortty, the other group tended to prevatl. SO Illhis Yalley districtthen replaced the LBO which had been there since 1924.The thrlrd of the districts to move was Freeport, now known as HighlandCommnity College, There too, a group of citizens began to work, Immediatelyin the Fall of that year, and the administrative leadership of theccmmlty began to work with that and a Dr. Rachuy was the chabmn ofthe citizensmmp that worked on this proposed district. The study tookform rather rapidly. And this glves me an oppo~%unity to introduceanother person who was very helpfil to the State Board and with whom webecame acquahted In the fall of 1965, namely, Dr. Ralph Belnap, a professorof Education at Northern Illinois University. He was the professionalconsultant to the study corrnnlttee at Freeport and was one of the mastersat the art of working wlth citizen cdttees. We became so impressedwith the work of Ralph Belnap as fm as ow staff was concerned at theState Bod that we recammended him to same other cLtizens group and alsoengaged him by contract to do a study for us In the northeast comer ofthe atate - an outside and objecttve study about northeast counties.He gave fhe leadership. This pmpammed along and the Highland Comnau?~ity distrlct was establLshed by referendum on October 1, 1966, and theboWdwas organized In December. You will obeemre, now, that as I goalong that am talking about referenda In May and October, and so forthof 1966, which is a year after the State Board was organized, before thesedistricts became truly operative. This was really, in hlstorfcal terms,a rather short period of time because first of all the feasibility studieshad. to be done and the prelSmlnary discussions had to be taken underway.Then after a feasibility study was campleted and a petition was filed*om the State Board, the procedural items detailed in the Act requireda minimum of about six months *om the time a petltion arrived In ouroffice.END OF TAPE S mSIDE TWOQ. We are continuing our discussion on the historical points of thecomrraulity colleges in Illinois on September 24, 1976, Gem, the flooris yours *A. Upon receiving the petition, it was necessary for the staff of theState Board to rrake a study of the petition and for the State Board tomke a determination as to whether or not it met the standards set in theAct. The petition then had to go to the Board of Higher Education fo&their review as to whether 03: not It appeared it would be a comprehen$ivebstltution lf' created. Then had to come back and go to a public hewith time allowed for the necessmy legal notlces, W so forth.ing the public hewing there had to be a co~riplete transcriptthe Board then had to make a final judgnent.of about six months.All of this took a minirfann

Gerald W. Smith 291Q. Now there was obviously a tremendous corrmitment and determination todo all of these things in the shor%est possible time, even so.A. Yes. The fourth one of the existing colleges to become absorbed inan existing district was at Harrisburg, Illinois. The college had beenoperatin@; there under the name of Southeastern, Of course, it was apart of the Harrisburg School District. Russell Ma&, a superintendentin the school district there for many many years, had given the initialleadership to the feasibility study for an orggnization but he was atretirement stage so Joe replaced Mr. Malan and also subsequently becamethe president of the newly established Southeastern District when it wasformed.Q. I had a chance to meet him and he was a delightrul person.A. Yes. Yes, a very delightf'ul person. The referendum for this collegewas held on October 7. Just a minute. Since I started this discourse,I observed that I have made a mistake. This was not the fourth college,it was the year after that, it was October 7, 1967 when thfs district wasfinally formed. I should have caught that before I started because thisparticulaul territory was Fnvolved h some very definite problems of whichI speak later on. Hcrwever, it is one of the existing districts that was . . .Q. Would it perhaps be sirrrpler to deal wlth these problems now whileyou're . . .A. No, I think not.Q. Okay. Real good. Now you want to drop back and pick up the precedingone?A. Yes. Now 1'11 go to the next one which should have been nwnber four,and that is Mount Vernon. The people at Mount Vernon were giving seriousthaught to the organization of a district. As a matter of fact, prior tothe passage of the Act and during the period of the final months of themster Plan and the legislatfon, Centralia and Mount Vernon, each whichhad been operating local junior colleges, Centralia since 1940 and MowltVernon shce the early 1960's -- these two corranunities had gotten togetherin a study situation to dete-e whether or not it seemed feasible forthem to join in the orga,nization of a sFngle larger district. ?"ne cormmitieswere about 18 or 19 miles apart. But it tumed out that the localinterests were too great for them to agree to go together and so they haddecided to go their separate ways and Centralia had already moved as Ihave reported earlier. And Mount Vernon was about ready to go.I had. been the Executive Secmtauy f o the ~ State Board not more than aweek when I had a couple of gentlemen *om Mount Vernon caw in tooffice to talk about the development of a new c m t y college in theMount Vernon area. And they were talking about a geographic location ofRend Lake. They had a mll of &rams and blueprints and ar%istsl

concepts and so forth of a lake that was going to be built by the StudentConservation Forces, about 10 miles south of Mount Vernon. The postoffice address was Ina, a little c m t y , and they had a prospectus onit and all the great things that were go- and they were proposing thatinstead of trying to reorganize the Mount Vernon C m t y College as aClass I and just stay as they were, th& they think in terms of rovingto the south and taking in the counties to the south and the west andthe eat of them and moving out of Mount Vernon entirely, going LO milessouth on this new lake development for a site for a c m t y college.The gentlemn, by the way, who called on me were Lester Buford, who hadbeen the Superintendent of Schools in Mount Vernon for mamy years, and atremendous leader in that area of the state, and Dr. Parker of MountVernon, who subsequently was elected to the Board of Trustees when thecollege was first formed and served as its chaim for two or threeyears. Well, these people came v%ith this proposal and the Superintendentof Schools at that time was Eltis Henson .--. ,A. Yes. Eltis Henson. This proposal took shape rather rapidly and thedistrict was organized to include approximately all of Jefferson Countyand then quite a bit of the temitory to the east of Zt. It went downto Benton and below, and to the south of them and over to PincheyiEle,to the west of them and so forth. So the Rend Lake College was formed,absorbing the Mount Vernon district, the referendum being held on October22, 1966.The next existing college to move In the area of organizahg a new territorywas Belleville.Q. Hamisburg still comes . . .A. Oh yes. Much later.Q. Oh, I see. Okay.A. The Belleville people, under the leadership of Mr. Haberaecker, wereinterested Syl enlarging the area of the Belleville district and so afeasibility study was started there, again early in the fall of 1965, andagain considerable thought under the direction of Bob Birkhimer had tiakenplace prior to the passage of the Cormnwdty College Act. By the way, asit had at Centralla and as it had at Mount Vernon also. And so they,proposeda district down there including aLmost all of St. Clair Countyexcept Bst St. Louis. As a matter of fact, except any of the territorydown on the river bottom, they went only to the bluff, they did not takein East St. Louis, nor Cahokia, nor another small c m t y that was tothe south of Cahokia. So they stayed up on the bluff but they went overto the east a little ways and Collinsville which was on the boMer therebetween St. Clair County and the county to the north of them, MadisonCounty, elected to stay out of that proposed district.

Q. Was there sane particular reason why they stopped at the edge of thebluf'fYA, Yes, there was. I have to editorialize a bit on this but the primaryreason was to avoid h am East St. Louis, The Belleville corrmunity ofcourse, runs right down to the East St. Louis codty and the BellevilleHigh School district runs right up against East St. LOUIS.The people in Belleville were just not at all interested, or I can evenput it 131 stronger language than that, they were definitely opposed toany proposal which would include the East St. Louis comtau?ity In theirdistrict and fkmn several standpoints, I think I would have to surrmarizeit by saying that-$& were primarily social, econdc problems and whilesome people might say it was because Fast St. Louis was so heavily black,I would have to say that; upon mch contact with the people in Bellevilleand rrany controversies with them over it, that the black element wasreally not a basic elent. It was the political, social, econdc forcesthat were in effect at East St. Louis that made them so unwilling to takeFast St. Louis. As a mtter of fact, a sizable number of black studentsrxlom mst St. Louis attended the junior college in Bellevllle and werewelcome.Q. I had several long conversations wlth different people at Belleville,oh say three or four years ago, and there were still Indications of thisdifference, this concern and the impressions that I carne away with weredecfdely what you have been sayjYlg here, Gerry, that it was simply amatter of social and economic and educational and political concern.A. That's right. Those were the answers. Now h the actual process ofhandling the East St. Louis organization, these were not matters of greatconcern. The proposed district met the standards and so forth, exceptthat we kept Introducing this mtter. The organization of the Bellevilledistrict went along very nicely and corrected a long-standing problem inBelleville.The original Belleville College organized as part of the high school districtIn 1946, had been organized under the 1943 law which gave b o ~ sof education In districts with a population of 25,000 or above, theauthority to do it by resolution. The local press had always oppose!that. They opposed it in the beginning and for the twenty-year hist ryof that college, although the college had done a splendid job and thnewspapers acknowledged that. The editorial criticism of that InltTtilstep continued for the twenty-year perfod, and the college always livedunder sawhat of a continuous cloud of editorial crftlcism of the way inwhich it had been created.Now it just so happened that as the feasibility study was completed andas they moved toward the fomtion of the new district, the newspaper didsupport editorially the new proposed district and, of course, was wellpleased that now, after 20 years, there was to be a referendum. And I

Gerald W. Smith 29 4may say that following the organization of the district all of that criticaleditorializing disappeared f'mm the papers there.Q. What was the objection based upon, simply criticism of the procedurethat was followed?A. Yes. I'm sure that it was based upon a basic concept of the editorialstaff of the owners of the newspaper that there were two methods for organizinga district. One was by referendum, one was by resolution. And itwas their sound conviction that the board should have gone the referendumroute.A. Unusual that that kind of a hatchet would remin unburied that long.A. It did. The only other thhg that I would say is that after the districtwas organized the codty then became quite defensive, againparticularly through the newspaper, with regard to its boundaries. Inother words, there was very =a1 fear that with the boundaries they hadthey might some day find themselves taking in this territory which theyhad deliberately avoided.Q. As a matter of fact, the first day that I was in MY. Haberaeckert sofflce, he received a telephone call fkmn somebody in Sp~ingfield - I don'tknow who it was - the burden of wuch was, 'lhasnlt the time come when youshould get together with East St. Louis?"A. Yes. I don't how who it was but it could have been me.Q. I don't know who it was either.A. Or it could have been fYom the Governorts office.Q. Yes. I'm inclined to think it was the Governorts office.A. Yes. It could have been my number of places.Q. Now thPs was in about 1974, I would guess 1972?A. Joliet Junior College, the oldest of the existing public junior collegesin Illinois, was also enlarged and the existing college became a Clasp Icollege by being absorbed in the creation of a new district. Joliet tvasone of those cammities which was operating as a thirteenth and fowsteenth years. They did not have any type of sepawlate tax rate for theirjunior college. And after considerable consideration and discussion ofthe matter, it was decided that perhaps the best route for Joliet was tomove ahead to encompass a large geopaphlc area in Will County and thkswrounding countles rather than try to create a separate tax rate. Andso Joliet continued to operate as a thirteenth and fourteenth yew withfrequent discussions between Elmer Rowley, the dean of that college and nlyself,you how, as to whether they really were a Class I college or not.I have already indicated that there was some conf'usion in the language ofthe Act. I always thought of them as a Class I1 college.

At any rate, it was a year before they really got underway with the organizationof a new district. It was the fall of 1966 before they really gotunderway with the organization of a district in Joliet. But when they did,they had a strong citizenst cowttee and they organized the district thattook in all of Will County and went west f'rm Joliet, south and west, asfar as Morris. By that ththe LaSalle-Pedglesby was redistricted.Now Illinois Valley had already mved eastward to pick up Ottawa,Marseilles, and Seneca. The final decision not only included Ottawa, butcame on and got Marseilles and Seneca. As a matter of fact, Marseilleswas one of those smaller ccmnunities that put pressure on Ottawa to gotoward the LaSalle area.So they went ovey and joined the Illinois Valley district between Morrisand that area, and they went east into Will County about two-thirds ofthe way across the county. So this district was established by thismethod and the referendum was held on February 18, 1967, and the bodwas organized, Elmer Rwley was a strong mover for the college there andthe superintendents,,along the way of the Joliet township had always beenstrong supporters. Hugh Bonar in the early days had been there, and as amatter of fact, was a member of one of the c~ssions of higher education.Q. How do you spell Bom?A. B4-N-A-R. And Jim Cherry, who was the superintendent of the JolietTownship High School, had also been a strong supporter of the college.He was not there. He had moved by the time that this took place. SoElmer M&Y was really the strong person who had been the dean of thatcollege for a long time.The next of the colleges to move was Olney, down in southern Illinois.The people In Olney had, interestingly enough, organized their originalcollege 2n about 1961 as a result of an unusual circumstance. The PureOil Company in Olney owned some laboratories down there and they decidedto close out their operatfon of those laboratories and they gave theproperty to the school district with really no strings attached, exceptthat in the course of the discussion about making the gift, there wasdiscussion about starting a codty college. And so the Olney CammityCollege began operation in 1962 utilizing the facilities that they hadreceived as a gift from the Pure Oil Company. This was one of the juniorcolleges organized as a par% of a public school district that was neverlocated in one of the public school buildings. You see, almost all ofthem across the State had always been associated with a high school buildingor sanething like this. But they always --oh it was only a shorttbfrom 1962 on --but they began their location in the . * .Q. Olney is still us- these buildings that were given to it?A. Yes.

Q. This is where they have the vocational-technical programs?A. That's right. Yes. For their permanent site, they acquired landcontiguous ta the original site and built the* new physical plant besideit, but they still use the origins Pure Oil Buildings.Q. I've heard a fair arnount of wish expressed down there by membersof the faculty particularly due to the fact that this meant that thestudents in the vocational-technical area were completely isolated fkomthe rest of the student body.A. Yes, and that philosophically in the comnunZty college development ofthe last 15 years is bad. Philosophically, the idea was that you oughtto merge and f'use the two so that many physical plans were deliberatelydesigied so that acaddc classrooms and occupational shops were next toone another.Q. When was this new district organized that you're. taUdng about?A. The district was organized on September 7, 1967. Then, soon afterthat was the Southeastern district, one month later on October 7, 1967.Q. Will you deal with Southeastern?A. I've already dealt wilth it earlier. I discussed it up there earlier,but in this sequence of these nine districts that I'm talking about, thisis where I should have described them. There's nothing terribly importantabout that. A little later on, talking about some of the problems thatdeveloped on a statewide basis in the organization of distrkts, I willmake some observations about southeastern and Olney and indicate why itwas in the fall of 1967, almost two years after we went into business,before they wexe reorganized or restructured as Class I by being absmbedinto existing districts. Of course, in the first place they were so smallthey could not have possibly met the standards without being absorbed ina much larger proposal, but there are s m other factors that had a bearcing on that.The ninth of the existing districts, as we had them in 1965, to be absorbedinto a newly created district was Canton, now called Spoon River College.Canton, like Southeastern, had one very basic problem, namely, a smallpopulation.Q. Excuse me. Before we get away from Olney, are there names of individualswho should be mentioned there?A. Oh yes. kslie Pwdy, the superintendent of the Olney schools. , .

A. Yes. He was the prbe mver and leader for the organization of thatdistrict. While we are t a u about it I might also observe that, interestinglyenough, Leslie Purdy was very eager to impress the State Boardat the public hearing of the almost unanimous support for that district.So at the public hearing we had the largest audlence that had attendedany of the public hearings of same 50 I had attended while I was with theState Board. Approximately 1,000 people came to the public hearing.A. They filled the facility in which we were meeting. And the otherinteresting thing is that no one appeared in opposition to the proposeddistrict.Q. Good management !A. He was really trying to convince us.Q. Now, you were talking about Cmton?A. Yes. As I was say-, Canton, like Southeastern, and I didnl t rnentlonthis with Southeastern - had a real problem in attempt- to structure anew Class I district by any method, namly, the sparseness of population.As far as Southeastern is concerned, all the counties are small, so it wasdifficult to get enough people together to support the k3xd of enrollmentyou need for a conrprehensive program. Well, this was also true at Canton.The Fulton County area had the city of Canton in it but no other sizalecommnity. PeorZa to the east was quite close. And as they tried to movewest and southwest the^ were not too many territories that were interestedin joining wtth them and any of them that would join with them were imall.To the northwest of them, as we will show later on, the people of Gaksbuqwere already organizing a district and so they didn't have too far to gothat way. So they were able to round up a population of only about 50,000for their proposed dtstrict. And that, of course, was only about half ofwhat we felt was an adequate base on which to build a codty college.However, the other c~~~umstmces, were that to the west of them at Macoi-nb,where I thought we should have a cormunity college and which I thought wasthe logical location of the next college west of Peoria, there was no interestwhatsoever. As a mtter of fact, the attitude was quite negattve.Well, I certahly would have to say that not because of the university.The university was there and was used by some people as an excuse, but itwas a bask opposition that was there, a very conservative codty. Anm a of the state which had been just as reluctant to organize corrnmnltyunit districts when they came along.Q. An area where change doesnl t happen very fast?A. It takes a little while,

Gerald W. SmLth 29 8Q. Apparently the university had not had too much impact there . . .A. Yes. In Canton there was strong leadership in support of the juniorcollege.As I've already mentioned, the leadership in Canton for the organizationof a new area college to absorb the existing Canton College, which hadgotten started in 1959, was very strong. Dr. Taylor, and MD who had given-at leadership on a statewide basfs for education and for higher education,had served on the State Teacher1 s College board and was later toserve on the Board of C;overnom, was the prime mover. He had been a mewber of the board when the Canton Junior College was st&ed as a part ofthe high school. He ma supported by Dr. Harold Swartzbaugh, the Superintendentof School In Canton.Q. IS that W-A-R-T-Z?A. Yes. B-A-U4-H. S-W-A-R-T-Z43-A-U1:43. And Phil Osbome, who wasthe Dean of the Junior College. These people had moved and so there wasvery able and vital leadership for the organization of a junior collegedistrict in that area.There were considerable reservations, I might say, with regard to the formtionof that district by the members of the Illinois Codty CollegeBoard and to be fair to everybody, I would have to say that as ExecutiveSecretavy of the State Board, I was not greatly enthused about the proposal.I admired the leadership of the people. I aMred the job that thepeople were doing. h@ reason for belng reluctant was that I felt that thepopulation base on the college was not adequate. I saw very little prospectfor it becoming adequate. As we went along with the organization ofdistricts in those days, on a few occasions we were inclhed (that is theCormunity College Board and nlyself) to settle for a 75,000 population Inan ma where we were convinced that population growth was going to continueand that they would approach or reach or pass the rninimm of 100,000which was a sort of a figure that we had 3n mind. Here I saw little prospectfor this college developing beyond that.Another factor that concerned me was that it seemed to me that these peoplewere going to be disappointed a little later on because they were go*to suffer a severe enrollment loss. At the ththey were studying W sthey had an enrollment between 1,000 and 1,200 students. They were recruitingf'mm all over the State. Not mny of the new colleges wereoperating. Illinois Central, for example, was not operating. So thqwere drawing n-my students. And they had an excellent occupational pogram.They had somthing to attract people over there. I could see theday when that mket would close and that they would lose enrollment andit seed to me that,therefore, they would be quite disappointed.At any rate, taking everything bto account, the State Bod did decide,and I concurred with the State Board, that they should be given an

Gerald W. Smith 9opportunity to organize a district and so that proposal was approved andthe referendum was held on Wch 2, 1968. And the new district was or-@mized, absorbing the Canton College and has taken on the name of SpoonRiver.Q. But to this day, Spoon River is operating within rather narrow margins,is it not?A. Oh, yes. Yes. The experiences that we anticipated has been true.?"ne enrollment at one time went to half what it had been at the timethey were organized. Now as the result of some annexations and so forthmore recently, they have enlarged the district and it has grown; theirenrollment has picked up sm. But the base is just small and there isn'tmch choice.This covers the nine districts that I referred to which retained theiridentity In the sense of a continuing j aor college by being absorbedlnto a newly established district and thus attaining Class I status.This accounts for all but two of the 22 colleges that were in existencewhen the Cormunity College Board began Its work in the fall of 1965.One of these was Lyons Township Junior College, in connection with theWons Township High School at LaGrange, Illinoils. There a citizens1cormittee of considerable size, some 60 or more people, was establishedin 1965-1966, to take an indepth look at what that codty should do.The alternatives were to be reorganized as a Class I and they had sufficientshe to justif'y thSulking in that dtrection. Another alternative wasto move rather rapidly to try to interest enough people in their area togo along with them in the organization of a new district. The third alternativewas to annex to an existing district, or a neighboring district.It was an excellent camnittee. Everett Belote, on our staff, was thestaff consultant to them and he r& with them marry thes. After about ayear's study and deliberation these people, by, I thought, a very objectivemethod, concluded that in the long run the best course of action forthem was to annex to an existing district.Two such districts were vexy feasible. One was the Triton district,directly to the north of them, and one was the College of Wage to thewest of them. They ultimately chose to go with the College of Wage.So they moved in the College of Wage which, by the way, gave the Collegeof DuPage a built-In enrollment of 800 students the year they opened justMrn that one college alone. So that was what happened to Lyons. Thecollege itself went out of business and the cormunity mexed to the Collegeof Wage.The other one was Wabash Valley at Mount Camel. There they did attempt toorganize a new district. This interest was in the formation of a new districtbut the proposal became very controversial. The public hearing wasa very difficult one, although wlth considerable reluctance the State Board

Gerald W. Mth 306approved a referendum for them. The referendum failed by a substantialmgin. At a subsequent time the Mount C m l people proposed to annexto the Ohey district, taking with them essentially all the same temltorythat they would have had In the organization of their own separatedistrict. So the Wabash dlstrlct was the last of the existing districtsto achieve a Class I status. The annexation to the Olney district wascompleted in 1968. On July 1, 1969, by virtue of the language of thestatute, Wabash Junlor College became absorbed bto the Olney JuniorCollege by annexation, mtalnlng their campus as an operating center.Q. That explalns some of the political tension of the district down there,Q. Yes. That's right. So as of July 1, 1969, all of the business thatwas necessary with regard to those 22 districts in existence, had been completed.The last Class I1 junior college in existence was Wabash Valley,and It lost that status on June 30, 1969.Q. Oh. I'm glad to know that story. I've never gone bto that.END OF SIDE ONEQ. This is now be* transcribed on Monday morning, September 27, 1976.Gerald will continue the interesting discussion that he has been talkingabout. Gerry?A. I want to move very shortly now to the development of the state systemof junior college districts on the basts of the new areas, those terntoriesin the state which established junior college districts in whichthere had been no district prior to this the and in which none was existingas of September, 1965. But before I do that, I want to make a briefrecap wLth regard to the 22 districts aboutWMch we have been SpeakWg,which were in existence when the new Act became effective.I spoke, first of all, about the six colleges which were reorganized fromClass I1 to Class I districts within their then existing boundaries. AndI would just make the following observation about the development of thosedistricts in subsequent years. Two of the districts, Chicago and Morton,have retained their original boundaries to this day. The Public JuniorCollege Act of 1965 stipulated that in Chicago there could be neither detachmentnor annexation to that district because of the nature of thelegislation related to the Chicago situation. It simply fPoze the Chicagoboundaries in perpetuity. In the case of the Morton Junior College, thatdistrict was reorganized as we pointed out, to the Class I, but its boundarieshave never been changed, although it had been my earnest wish thatthat district would be enlarged either by the establishment of a new districtby referendum, but more especially by annexation of neighboringschool districts. However, that did not come to pass, and now that section

Gerald W. Wth 30 1of Cook County is totally stmctured and so they we, at least for allpractical purposes at the moment, frozen within the boundaries thatthey had.The other four, T!hornton, Danville, Elgin, and Bloom, subsequently enlargedtheir boundaries substantLally by annexation. I will speak to that alittle more later on. But those four dfstricts are in every case mre thandoubled in the* original size as a result of annexation.Tn the case of the nine districts which were absorbed into newly createdc-ty college distrfcts - Joliet, Wle-Peru-Oglesby, Centralla,Belleville, Mount Vernon, Canton, Southeastern, Meport, and Obey --they too have, for the most part, been enlarged by annexation as theyeaxs gone by, although they were rather large to begin with. Then Ipointed out that the Lyons Junior College district at LaGrange elected toannex itself to the College of Wage, which was one of the new districtscreated. And Wabash Valley, after an unsuccessful effort to create thebown district and be absorbed in it, annexed to the Ohy district, butunder a plan whlch allowed them to retain the operation of their campus,which had been a part of the Wabash Valley Corrnrxunity UnLt School District.And so I close this sectlon then with this observation: that of the 17existing colleges which were part of a public school district, 15 becamethe base or the core for the establishnt of the new type of districtthat was envfsfoned in the Public Junior College Act, and that the othertwo found, very suitable solutions tothehproblem after the passage of theAct. Which leads me to editorialize on the point that, although thoseexist* districts were very critical of the Maste~ Plan statement as itrelated to them, it has developed in historical perspective that each oneof these districts became a stronger comity college as a result of therecarmn3ations of the Master Plan and the Implementing legislation. Ihave never gone back to make a thorough survey, but it is rr~y observationthat the judgement made by Dr. Browne and Dr. Glenny, as they wrote theMaster Plan, have been vindicated.Q. In other word.s, what you're say-, &my, is that the basic legislation,the basic plan, has been proven nay through actual experience over anwnber of years in pat developments to have been a very sound plan.A. Yes. I think it has been a very sow plan and I think the experienceof these existin@; districts clearly show that the Master Plan, which saidthat it would provide for the continuation of the institutions withoutpenalty, is now in an historical sense, clearly proven.Q. Excellent.A. Continuing with the discussion of the organization of the state systemof conmnunlty college districts, 1'11 now turn our attention to the developmentof 18 ccffmBlnity college districts which were created between 1966 and1971 in areas not involving existing junior colleges.

Gerald W. Smith 30 2iIn the fall of 1965, as the new State Board began to function -- I'vealready made reference to the fact that at their very first meeting onSepterrber 6th, they received a petition Rmn DuPage County for the o ~mizationof a district, and I've already rnade reference to the lmge numberof cormmities across the State which were interested In the developmentof new districts in that fall, and to the amunt of time and energy thathad to be devoted to this phase of the establishrent of the new state systemwhich went on concurrently with all of that reorganization of theexisting districts. As a matter of fact, if you look at the numbers assimedto the districts (and 3s I've already indicated, we numbered themconsecutivelyas they came into existence) you all observe that, for example,#501 was Centralia which was one that went by referendum in an existingdistrict, then the new district #5O2 that wetre golng to talk about inWage County, and then the reorganization of the dlstrlcts at Moline andup in Leyden and Proviso Townships, and that Triton College took nwnbers#TO3 and 504, after which we picked up another brand new one, number 505.Well, that continues all the way throw.I guess I also need to say that in that smizlng statement I shouldhave mentioned that the five existing autonornus districts continued, ofcourse, as they had been and subsequently, in every case, were enlargedby annexation.But now, mving then, wre directly to the story of theestablishment of the 18 districts of which I . . .Q. Do you plan to run through those . . .A. Yes.Q. Item by item?A. Yes.Q. Sort of like you did before?A. Yes. I intend to cwrment on the organization of each of these districtsbecause in every case I think there are one or two items of slgniflcancefor a historical chronicle of the establishmnt of those districts.Taking the fbst of these, the College of Wage, I might point out thatthis one moved with remarkable speed, in part, I think, because of theenthusiasm of the new Board for the new statute, and by virtue of the factthat an office had not yet been established to let the Board really dis-charge the ylesponsibflity that was clearly set forth in the Act.I WnkI observed earlier that, at its meeting on September 10, five days after itwas organized, it approved the petition which clearly indicated that withoutany staff there had been no study of the petition on behalf of a statepolicy -. . .Q. Oh really?

A. ... even though the statutes prescribe specific studies that are to berrade. But in the enthusiasm of the day the Board approved that and obviouslythe ~?~~btim of Wage Comty and every other c m t y subjectedmst of those items to only cursory study anyhow.Q. I can't resist making a subjective obemration here which I make withadmiration and geme affection for the College of Wage and all thatit stands for. To this day it seems to me to retain something of thk enterpreneurial,"damn the torpedoes, fill speed ahead" tradition about it.It's very refhshing.A. And I might say that, in this particular case, they then sent it on tothe Board of Higher l%ucation, and the Board of Higher Education approvedit on September 21. And in the afternoon of that day, the Cormunity CollegeBoard held a special meeting to call the public hearing with regard to thatcormunity college district. The public hearing then was held on October8th so that the thing moved, you see, with remarkable speed.Q. Unbelievable.A. Yes. One month and two days after the Board was organized, it was holdinga public hearing for a newly established district, a process whichsubsequently usually took about three months. The public hearing on theCollege of DuPage was the first conducted by the State Board and it was conductedby Mr. I,mmer, the newly appointed legal counsel for the proposal.The public hearing was all held in an affirmative enmnment. No oneappeared in opposition. One or two people appeared to raise some questionsabout the district, but not to oppose its establishment. So theBoard subsequently acted upon it and the referendum to establish that districtwas held on December 4, 1965. The Board of Trustees for that districtwas elected and took office on February 3rd, so that the College of Wagewas underway.Q. Am there any names among the citizens that were such active supporters . . .A. No. I'm unable to do that because all of the wo~k on the feasibilitystudy In the development of the petition had already been completed bySeptmer, 1965. No member of the Board, nor was I involved in any of thatpaJlticular enterprise.Q. Knowing the Wage people, I am sure that they mst have a pretty cowplete record of this kind of thing up there.A. Yes, they do. They elected a board of unusually well-qualified peopleand they moved ahead with the development of that district, with dispqtchRodney Berg became the first Presldent of that district and is stillPresLdent there as we are making this chronhle .

Gerald W. Smtth 30 4!&-next of the districts In this category of be- created out of wholenew territory, was Parkland College in the Champ&g-Urbana area. Tbesepeople had something of a head start with regard to the development of afeasibility study. In the period of time dww the development of theMaster Plan and in a perZod when the federal govemrment was making sizableamounts of mey available for vocational education through special Acts,same of $he leadership in the Urbana-Champ&@ area (and I make a specialreference to Dr. Lowell Fisher at the University of Illinois who becamethe chafman OF their cormittee) decided to study the prospects of 0-izlnga vocational-technical school there. They employed a consultingfLm fkmn Indianapolis and did a rather sizable study on the prospects fora vo-tech school there.They had a feeling that maybe they would be able to establish a vo-tech,and with the availability of the federal M s , to provide for the majorflmdhg for their school and get a 100% of the capital fhding for theirplant through that federal source. But the campletion of the Master Planand the passage of the Junior College Act made it very clew that 111$moiswas not go- to move in the dilrection of a separate cluster of vc-techschools and were going' the camprehensive route. So they very quicklychanged their minds as to the direction to go and converted theivl feasibilitystudy from a strict vo-tech emphasis to a comprehensive emphasis.Q. Illinois can thank its lucky stars that it did not fall hto that pitthe way Ohio did. I lived with that Ohio situation and it surely was amess.A. Yes. Well so, in the fall of 1965, therefore, they submitted a feasibilitystudy and a petition for the organization of a cammunity collegedistrict. This one, then, was really the first one that ow office handledfk.m the pre-petitioning days. We worked with the citizensf group overthere prior to the completion of their feasibility study and were prettywell tuned-in to what they had in mind by the time we received the petition,which, of cowse, was to be the pattern f'rom there on. Our office becamefnvolved and actually provided consultative services as to the feasibility.Q. You flnnctioned as a formative agency rather than a purely admhistrativeone?A. Yes, as a resouzlce agency and a coordhthg agency for the develgpment,gilving judgements about the adequacy of their proposed district and thetax rate, and so forth. At any ate, we then came in on this. There aretwo or three things that I recall as being significant about the publichearing of that district. It still stands out in w mind as one of thebest organized hearings that we held with regard to the organization of newdistricts. If had really been planned.Lowell Fisher and I were ~rrdniscing a few days ago about the p l h g wedid for that public hearing, on the guidance and counsel of J%. Lemr

Gerald W. Wth 30 5who actually, as we ran in th~ough the first two or three hearings, establisheda pattern for us, a model for preparing for public hearings,so that the public hearing would do what the C m t y College Act intendedit to do, namely, damnstrate that thls was a feasible project and thata comnunity college was needed, and that it could be operated at a reasonablecost, that it had in mind a cqrehenslve program, and that thepeople in the area saw it as an important development in their area.The thkg that I recall about the Parkland district was the heavy emphasisupon the cmiculum of the proposed district, and paaYticularly theheavy emphasis upon the need for vocational programs, and the specificswith regard to those p&fcula~ programs. For example, the kea DentalSociety appeared before that publlc hearing and gave strong testimony asto the peat need f o programs ~ for the education of dental hygienists anddental assistants. And then I recall that, once the district was orgamized,there was a follow-up effort, with the result that that became one of thestrong pro@;rams in that area, or in the State, in that field.I recall the other areas of the medical conarrunity, the hospitals andclinics there, speakh-g about the great need for the para-professionalsin that field, and that was followed up in the college which was subsequent.I rertlwnber the contractors appear- before the district to pointout that the day when contractors operated with a force that was p~3n.w-Ily laborers was long past. And technicians were needed. And both longand short-term trafning programs which were appmpriate to the cormunitycollege would be a great asset to that c&ty. I recall the architecturaland engineerhg firms appearing and speaking of the need for peoplewith two-year pmgrams in drafting and in pre-engineering work, people atthe para-professional level who could function just as well as a graduateengineer, in many aspects.Well, this was the character of that public hearing. It was a delight tosit there for two hours and listen to a cmity at the public hearingpropose the kind of a district that they wanted, and to do it in such intelligentand specific terms. Now in the historical perspective, toobserve that that is exactly the climate in whlch that ccarnnunity collegedeveloped and that's the character of the comity college which one wouldfind if he would go and visit Parkland.Q. I gather that the Parkland developmnt stand out pretty much in ypurmemory, as an ideal almost?IA. In terms of the pl- with regard to curriculwn, I guess I woundhave to defend a little bft by saying that, interestingly enough, every oneof them stand out wLth sane specific characteristics.Q. Well, I mt that since the curriculum is usually such a nebulousthing and something that citizens1 poups tend to stay away h. Whatwcounts for the fact that there was this unusual interest?

Gerald W. Smith 30 6A. I think the thing that accounts for it was, first of all, they hadfor two or three years been planning a vo-tech school. So they had hadtime. And then, 1 think, probably the fact that they had professionalpeople on their codttee cornparable to Lowell Fisher who could thinkln such terms, made that kind of a contribution to It. Well, at any rate,the Parkland Corixnmity College then was voted on in Mamh of 1966.Q. Haw much of an active part did the University of Illinois people takeh these developments other than Lowell Fisher, for example?A. Oh, there were several members framthe University of Illinois facultyon that, and the official stand, of the Univessity spoken at the publichearing was strongly behind the proposed junior college district.Q. Did it support the vo-tech emphasis?A. No, it supported the ccarrprehensive college emphasis. Yes, and ofcourse you must remember that this was a period of time when the Universityof Illinois was closing out f'reskrman enrollments in the spring. It was theccanprehensive conarau?ity college which was suppoxYted by the University. Theorganizing president for the college was William Stae~kel who, again asof this discussion, is still the President of that college.Q. And a delightful fellow.A. Yes, and a very able leader of that institution.Another of this commnity colleges that completed its feasLbility study andcame under our scrutiny stlll in the fall of 1965, was the one to servethe Peoria area, which subsequently became hown as Illlnois Centrd College,I might say during the period I'm talkin$ about, few of these colleges hadthe names that I refer to now. Frequently we christened them fYom theBoard office for some identification purpose, if they hadnft themselves.And we might even use the -- since most of them axe multiple county -- wemL&t refer to them by the cluster of cmffes that they served or soforth. But each of them, in turn, selected a popular name.Q. But the local cormunity chose its own name?A. Yes, that's rlght. The legal name of the district is the number andthe counties that it Includes. The popular name was the one chosen by thedistrict. It has no legal sigrificance.Q. I see.A. The citizensf corrnnlttee frm the Peoria area had been at work duringthe s mr of 1965 and eaxly in the fall of 1965, It appeared before theState Ccmmmity College Board to discuss the feasibility study which theyhad in progress, and certain characteristics of the petTtloning processfor thelr district.

Gerald W. Smith 30 7Their feasibility study again had had some interesting features, WhereasParkland in the InitLal process for its YO-tech school had turned to someprofessional consultants Ln Indimpolls and had paid a considerable sumfor an excellent study, in the Peoria-Tamwell-Woodfoxd County wea theyelected to b r a together citizens of unusual qualifications to work Inthis area, professional, civic, and industrial and business leaders towork on their feaslbllfty study.Robert Jamison, a business m in Peoria and a fellow gaduate of KnoxCollege, as fayl as I'm concerned, was the chaiMnan of the steering c dttee.. .Q. Oh, the good old class of 19282'A. No, he's a younger man than I am but I: had known him when I was incollege and then he, In his early days, was a school administrator, andthen at one time superintendent of schools at Vma, Illinols, He thenleft the school buslness for a bushess career. And, by the way, he hasgiven great 1eadershLp Fn mrmr3rous ways to Illinois education, being currentlya member of the State Board of Education. Bob chaired the cdttee andthey had on their camittee, people with expertise in every area that had tobe studied; historical bac-und for the three-county area, expertise infinance, they had brought people f'rom the school system and from BradleyUniversity for curriculum expertise, the people at Caterpillar TractorCompany who were 3n the business of finding sites for the Caterpiller TractorCompany chaired their site corrsnittee, and so forth. And so it was afeasibility study that was done very professionally with this group ofcitizens. So far as I was concerned, it turned out for me to sort of seta model, om which I f'requently recmnded to other c-tles when theywere asking about ways to do it. I thought that the use of a very somdway h which to study the proposal for a carrnau?ity college district, andcertainly an excellent way to lay the gmundmrk for interest in the proposedproject.Q. I have to make an observation here. I'm just constantly amazed at theway your ideas and your evaluations and your inpressions and mine, whichwere formdated mch later, seem to coincide. For me, Illinois Central iscertainly one of the very top institutions - c-ity colleges - in theState of Illinois in temns of the w a it ~ implamnts the idea underlyingthe c d t y college for the benefit of its local c m t y .A. I think there are two things that you caild put into that that couldbe emphasized. It emphasizes the concept of ccmmity. It also emphasizesthe concept of conqprehenslve.Q. Iifght. Very., much so.A. And balance, But I'm got@ to talk about curriculum a little later on.One matter with regard to the establishment of the district cam to the

attention of the State BoaYd and to me and led to one of the early decisionswith regard to interpretation of the Codty College Act. TheCOrmaLnity College Act provided that any conpact and contiguous territorycould be iomned hto a camrmrrity college district or a junio~ collegedistrict pmvlded, of course, itmet the requisites of population andassessed valuation and so forth. But in the case of the Illinois Centralastrict, In try* to describe their boundar3.e~ they had decided to expeditethat business of describhg the boundaries and to simplify thedescrlptlon. Hem I need to point out that in the petitions for all ofthese jdor college districts, which in every case you know turned outto be multiple county districts, the legal descriptions of the districtswere almost, without exception, terrlbly complex, terribly involved, andvery lengthy. It was an arduous and tedious job to descrlbe the boundaries.If you go back and look at a11 the petitions that were filed youdl1 fhd that, typically, the description of the legal bcnmdaries ofthese proposed districts takes anywhere fkwn six to 15 pages of legallength, single spaced typing.Q. Itls a good way to make work for lawyers.A. Yes, it is. So the Illinois Central district, because they had twoor three places on the perimter of their district that were extremelydifficult to describe, had elected to draw a straight line f'rm one polntto another. This raised the question in the minds of the Board and nprselfwith regard to the legality of that procedure. For this reason the PublicJunior College Act had provided, you know, that any school district, orany territory not in a junior college distrlct, was to levy a tax for thepayment of their share of the local cost for their people to go to ac m t y college. This meant that if a portion of a school district wasin a junlor college district and a portion of it out of a junior collegedistrict, that portion that lay outside of the junior college districtwould only pay the so-called chargeback, or the special tax. That portionof the school district that was being included Ln the jun2or college district,would be subject to two taxes: the tax for the new college districtand Its shm of thenon-junior college tax because under the language ofthe law, the tax was spread over an entire district.Bob Jamison and the members of his camnittee and their legal counselargued that there was nothing in the Act that made any reference to schooldistricts, therefore, they could totally disregard school distrlct boundaries.We said, on our end, that we didn't know and therefore, we felt thatbefore we proceded wPth the implementation of their petition, that weshould have that subject cleared up. So, In the fall of 1965, we made ourfirst appeal to the Attorney General for an interpretation of the new Act.And I might say that in the end the Attorney General agreed with theirpoint of view and, bterestlngly enough, was In the Attorney General'sopkion, was able to cite nurnerous court cases in which a sMlar, almostidentical question, had been raised. So they held that this was true, andfhn there on the literal language of the law about my llcompact and contiguousterrltoryl' was adhered to.

Gerald W.Wth309There were two quotations in that attorney's opinion, f~om court; casesthat I think are Interesting enough to include In tus chronicle, thakhave always stayed with me. One had to do with this matter of a StateBoard, like ours, maklng a judgemnt as to whether or not those taxeswere equitable or not, me language of sore court; decision along the 1way - I: don't remem6er which one they quoted -- pointed out that If youallowed state ad.mMstrative bodies to rrake judgements of that kind, Itwould probably be impossible to ever implement any law, They saLd thatif we had to have equity in taxes, taxation would be bpossible. Ithought this was an interesting piece out of a court case.Another quotation that they had with regard to the double taxation: theysaid, that double taxation may be inequitable, but it's not illegal. Ithink it was an interesting thing and so this was one of the bterpretaelmsof the law that we recelved from the Attorney &neralls opbion,which was the guide f"rm there on.Q. This must have simplified your work for you considerably.A. Yes, it did sirrrpllSy our work very mch. I would point out one otherthing, thorn. T made reference to the lengthiness and the camplexityof these legal descriptions, This did became an arduous task in theoffice of the State Board, the review of these legal descriptions-as anratter of fact, it was so difficult that we contracted with twa or threedifferent individuals f'rm the State Department of Revenue, who hadpeople who were experts at do- this, and in whose office, you know,the legal boundaries are drawn on the maps for all legal municipalitiesin the state. We employed those people on a separate basis to revieweach of these as a part of ow process of studying a proposed district.And I might also say that I then developed a plan of asking that eachproposal be submitted to us, or that the petttlon for each proposal besubmitted to us, so that we could revlew that and hopefilly remove errors,because we discovered that, ff we didn't do that, mre than 50% of thepetitions that cam to us were faulty, in terms of description. And, ofcourse, some of them were still faulty after we reviewed them. It was anarduous task and we spent many hours at it. Well, at any rate, that decisionwas made.The Illinois Central proposal, encompassing the wealthy and populous amasof Peoria, Woodford, and Tazewell Counties, left no doubt as to its potentialstrength and feasibility. It went to a referendm on April 21, 1966,the approximate six months after the riling petition which became prettymch the pattern as we went along.I think 1'11 go back, at this point, and carronent on the target area of theParkland district. I did not mention the area whlch was encompassed Tnthat district. The initial district at Parkland included practically allof Champaign, Douglas, Pfatt , and Ford Counties, and very small portionsof one or two others.

Gerald W. Smith 310The College of Wage was essentially a Wage CowlCy proposal althoughone or two portions of DuPage County were deleted Porn the district. 1For example, OtHaras Airport Is in Wage County but has been incorpoqtedin the Clty of Chicago. So, therefore, OtHare AirporZ; is a part ofthe Chlca@;o Clty Colleges and, therefore, could not be included becauseboundaries were not supposed to overlap.Another district, and the next one in the numbered sequence, was in theAurora area, involving Kane, Kendall, p&s of DeKalb and LaSalle Counties.The proposed district there was again under the leadership of a localcitizenst cdttee. The County Superintendent of Schools gave strongleadership to the proposed district there. And Ralph Belnap, the professorat Northern Tllinois University to whom I referred earlier, served. asthe professional consultant to the feasibility study and the organizationof that district.Q. You haven't mentioned the name of the college that was decided upon.A. The name of the college that was establlshed there is Waubonsee.They chose an Indian name after the college was established.One interest- development in the public hearing of this cormrau?itycollege is worthy of note. For the most part, the development of thefeasibility study and process through referendum was rather routine withthis district. But there was one interesting area in the south centralpart of Kendall County, which had been included in the proposed district.The people living In that wea were not interested in being included inthis district but intended some day to became a pwt of the Joliet dlstrictwhich would be the neighboring distrPct if and when the largerdistrict should be established there. I thought a rather interestingthin@; here was that they were very positive about their position. Theycalled on me at the office in Springfield to state their position. Theywrote a letter to the Illinois Codty College Board stating their positionand at the public heauing they appeared at the public hearing not asopponents to the proposed district. They made it very clew that theywere not opposing the proposed district. They had no intention~of oaganizingany kind of opposition to the referendum. They came to put into therecozld. at the public hearing that, if this district was organized, withthem a part of lit, they would at the earliest possible date seek to detachflwm that district and to mex to the Joliet District at such tWe as theboundaries became contiguous so that under the law, It was legally possibleto do that. The proponents of the Waubonsee district accepted thatstatement and agreed to support that action as a part of the record in thepublic hearing; and at a subsequent date when it was possible, that smallterritory did-& fact annex to.Q. I don't imagine that happened agab, did it?A. I do not recall that specifically in there but then-many-- everyof them had its own touch.one

Gerald W, Smith. -The referendum for this distrlct was held on July 9, 1966, and the Bo@rdwas organized on August 22nd. The initial organizing president for thenewly established juniorp college district was Dr. James Nelson, who wpsone of the younger men to serve as president of a caimmlty college. ' Hesubsequently mved fiam there to Michlgan State University where he isin the Department of HLgher Education and is well?hown as one of theleaders nationally in the junior college mvement.Q. I keep hoping that a Sangamon State or a Governors State might bringsomebody like Jlm Nelson back into the State in that capacity.Now, is this a good place to stop?A. Yes, this is a good place to stop.Q. Thls discussion on September 29, 1976, will continue picking up thethreads from our last session.A. Thidchg back upon the discussion that I've had thus fw with rnmto the organization of the new districts in Illinois not involving anyexisting junior college districts, I have been attempting as a re&-pattern to identie the organizing president of each new district and Ibelieve that in discussing Illinois Central College I did identin thechalmoan of the steering cdttee and I talked at considerable lengthabout the pollcy or legal matter that we dealt with, I believe that Ioverlooked desigmthg Dr. Kenneth Edwards as the organizing P~sidentof that college.Q. I believe you" right, Gemy, and I find that very difficult tobelieve because both of us think so very highly of Kenneth.A. It's hard to believe because Kenneth Edwards in the late 1940% becamethe Dean of the junior college at Belleville and floomthat time on cmtinouslyhas been one of the mst acttve leaders in the State of Illinois.Everything that happened through.out the 1950 ' s and the 1960 ' s in thejunior college movent involved KenEdwards as one of the prime moveuls,one of the prime thinkers, and one of the leaders. As we all how, k dida magnificent job in developing the Illinois Central College whose cqusended up at East Peoria.Q. He's a p at h mbeing and a great educator.A. Yes. The next college to which I ~sant to speak is the one which wasorganized in the IUttoon-Charleston area of Illinois, encampassing thecounties of Coles, Clark, Cwnberland and other neighbor- areas, andsubsequently adopting the narne of Lake Land, two words for its district.This area, under the leadership of Mr. Clem Phipps, a businessman withstores in both Mattoon and Charleston, and Mr. Virgil Judge, the superintendentof schools in Mattoon.

Clem Mpps had a rather long-ttme hterest in education at the Statelevel. He had been the president of the Illlnois Citizens1 EducationCouncil, and he was the president of that Council at the tinae the si -ficant conference to which I had referred to at an earlier time had eenheld at the University of Illlnois. Thus, as the Master Plan moved Palong and as the enabling legislation was in grocess, Clem Phipps wasnot letting any pass grow under thefr feet in that area. The studieshad been well underway, and they came in then during the first yeax ofthe State Boardfs existence with a feasfbility study and with a pmposalfor the establishrent of the codty college in that area. The leadershipthere was superb, Clem Phipps and VTrgil Judge swmunded themselveswith very able citizensf groups fYm all the communities Fn that area,and they very careflnlly avoided getting caught in the trap of overlappingproposals about which I am going to speak later on as a problem to thesouth of them. Whereas mny of the districts that were trying to getunderway south of them were postponed for more than a year, because ofa problem of overlapping boundaries in their proposals. These peopleavoided that and it was possible to m e ahead with the* district. So,this district was organized and was established at a referendum held inSeptenber of 1966. Subsequently Vbgil Judge became the organizingpresident of that district where he did a splendid job, a position willchhe continued to hold until he retired.Q. Incidently, the very first time that I ever saw you, Gemy, and everheard you speak was at one of the dedication ceremonies of their new campus buildings. This mst have been in about 1971. Is that about rlght?You were the featured speaker there.A. Yes, I would think that maybe it was a little earlier than that becauseI left the State Board Fn 1970 and I thhk I did that before Iretired but I1m not certafn. At my rate, I do recall that very beautifulafternoon when they had an outdoor dedlcatton for that area. I might justparenthetically insert here that Mr. Judge was for mny years an excellenteducational leader in this State, before enter- the junior college =em.He had had strong influence in southeastern Illinois on the developmentof the corrmunity unit districts. He was an innovating sort of a fellow,down in Edwards County, a very small county to the south of the Phttaonarea; he had been a County Superintendent of Schools and under the c ~ m -ity unit district movement he had given leadership to put that whole countyin one district, and then subsequently developed the plan which may havehad sane legal complications to it, but which made some sense in thaft theCounty Superintendent of Schools no longer had a real separate hction.So, he became the superintendent of the newinstead of having a county superintendent doinghad a county superintendent running the diistrict. As I say, therehave been some legal complications in it, but Itledership. This was a characteristic of Mr. Judge in the days whe Iwas the Executive Director for the administrators and needed sornebd toappem before a legislative consnittee who had that kind of touch withpeople of the General Assembly.1 mquently called on Mr. Judge beca~ sehe had just that touch. He was a very interesting person, and he was theorganizhg president.

Gerald W. Smith 31 3In the Galesburg area, the Galesburg-Momuth area, early interest hqdalso been evident in the establishment of a junior college district. Therea man by the name of John Lewis, who lived in Abingdon, Illinois, ten milessouth of Galesburg, was influential In bringing together again a verysplendid citizensf goup representing the agricultural area, represerrtbgthe Industrial weas and representing the two liberal arts colleges,bnmouth and Knox, in that region. Togetht;r/,tMs group did a feasibilitystudy and in 1966 came up with a proposed distrfct which the StateBoard considered favombly. cmnt so far as this district was concerned,in its initial design it fell shor% of ow target population of100,000. It was like 75,000, between 75,000 and 80,000 population, but inconsiderhg the proposal the State Board was convinced that the potentialfor the expansion of that district well beyond the 100,000 rmrk was sufficientthat it justified approving the proposal which was well developedand for which there seemed to be so mch support. So the State Board didapprove this proposal and it went to vote on September 24, 1966, the sameday as the Lake Land proposition was voted on. The proposal did carry andthe district was established. I might add that Lake Land which I m dfirst was District No. 517 in our nwnbering series, and C-1 Sandburg wasNo. 518 and that's just the difference in the time it took them thatSaturday nl&t to phone me of the success of th&t proposal. They wereboth established the same day. Subsequently, after the organization of thedistrict the trustees selected m. Eltis Hensen, who at that time was theSuperintendent of the Mt. Vernon High School and Junior College dist~ictwhich, as you know, was later reorganized into Rend Lake. Mr. Hensenelected to accept the invitation to Carl Sandburg where he went, a positionwhich he has continued to hold, and as I recite this today he hasannounced his planned retirement for July 1 of next ye=, and I am meetingat Galesburg tonight with a new citizensf group who have been appointedby the Board as a screening cdttee for his successor. Th2s dTstricthas had sane interesting developmnts, both in tern of an attempt bysome people to almost destroy the district.Q. This is still Carl Sandburg?A. This is still Carl Sandburg; and then subsequently has enjoyed thethrill of an enormous expansion by annexation, both subjects that I wllltreat at a later point. Just now I am goin@; to continue the recitationof the organization of the state system of distrlcts and then later on Iwill address myself to certain problems and issues that had statewide inplications.Q. At some point, and this is slmply a question not a suggestfon, is theremre that should be said put into record about John Lewis's subsequentcareer? b@ impression is that he's continued to be very active.A. Yes, I t hW In response to your question, that is very well said.Yes, John Lewis is an enterprising businessman who has really had twoMnds of a business career which are not pertinent to this point, butboth of them very Interesting, and he has continued to be one of the

strong lay leaders in education in Illinois and particularly in theccawnunity college movement. He has been most active with the StateTrustees Association and with the earlier association of junior collqgesabout which I have spoken. John ranks among the top continuing leadersfor more than a decade now.The next one of these districts created out of whole cloth was at Kankakee.This district initially centered prfmrily upon Kankakee County as a targetdate with a little focus on a piece of Will County to the north andon Livingston County to the west and Iroquois County to the south butthe real traget of the district was the Kanlcakee County itself. Theprim mover in this community was a man by the name of MY. Ralph Franciswho was a businessmn in Kankakee. In this case I'mlght point out thatthe original idea and the original conmotLon within the cormau?ity startedreally with Mr. Francis hlmself. He was a qulet sort of a man, as I say,an interesting civic leader who never projected a very strong publlcimage in the c m t y . He was the kind of a man who worked quietly, whocaused things to happen and was very much interested in them. He hadthis idea, he solicited fkmn the cmss section of the comity a leadershipgroup; they enrployed a consulting firm in Chicago to do a feasibilitystudy for them and by the time our office, the Illinois JuniorCollege Board and rryself, got into thls they already had their feasibilitystudy completed. My fZrst contact wlth this project was to be invitedto Kankakee one afternoon, to sit and listen to a two and one-half hourpresentation of the feasibility study by the consulting firm to thecitizenst cdttee.They moved then from that feasibility study to a petition for the organizationof a district. I might say that nly initial reaction was that thewhole proposal had been brought to this level without enough public discussion,and I was concerned as to whether that thing had really developedor not, but Mr. Francis insisted that the situation was well in hand andit turned out that he mew exactly what he was doing. These people Chenduring the yeax 1966 proceeded to file their petition. The State Boardapproved it and the referendum or the public hewing was held and wag avery favorable one and the matter was brought to a vote in a referendumon October 8, 1966. Again this one was successful. Upon completion ofthe organization of the district and the election of the Board of Trustees,Mr. Robert Zimner *om Maryland, a man with comnunity college experiencein earlier years in Chicago and then out on the east coast, came to bethe president, the organizing president of that college. I might sayunder his leadership this college opened with some distinction as beoneof the few colleges in the state whose program was designed and whosestaff was hired and subsequently whose campus was designed to operateprincipally won the programed planned leamhg and audio-visual emphasis,as a whole delivery system. He engineered that and its one of thefew institutions at the junior college level around the country whoseprogram and operatfon was conceived in that fYamework to begin with andeverythhg built to serve that.

Gerald W.Smith315Q. This is perhaps a slight digression fmn your main thread but werethere any attempts at making systematic evaluations of the effectivenessof the experbnt?A. Yes, I think there has been and I may talk to that a little laterunder the cmiculum.Q. Very good, I thbk that that would be Snportant.A. At this point now, we come to the end of the 1966 calendar year.Remembering now that the C-ty College B o d had been in existencesome sixteen months and that the whole Act had been operative some sixteenmonths, you will observe that I am now talking about codtycollege district No. 520. It's probably not high enough because we hadreorganized some others along the way, but in addition to havlng madetremendous forward thrust on the reorganization of the existing dlstrictssixteen months after the Act passed, there had been added to the statepattern of dlstricts seven completely new codty college districtscreated out of area that had no consnunlty college district at all. Againit leads us back to the fact that the reaction or response to the Actreally can be talked about as being one of explosive daensions, withoutthat be- really too drastic rheto~ic.Q. I was over in Ohio at that tk, at the University of Toledo. Ireferred to this before, and the Un2versity of Toledo had as one of itsconstituent colleges a ccarnrau?ity and technical college with its own dean;this was Newton Rochte, whom you said you hew and I used to get reverberationsof what was going on in Illinois through my conversations withDean Rochte.A. Yes. Well, as you look back now over this list that I have just discussed,the College of Wage, Parkland, Illfnois Central, Waubonsee,Lake Land, Carl Sandburg, and ICankakee, you will see that with the exceptionof the Lake Land Cormunity College these districts were all fromcentral Illfnols north in the state and that the southern end of thestate does not appear to have been mentioned very much yet with regardto the organization of new districts down in that paYlt of the state. Iwant to make it very clear at this point that it was not for a lack ofactivity. The activity in southern Illinois was as rapid and as hecticas it was in any other part of the state. It was probably more hecticdown there than anywhere else and that resulted in a slowdown of about ayear? in proceeding with the organization of districts; again I am goingto speak to that in a little more detail a little later on.kt me now consider or continue my recitation and moving now to the sevendistricts that came into existence in 1967.Q. Did these seven tend to be fn the southern pax% of the State?

A. No, these tend to be scattered.Q. At some point, 1 think it would be very usef'ul if you could say a fewwords at least about why the competition of the development was so muchmore hectlc.A. Yes, I w ill do that, but maybe Since we st&ed thls line of gettingthe whole pattern of districts into the chronicle ...Q. I just donlt want you to forget.A. I won1 t forget (laughs) and I well, I hope I have already made enoughreference to it to sort of lay som pound work.Q. Yes, you have.A. In 1967 the first district that I have on list - and I am discussingthem in the order in which they went to referendum, not necessmilyin the order in which the petitions were filed because it took varyinglengths of th to handle the petitfons based upon problems they mighthave. So these are the order in which they were created by referendum.In 1967, in January, as a matter of fact, January 14, 1967, the peoplein the DeKalb County area voted on a proposed junior college district,and the proposition caurled. This district which later adopted the nameKishwaukee is the district to which I refer. This district, of course,which was develophg right in the center of the Northern Illinols Universitycampus ms an interesting developmnt. Leadership out of NorthernIllinois University was very active and very positive. Ralph Belnap, towhom I have already referred, on the staff was one of the people who workedwith the citizensf conanittees there in it; and Leslie Holmes, Dr. LeslieHolmes, the President of NoAhern Illinois University, was an active andenthusiastic supporter of the proposal. As a matter of fact, on thenight of the public hearing under his leadership or as his guest, thestaff of the Illinois Junior College B&, the junior college Board membersand the citizenst c&ttee were entertained at dinner prior to thehearing, and kslle Holmes appeared at the public hear- strongly insupport of the proposed district.Q. I gather that that strong support has not always been there, nor hasit been universally present at Northern through the years.A. I dontt know. It was very strong to begin with and as far as I howthe college has enjoyed a splendid relationship.Q. It has in many ways, at the same time there have been lots of tensionsapparently .A. Well, I suppose there would be from thto time. One of the thingsthat I remember at the publlc hearing with regard to the Kishwaukee

Gerald W. Smith 317proposal - just an interesting little touch - and at most public hem--, unless there was a controversy, they tended to be routine andsometimes almost dull. There was always apt to appear some individualwho had something to say to the proposal that was very interesting.Going back to the Carl Sandburg situation, an upholsterer from Momouth,a black man, an ader citizen, came in in support of the college fkomits vocational vantage point with one of the most human little stories;and it just made the evening there. At Ushwaukee, a turkey fmer wholived in the south part of this proposed district and who had some fouror five children in school, and a wealthy man one who was going to be abig farm taxpayer on this district appeared in suppo& of it and had oneof the most interesting cmnts to make. He said that they had justgotten their report cards f'mm the high school for two of hls daughters,and as he reviewed the pades he already observed that it was probablynot wise to seek admission to the University of Illinois. So he waslooking for an open-door type of institution (laughter) for his daughter.Q. Before I forget, what was the date of the referendum?A. Jammy 14, 1967. The organizing president who was chosen for thatdistrict was Dr. Lamar Fly who came to Ill~is £kom a junior college atHillsboro, Texas and has continued as of this writing to be the Presidentof Kishwaukee College.Q. There are a nwnber of men by the name, or there were a number of menwith the name "Fly" very active in higher education in Texas particulmlyin the camunity college field, not only Lamar Fly, I heard of him whenI was down there, but others as well.A. It's a rather interesting touch. In 1967 the next college to be establishedwas in southern Cook County, in the Palos Heights, Evergreen Park -Blue Islm area. fFrst contact with the people in thLs area withre- to the organization of a district came about by a phone call f'romMr. Theodore Ix>wnik, Ted as he was known, to cone up to that area andasit with a smalLgroup of people concerning a proposal they had inmind. In order to meet rather tight schedule at that particular tlme,they arranged to have lunch with me in the Athletic Club downtown inChicago so that I could fly in and out on a camrrnnter airline. At thatluncheon with Ted hwnik and a couple of other men and a woman from anewspaper in Palos Heights, we talked about the* proposal. They had alreadybuilt up tremendous enthusiasn for an idea they had to put EvergreenPark, Oaklawn and the ReairlsHigh School area -- they wee talk% aboutthe three Mgh school districts, Everpen Park, Oak Lawn and the Reairlshigh school district just to the north of Oak Lawn. As I listened tothem and as we visited I sensed that there was here tremendous leadershipand great enthusiasm but concern as I listened to their proposal wasthat it was not an adequate area, an adequate population or an adequatefinancial base fop a junior college district in Cook County. Had we been~utside the m a they were well above our traget figwe of 100,000 and

Gerald W. Smith 318so forth, but we were t a u about the metropolitan wea and I couldMgine as I listened to them that day that we might come up under theirproposal for the district that would turn out subsequently to be toosmall, paY*ticularly in elations ship to the districts that would smundit, So I voiced ngr concern in that direction. As we were ready to leave,Ted Lmnik said to me, "1 sort of sense that you're not terribly enthusedabout this proposal, are you?" And I said, "1 am very enthused aboutyour bterest and the drive that you have but I mst tell you franklythat I think it would be unwise to organize a district with just thosethree high school districts in this area, when there is much so muchbetter potential for it." Very soon after that they thought about theadvice and counsel and did elect to enlarge the area, and they did. Theywent to the Blue Island cormunity, they went into another high schooldistrict in that area and just about doubled the size of the* proposaland from that pobt on it moved along very smoothly, and they were in aposition to bring their proposal to a referendum on February 18, 1967.I think that you must note that while I am talking about the collegesestablished in 1967, all the ground work for this had been done in 1966because this would have been early. It would have been at least six monthsbefore this time they would have filed their petition. The dlstrict organizedln the area subsequently by contest selected as a name, MoraineValley drawing upon the fact that that area of the state- is a part, of theValparaiso Moraine fhm the glacial period and they adopted that name.The organizing msident of that college was Dr. Robert Twner, known byeverybody as Bob. He came and was the organizing president, and continuedFn that position until he died suddenly of a heart attack. Ted m kto whm I referred who subsequently became a member of the first Board ofTrustees of that college also experienced death by a heart attack and ineach case these men have buildings now that are named in their memory.Q. Well, Turner was extremely well liked by his people up there, Inoticed; there was an intensively dynamic sort of person.A. Yes, he was another dynamic and innovative person Fn the days subsequentto 1970 when I was teaching courses on the cormunity college I f'requentlytook classes there to observe his open structure and his crossroadsstructure, and that type of thing. I1lltalk about that underdelivery systems.The next district to which I want to draw attention is the one establishedIn the Springfield area, encompassing parts of Sangamon, Menard, Cass, andMacoupin counties and some other areas around It, but originally centeredIn that area. The discussions with regard to a proposed district inSpringfield were initiated in the fall of 1965, as I recall it was eitherin Noveniber or Decenber, and soon af'ter the Board was in business. Theinitial meet- with regard to this district were called by Scotty Minton,the County Superintendent of Sangamon County, in concert with the countysuperintendents of the neighboring districts, and it was attended by yepresentatives of about twenty-f ive school district s jn these areas.

Gerald W. Smith 319I would poht out to you that the Mtial thrust was generated from withinthe school districts themselves, not by a person like Ted Lownik atMoraine Valley where you had a citizen doing it, or lW. &ancis at KEn?kakeewhere you had a citizen do it. H~E it was generated Pam within the hfghschool districts and the Boards of Education and their administratorswere the prime movers that got the discussion underway. They did not reminthe active members of the cosranittees. Subsequently citizenst groupswere put together later.Q. And the discussion began in the fall of 1965?A. Yes, in the Supervisorls meeting room at the County Courthouse.Q, You must have been there?A. I was there, I was Executive Secretary of the State Board, and 1 wasthere. The hitla1 discussion on this Lincoln Land district focusedfirst of all on the interest of the people. This was the first time theyhad gotten together and, as I recall, I was asked to make a presentattonwith regard to the Cormunity College Act, how it worked, It was just anopen discussion as to whether or not they ought to go into a project todo a feasibility study. There was a rather Fnteresting turn on this one.There had been in Springfield for some little time a citizens1 codtteethat had been workkg diligently for the establishrent of a senior collegein this city. Mr. George Hofflnan, a lawyer in Springfield and a strongcivic leader, was the chabmm of that committee and he had his whole he&and soul in that. He appeared at this meeting and expressed his concernthat any movement to establish a junior college district here might tendto draw away fkmn interest in the senior college; might tend to weakentheir case for a senior college, and he mde it very clear that he wouldbe opposed to anything which he saw as a block to this proposed move.Q. A sizeable element here in Springfield had had the dream for m pyems of getting a state university.A. And so this element was brought up in the discussion. Now, anotheritem was the fact that there was a private junior college operated by anorder of nuns that had been in Springfield at that time more than, I think,about for*ty years, more than thirty yeam. The college had an excellentreputation, had a good image in the corimnmity, had been the recipient ofa considerable munt of support, not only attendance but financial suppolrtin the c m t y , so there was concern expressed as to what threat a pr*posed new junio~ college might be to that college. The results of theseelements . ..Q. Excuse me Gerry, do you want to put the name of that college into therecord?A. Yes, this was Springfield JLUXIOF College, subsequently and cw?rent;ly

Gerald W. Smith 320known as Springfield College in Illinois. But in those days It was ownby that other name. As a result of the various elements that were putinto the discussion, the,g;roup decided at the close of their meetingthat afternoon to recess for a month and to cane back a month later aondpick up the tweads of the discussion of that day and to invite thePresident of the Springfield Junior College and representatives of theirlay board to meet with them and to express their views. This is exactlywhat they did.At the second meeting again held in the cowhouse in the Board of Su~rvisor'smeet- roam, the same group of people assembled and the peoplef'rom the Springfield Junior College were invited to, make a presentation.Both the President of the college and the chairman of their Lay boardaddressed the ~ oup and the general trend or the general thrust of theirpresentation was as follows, It was their expression that the pupshould proceed with the feasibility study and that the matter of establish-a public c m t y college in this area should be undertaken withoutconcern for the impact upon their particular college, theb privatecollege. Their statements followed this vein; that their church ormizededucation institutions a11 over the country, that they were always openewones and closing old ones, and that it was not a matter of prSmauyinterest whether they existed or didnlt exist. The primary interest oughtto be whether or not there was a need for this kind of institution envisionedhere and they said we intend to run a college here as long aswe can but if the time ever comes that we canlt do it, it's nothing thatis a great disaster. So they encouraged the people to proceed with theirstudy, from that statesman like position.Q. I would hazard to guess, if somebody asked me, that they could easilyhave stopped the development of the junior college if they had wanted to,for a time.A. Yes, I think they could have delayed the establishment of a distracthere almost indefinitely if they had wanted to, because they did have agood image b this comnunity. The position of Mr. Hoffham was still @esame and he continued to argue that he thowt there was even a peatchance that there would be enough negative thimkbg in the Springfieldschool district generated by his group who were not very excited about tryingto get a c m t y college here because they saw it as a threat to theproposed four-year district; and because he thought the supporters of theprivate college might see it as a threat and be inclined to vote negatively.He again was very doubtf'ul about the advis&bility of Springfield being ina c m t y college district. Well, at the end of this second meetingthey then decided as a course of action to have each one of the representativesof the school districts return to their respective cmities,remember this was about twenty-five school districts reaching down toMchfield to the south, and over to Virginia to the northwest and out toEdinburg to the east and up to Elkhart to the noAheast and all of thepet ersbGg ma.

Gerald W.Smith321$0 they were to go home and three weeks later they were to notilry, on thebasis of judgements they made at hm, they were to notify Scotty Hbtonthe County Superintendent of Schools, whether or not they were interestedin joining in a feasibility study. I cite this because I have frequentlyover the years cited the procedures that were followed in the SangamanCounty area as an excellent model for a citizenst pup perfomce. Thething that I am talking about persisted throughout the whole developmentof the LFncoln Land C m t y College, the one that we are talking aboutnow. Here were these twenty-four or twenty-five districts, every inprtantstep was given at least a month for the people in the local weas tomake a judgment at home and then to report what their local judgment waswith regard to this which I saw as a really excellent model. The resultof it was that at the end of the prescribed three week period, twenty-fiveschool districts did decide that they wanted to be included in a feasibilitystudy. The feasibility study then proceeded. The Springfieldconmnity, the Springfield Board of Education was suppo~tive of the study.END OF SIDE ONE:A. Itd better say, Fnstead of the real leadership, the strongest leadershipfor the promotion of this distrfct came fmmthe school districtsthat surrounded the Springfield area. The Menard County comities, theschool districts around and about in Sanganvon County, and those Fn MacoupinCounty were the principal focus. A consulting firm was employed by thisgoup to coMuct the feasibility study and it was very well done. As thefeasibility study proceeded over a four to flve month period every meetingof the steerlnll; c&ttee was reported in the press and on the radioand TV, so there was an awareness of what was golng on. When the feasibilitystudy was completed and published and discussed as one final step,each of the districts that had participated in the feasibility study wasgiven a month to go home and determine whether or not they now wanted tobe included in a petition for a new district. Did they want theb weaencompassed in this proposed district? At the end of that period the decisionwas made, first, at the request of Edhburg to the east that theynot be included in the proposed district, and it was also decided afterconsiderable discussion that Springfield s*?01 district would not be includedIn the proposed area, so that the proposal for the establishmentof this district was one that made Springfield School Distllict 186 a holein the doughnut, corrrpletely surrounded by the newly established district.This was to have some interesting consequences that I am going to talkabout very shortly. Another element, however, as this one came to readtnessfor petitioning was the development h Hillsborn, Illinois. Litchfield,forty-four miles south of Sprhgfield, was in the proposed district butthe Hillsboro district which was a large ccamau?ity unit district downthere in Montgomery County, had not been included in the feasibility studyor had any participation.

Gerald W. Smlth 322A small group of people down there which early In 1965 had been givimgsome thought to perhaps their c m t y becomlng the center of a juniorcollege district. I attended several rneetlngs down there on that area.They decided that maybe they ought to be included, and so they appearedbefore the steering camittee and petitioned the steering cdttee toinclude them in the boundaries, although there were no data in the feasibilitystudy there was nothing in there with regard to it. Afterconsiderable dicuasion the citizens1 comnittee did agree to include themfn the proposal. So Edfnburg dropped out, Hillsbom came in and SpringfieldWch as I say had been a fairly passive participant in the wholeproject, did not become a part of the initial proposal. So this proposeddistrict went to a referendum on February 25, 1967, and passed with avery substantial majority .Q. What was the date again?A. Febw 25, 1967, but with one Wortunate s5de light, namely, t h egroup that had appeared fkm Hillsbom apparently did not have a goodsounding from the* community because Sn the Hillsboro precinct and inthat area, the p~loposal lost by margins of samething like eight to one.Q. Somebody was hot in touch.A. The Hillsboro corrHnunity was defwtely, obviously not in favor, buteven with thak mr@;syl the vote was so ovemhelmingly in favor of the proposeddistrict that it did come into existence. Now I am going to departa little bit rY.m qy procedm that I have been followhg of just goingahead with the mmLng of the districts, and then going back in largercontext to talk about some problems Jn order to complete the story atLbcoln Land because I believe it fits better all together,Q. I am delighted that you want to do that, Gemy.A. And here are two or three of the subsequent developments that wererather interest*. As I indicated, one of the prime reasons thatSprb@ield had been omitted &om the proposed district was the objectconzwtfculated by Nr. Hoffman. I presume he was totally suppoded by hfscornnittee for he was the spokesman for the pup who saw it as a threatto thew senior college, and he felt the rece~tton might be negative here.Well, not too long after the new district was created and adopted thename Lincoln Land and the Board of %ustees had selected Dr. Robert; Poomnanwho was Dean of Instruction at Bakersfield Cannaulity College in Californiato come as President, some interesting developments took place. The Bardof Hi@;her Education, as it was watching the development of the cormunitycolleges w3er its Master Plan of 1964 and as it was developing the PhaseI1 of its Master Plan to be published in 1967, began to enunciate and inthe developnent of that second Master Plan to give consideration to thewtablishnent of new senior institutions in several locations in the S'd;ate.I

They enunciated a pollcy that was not yet fomalized but that was verydefinitely in their thinking, saying that they would be unwilling toestablish a new senior institution in any c-lty that did not abeadyhave a public cormaunity college. Here was Springfield wlth a long timepush for one and hop- to be included In any proposals for any numberof senior instltutlons that might be established. I suppose they couldhave argued since all of this area of Illinois around here was in a juniorcollege except the Springfield district itself they really were in a district;Dr. Lyman Glenny the Executive Director for the Board of HigherEducation was inclined when questioned to interpret that policy which wasin the formative stage and which seemed to be one that was probably goingto be quite definite, to indicate that the absence of an area the sizeof Springfield fYom a junior college district would probably preclude thechoosing of it as a location for a new senior campus. So Mr. Hoffknanand his cormnittee then, of course, had to reassess their position andnow instead of a junior college distrlct being a threat to their success,the absence of a junior college became the threat, which they had toface and this only less than two years after he had been appearing beforethose first meetings in Springfield.Q. Oh this is fantastic, I didn't know this.A. So, the result of all of this activity was that Mr. Hoffknan asserrbleda group of people other than his cormnittee and began to develop astrategy for overcoming this problem. There were two procedures forannexing territory Fnto a junior college district, one was to get a petitionwith 500 signatures or 10% of the voters whichever was the lesserand petitioning the State Board for the rlght to hold a referendum withregard to the subject of annexation. The second procedure outlined inthe law was one which provided that if a petition could be circulatedthat would collect 66%, 2/3 of the voters of the people within the territorythey proposed to annex and on that kind of petition no referendumwas needed unless it was requested as a back-door referendum procedure,you know, within a 30 day waiting period. They felt that the first one,the referendm procedure, was too dangerous, and they felt that goingout and trying to solicit 2/3 of the voters in a population the size ofthe Springfield district was an enormous task so as a strategy matterthey decided to try another route, namely, to seek an amendment to thePublic Junior College Act that would provide that In any ccanrnulity cornpletelysurrounding any district (it had to be a school district), anyschool district completely smunded by a c m t y college dlstrictthe authority for petitioning for annexa2;ion could be delegated to theBoard of Education of that school district and that I believe - I cannotremember whether It was 3/4 or 2/3 -- I believe that if:3& of the membersof the Board of Education adopted a resolution and sent that to the Bornof the State Commmity College Board, it had the sam effect as a petltionsigned by 2/3 of the voters in the district.Q. Ingenious.

Gerald W. Smith 32A. They then appealed to their members in the House and in the Senateto sponsor that bill for thm and they did sponsor that bill; the billpassed and the Governor signed it. So we added to the public juniorcollege a new procedure for getting the people into the district designedto resolve the problem which the people here in Springfield faced.AgS? I must say that I have to compliment the Board of Education ofDistrict No. 186 for the wisdom they exerclsed in dealing with thatmatter. They were very deliberate and very cauticnxs about moving aheadand exe~ising a power which in every other c-ty in the State wasreserved to 2/3 of the voters, not 3/4 of the manbers of the Board ofEducation. So they allowed a considerable mount of time to lapse evento the point where some civ3-c groups and the press, radio and TV mediaoccasionally In their newscasts began to rafse questions: when was theBod of Education going to begin to m e on this mtter? They werealready the subject of a nurber of inquiries andl ~equests. Then a fewpeople began to appear at the Board and ask them what they were goingto do. So I thought that after a very judious delay and af'ter allowingenough time for a climate to develop favorably to that kind of an wlusualprocedure, the Board. of Education put on theb agenda the discussion ofthis mtter. They discussed it at some board meetings and then decldedto holdapubllc hearing on the proposal before attempting to take anyaction. They then did hold a publlc hewing attended by 125 to 150people; that was, I thought, well attended. At the public hearm somewherebetween 15 to 20 people appeared and testified. These groups thatappeared represented the League of Wmn Voters, representedlthe Chamberof Cc~nmerce, it invited some of the SCADA group, it included the PTA andlnumerous civic organizations, most of them ~ 5th considerable visfbility.Without exception they proposed that the Board exercise the authoritygiven it under the law and, In fact, pass the resolution and submit itto the State Board. And that's exactly what the Board of Educatfon did,again not that night but at the subsequent meeti~~ they passed that, msolution.Again this called for the publicatZon by the State Board thatsuch a petltion had been received and that, unless there was a call f@ra public hearing within 30 days, it was the intent of the State Board toannex this area to it, to the Lincoln Cpmmity College district. Th$tperiod of the passed, and theye was no petftion. Therefore, on Jarmpy19, 1968, the State Cmrmity College Board authorized or directed th&tthe Sprh-@ield District No. 186 be annexed to the Lincoln Land ComityCollege, so less than a year after the district was established by a referendumSpringfield did becane a member of that district. I fight indicatethat the interesting aspect of it is that the addltion of Springfielddoubled the population of the district.-Q. Was there SCJI-IE~OW a resistance or a feel- of irr%tation or annoyanceon the part of Springfield, over h a m gotten into the district after allin this way? Dld this somehow leave a residuwn of hostility toward theidea of the comnunlty college?

Gerald FI, Wth325A. I have never sensed that since that action 5n 1968, and I have ltvedhere all that t*. I have heard a few references to it *om time totime. I can remrber on one occasion, not the present Mayor but theprevious Thyor in response to a question at a meeting at which I was presenthad some bearlng upon the Lincoln Land Cmmbity College lrakingthis statement, "I never had a chance to vote on that proposal," but Idid not sense In his remarks any bitterness or any antagonism towardthe dtlstrict. The Springfield comnrunity as such, of course, has p&icipatedIn the life of the c m t y college with enthusiasm and greatsuppoPt .Q. Well, as one of the founding members or starting maibers of theSan@;;unon State crew I here and there ran into ardmsity towards Sangwnonthat sinply didn't make sense in temns of the fact that here was a newuniversity which the cammunity should have been proud of, so the onlyway that I could account for this was to assume that this was somehaw adisplaced, or transfewed Mnd of animosity or frustration or resentmentthat might of involved. It's not a major point.A. So far as the Springfield cormunity is concerned it accepted this procedureand I have never been ame of any repercussfon because of theprocedure. For example, in earlier accounts I mentioned that for 20 yearsthe Bellevllle College dlstrict was a subject of adverse editorial canmentf'mn the press d m there because of the process by which theoriginal district was established. Nothing llke that ever occurred; asa matter of fact, the suppoA through all of the news media for the actionby the Bomd of Education was always totally affirmative.Q. And then we are probably talking about individuals?A. Yes, I think we are talking about individuals.Well, so much for the establishmnt of Lincoln Land but because of thepeculiarLties of the way that district came about it seemd to me wiseto inject the whole story.Q. This is fascinating and you've done a real service to explain this asclarly as you have, Gemy, because there were elements here that even Ididn't know and didn't understand.A. No, and it's surprishg how many people have forgotten how this wasdone. I think also, if' you just reflect upon it, it is interesting tonote that the district was established on February 25, 1967, the nfghtthat Phase I1 of the Master Plan was about to occur. The General Assemblywas already in sesslon by February 25, 1967, but Mr. Hoffman and hispoup mved rapidly enow -- that by June 30, 1967 they already had thatnew legislation passed because you remember this annexation was completedin Jarmary of 1968.

Gerald W. Smith 326As is already a matter of history, the result of all of these activitieswith m@;ard to the formaation of Lincoln Land and the subsequent hclusionof SprbgField was that In the Phase IT of' the Naster Plan, the Boardof Higher Education did In fact recomnend that one of the proposed newsenior Wtituttons be located at Springfield, They also recmndedthat Illinois adopt a plan that had been already initiated in Floridawith us- the new senio~ institutions as a capstone to the camunitycollege system, Be- or developing, therefore, upper divisionpaduate institutions, and that Sangamon State University did came intoexistence b Sprlngfteld, and that it stands out there now as a developinginstitution with the Lincoln Land campus adjacent to it. Or, Iexpect that Dr. Poomnan would say here that Lhcoln Land is out here withSangamon State adgacent to it. (laughter)The two colleges do stand out there side by side so that we can say Inthe Sprin@ield c w t y the two are complementary to one another asconceived in the Yhster Plan. George Hofb and his cormittee didsucceed in bringing to the Springfield area, ultintztely, not a four-yearinstitution but they succeeded in brinlng to Illinois fow yews ofsenior college programs, and graduate school. (laughter)After this rather lengthy qiscussion with regard to Lincoln Land which Ifelt important because of certain elements in it, we move next then toa district which was established by referendum on April 1, 1967, inMcHenry County and which subsequently adopted the name of McHenry CcnnrunityCollege. The proposal for this district was one that was generatedby a combination of leadership from the school districts in &Henry County,with especially strong leadership f'rom the Superhtendent of Schoolsat Woodstock and a goup of citizens in the ccmmnity. The feasibilitystudy was well done and the proposal was well conceived. The district envisioneditself as being essentially confined to the boundaries of McHenryCounty. To the west of this area the Rock Valley district centered inRockford had already come over to the county line, and on the east of themthe College of Lake County, although not yet established, was also in progressand they did not see themselves encroaching on one another's areaother than maybe for a few acres of school district boundaries. To thesouth of them In Kane County they did not envision strong development, sothey Sawthe~nselves as a county. One of the matters that received considerableattention in the study of the feasibility of this district was,again, that a total county population was only between 75 and 80 thousandpeople but, as you know, Woodstock, Crystal Zake and McHenry in McHenryCmty are really the terminal. ends of the cmter railroads that go intoChicago. It s d to the Illiino$s Commmity College Board that McHenryCounty, being in the mtropolitan Chicago statfstical area, was probablygo- to contlrme to grow, maybe not by leaps and bounds but steadilyfor the foreseable .fit= + Because of this the Board felt that the populatfonconcern need not take heavy weight.Q. That ass~tlon has been borne out, hasn't It?

Gerald W. Wth 32 7A. Yes, the county is growing and continues to ~ Q W . As a result of allof this the 0-ty College Board did approve that proposed districtand I have already indicated the date of its establiskrment.Q. The Board appmved It when?A. It was established by referendum on April 1, 1967, the date I havealready @ven. The organizing President of that district was Forest%heridge and he spells "Forest" with one "rl' I believe, who came tothat college fMm the neighboring district of Rock Valley. He was on theadministrative staff at the Rock Valley College and had come over toRock Valley fmm Chicago with Clifford Erickson who was the organizingpresident of that college. And so he was their organizing president.He subsequently moved south fkam McHenry College to Waubonsee College inthe Aurora area where he still serves as President.We move now to the first of the ca-rmwdty colleges established out ofentirely new area in deep southern Illinois, mly, the one In theCarbondale, &ion, West Frankfort area which, af'ter its establishnent,adopted as its name the John A. hgan College in honor of the GeneralJohn A. Logan of the of the Republic whose general order createdMemorial Day in the United States. John A. Logan had been a resident ofthat ma. It was his territory, and that's the significance of thatname. Let me finish a word about John A, Logan and then intempt vselfhere, to say that the John A. Logan district was established by a referendumheld on September 16, 1967 which, you will observe, Is a fill twoyears after the creation of the State JMor College Board. That seemslike a rather long time to have had ln the explosive period; that seemedrather a long time for the first of the deep southern districts to beestablished. Therefore, I think I had better stop here and make somecorranents about the problems of organizing southern Illinois.Q. This is now on the morning of September 30, 1976, and Gerry and Iare conthuk-g the discussion that we got into yesterday.A. Continuing now with a discussion of some of the problems elated tothe organlzatlon of the pattern of districts in southern Illinois, I wouldlike to address certain problwns and issues that had to be dealt with,which took about a year or a little longer for resolution.Q. In other words, the reason for the delay, if that's the way to put it,had to do with mganlzational questions rather than with geographicalfactors although, of course, these entered b to it?A. Geographical factors had a bearing on it. Prior to the completion ofthe Phste~ Plan, 01- maybe I'd better say in those yews between 1959 and1965 as the Master Plan was being developed and the Act passed, interetthad continued to grow throughout southern Illinois, wlth regard to theestablishment of junior colleges 5.n their camnunities.i

Gerald W. Smith 32 8Bob Bbkhher in his role in the bffice of the Superintendent of PutllicInstruction had been very active wtth numerous cmties Zn all of thesouthern J111hois reeon, he1plr-g them study the possibilities of organf-2% Junior college dlstrfcts within their school distrfcts prior to the1965 law, looking at At h a mrmber of ways. Thus, with the campletionof the law and the organization of the State Board there were nwrouscormittees in southern Tllbois that were already loo^ at the possibilityof a jurdor college within their area. Also in southern Illinoisthere were several colleges that had been established within this periodof the that I am talkhg about, between 1959 and 1965: the ObeyCollege at OLney, the Wabash College at Mount Carmel, the SoutheasternCollege at Hmisburg, all are examples of colleges that had been createdat that the. Likewlse the one that had been established at Mount Vernon,a little bit earlier but again not very mch earlier than that period oftime. In addition to these were two more, the College of Centralfa whichhad moved more rapidly than any other mea and it maybe interesting toobserve (I donf t know whether if it was a relationship or coincidence)that Robert BMhlmer had come from Centralia to the State office. As Isay, I am not sure whether there was any comction OF not in the factthat they got ahead but be that as it my.Q. I have an idea that there is a connection because 1 remember distinctlyBob Birkhimer telling me once that he was the first dean of a cormunitycollege of junior colleges in the State of Illinois.A. Well, at any rate as you will recall as already related, they organizedthere a new district that absorbed the Centralia College in Decemberof 1965. They were already part way through the process when the StateBoard came in. Then at BelleviLle there had been the junior collegesince 1946. The college was already that old, it was 20 years old. Thus,it was necessary, therefore, to address the problem of southern Illholsin several dimensions, two of which were the erdsting colleges and theirinterests, and the second one the keen desire of several other c-itiesto have new colleges added to their territory. These were two dimen-sions, a keen interest of nummus communities. All of this had to betied to the welfare and interest of existing colleges and I mlght say,although they did not write it, in all of the discussions held on thematter of the organization of districts it had been the policy of the StateBad to interpret the language of the Master Plan whlch specifically saidthat the Master Plan was deslgned to protect the ongoing life of theexisting colleges and had even written into the law specffics which saidif they wanted to remain Class 11 they could do it forever. It was apolicy of the State Board Fn the interpretation of the Master Plan andthe language of the statute to give priority to the interests and welfareof the existing colleges, lnsofaul, as that could be reasonably dealt within relation to the overall welfare of the whole state system of cormitycolleges for the long t- goal.Q. And then, is not the ovemiding factor of the sparse population inthe southern part?

Gemld W. Smith 329A. Well, yes, I am going to say that there were other factors that hadto be dealt with in southern Illinois, the sparseness of the population,the fact that there were tn mst parts of southern Illinois no largepopulation centers to serve as a natwal center or core around which4ooperate. The general econdc level of southern Illinois is samewhatlower than the northern half of the state and therefore, in order to providea tax base on the assessed valuation, you had to look at the needfor perhaps a larger geographic area, In order to provide an adequate taxbase for that part of the local tax. These were all matters that had tobe dealt with and the problems which surfaced &mediately In the fall of1965, In September, October, November, the problems that hdiately sixfacedwere, first of all, the sizable ntanber of codties that wereinterested in promoting a juniowl college for theb community; just let medo down the list starting over on the eastern side of the State and say:Mattoon, Effingham, Robinson, Olney, Mt . Camel, CaYmi, Hamisburg,Marlon, West bankfort, Mt. Vernon, Chester, and the cluster of countiesin the extreme tip of Illinois with such c-ties as Anna-Jonesboro,Wtmpolis and Cairo in them. By December 1 of 1965, there were groupsof people either actually systematically organized for the promotion ofdistricts ready to petktion for the organization of the district for acollege to be centered in the codties that I have named or, if not organizedto it, thinking about the development of an organization for thateffort. The result was the -- well, first of all let me say that a fewof them did petition rather quickly. The result of this was that it wasconclusion as the executive officer for the State Board that specialattention needed to be given to the southern Illinois m a and that thereshould be imnediate effol-.ts to coordinate the th- and the work of allof these gmups scattered throughout southern Illbois. So, as a beginnhgstep we set up a series of meetings In a number of these cmtiesabout which I am speaking. As I recall, the first one was at Carbondaleon the campus of Southern Illinois University, At that meeting we hadrepresentatives fhm Chester, Illinois, where the County Superintendent ofSchools, Vincent Birchler, had already cqleted a feasibility study. Hehad ear lie^ contracted with Southern Illlnois University for a feasibilitystudy which he had done under the name of a Six County Study and it reachedfYom just south of Belleville to the north, down the Mississippi Riverthrough those countles and over into Carbondale and over toward West Fkankfort,and down that way. He called it a Six County Study.Q. Haw does he spell his nam?A. Birchler. So we had that proposal that meded to be dealt with. Thepeople at Mt. Vernon, already I have mentioned the fact that Lester Bufordand I3r. Parker had come to see m. Allan Baker, another Doctor inPlncheyville, was very much interested in that Mt. Vernon or Rend Lakedevelopment of which I am speaking, So those people were organized andthey were mrbg for the organization of a district. In the West F'rWort,Marion, Carbondale area there were people working together and the CountySuperintendent of Williamson County was affcdbg the principal leaderpp

there as to how a distrfct xnlght be formed that would give the center offocus on a territory reachhg &om Carbondale east over to West Fhmkfort;and the MarLon area, and so forth. Then, to the south of" them there wasthe five county m a of Alexander, Union, Johnson, &ssac and Pulaskl,These peopl,e were struggling for their place in the area without any populationcenter located withln that five county area. ThB population groupswere all on the comers, and they were relatively &I. But you hadAnna, Jonesbom to the northwest, Cairo to the extreme southwest, Metropolisto the extrem southeast, and in the center the lmgest town wasVienna with about a thousand population, and the geographic center hadconmiunities of five or six hundred, so they were worldng. Then, over inthe southeast corner of the State, centered at Harrisburg, wTth Harrisburgor Southeastern College at Harrisburg only a part of the Hamisburg district,they m e struggling for the development of their district, knowingthat they were gohg to be faced with a tremendous population problembecause of the sparseness of their conmmity. Thinking of that, take forexample, Pope County which was on the south end of their area Wch was arelatively large geographic area but is mre than 2/3 Shawnee NationalFomst , had a population of about 4,000 people. They had one publlcschool district with 31 teachers fozl the whole county; you see you'retalking about real spwseness. The County Superintendent up in GallatinCounty told me one tk that Pope, Hardin and Gallatin Counties held theirteachers institutes as a d t and had slightly over 100 teachers for athree-county institute as a maximwn. So we're talking about a real problemd m there.Then in White County, Camd at that the not working d:'ulectly toward theor@;anlzation of its own district but it was so located that its welfmewas tremendously affected by what happened to the south of them, to thenorth of them, or to the west of them. So sort of as a defensive movethey had a sd-proposal, maybe as a compromise thelr carrnnunlty might bea pup. Then, north of them was the m a that included Mt. Camel andOlney that already had two junior colleges, and even north of them Robinson.And, as 1 have Indicated, northwest of this Olney-Robinson area was Effingham,rather close to Mattoon and it was wanting a dlstzlict. So we hadthese issues. We held our first meeting at, as I've already said before Iwent off on this little excursion, we had our first meeting at Carbondale.END OF TAPE EIGHTEEN SIDE TWO

Q. This is a continuation of the interview of September 30, 1976.A. As 1 recall, there were representatives of most of the school districtsIn that area of the state, since they were offering the leadership.Likewise, in southern Illinois, it is rather interesting to know that theCounty Superintendents without exception, gave leadership to the discussionsabout new districts. As I already Fndicated, in the Cheste~ meait was Vincent Birchler, the County Superintendent of Randolph County,in the west Frankfort area. It was the County Superintendent of W i l l i a mston County who was specially giving leadership, and the other CountySuperintendents were there too. At the December meeting in Carbondale,we addressed ourselves, I think, to two principal subjects. First of allwe addressed ourselves to the studies that were already in progress orhad been completed. Vincent Birchler was there with his Six County study,which was already presented. The Rend Lake people by this time had their'squite well formulated, although the feasLbility was not yet done. mapeople in the southern end of the state, those Mve counties at the southernend, were really still trying to think through their situation and how theymight operate either as a separate pup or be identified with othergoups in the state. So we addressed ourselves, therefore, to the planningand studying and thinking that was already in pmgress.Then, we also tried to address ourselves at that meting to a somewhatbroader look at the picture, that is talk a little about what seemed tomake good sense for a pattern of dfstricts in southern Illinois. Them Ibegan to inject qy own personal views, that we ought to be thinking interms of the population pattern as near 100,000 as possible although, adrdttingyou know that in rrlost cases in that part of the state districtswould have to be smaller than that to acconanodate the cornrnnter concept,because of the sparseness of population. However, I tried to emphasizethat it seemed to me that it was important that we think about the 10%-tern problem, and therefore, avoid the mistakes of creating too many smalldistricts that would be financially weak, that would not ham the populationto support the comprehensive program, and the response to theseproposals was both positive and favorable, but tempered a great deal ofcowse with the local interest. With the very competitive spirft thatexists between those comities in southern Illinois, an area in whichthe comrrunities tend to be so near to one another In size that there's notone single commmity that can domhate the others as a mketing center oras a Chamber of Comnerce center or anything of that kind.Q. Similar to each other in size and also similar in terms of economics?A. Right. This tended to be true. There were some exceptions. I'd saythere was a pat spirit of optimism expressed mng the representativesof the various centers, feeling that although southern Illinois had beenexperiencing som regression as a result of the changing in the coal miningpicture and other areas dawn there, alrnost wlthout exception they feltthat southern Illinois was on the verge of a new surge upward econondcallyand socially, and in all other ways. And so they made strong cases fortheir situations.

Gerald W.Smith332The meeting at Carbondale In December was then followed with severalothers in southern Illinois in the months of January and Febnwy, in thewinter of 1966. Other meetings we= held at Harrisburg, at Carmi and atOlney; and then to get one on neutral ground I set up one on the campusof Illinois Eastern University at Charleston, and had the people over inthat area. As these meetin@;s mved from Carbondale in the southwest m aof southern Illhois and swung around over to the east side of the stateand moved north, of course the participation in the meetings changed somewhat.Af'ter we lef% Carbondale Mr. Birchler and his group from RandolphCounty dld not feel particularly concerned about what happened around Olneyand Mount C m l . But I would have to say that from hisburg to Robinson,that long strip along the east side, the meetings at Harrisburg, CaYmi,Olney and Charleston were well attended. At each one of these meetingsthere were anywhere f'rm around 90 to 140 or 150 ca-mmdty people thereto participate in the discussion. Again at each of these meetings, an opportdtywas afforded for the representatives of each area of interest tospeak and to tell the rest of the people the kinds of studies that were inprogress that was being made In that period of tlme. It became apparentby February or March of 1966, that the resolution of the problems thatexisted in southern Illinois with regard to boundaries for districts ofthe areas that might be encompassed in a series of districts down there,or in a complex of districts, that the resolution of the problem was goingto be very difficult, and perhaps sanewhat time consuming. So the cormnunityCollege Board in discussing the subject decided that perhaps thiswould be a good place for the State Board, in compliance with that pa% ofthe statute which said they were to engage in feasibility studies, to contractfor a study of the whale area roughly described from U.S. Route 40which goes fmm St. Louis diagonally across the s bate; to have a studydone on the whole area. The Board did contract with Southern IllinoisUniversity to do a study of the area generally described as all of thatsouth of Route 40. Dr. Kenneth Brunner who was a professor at SouthernIllinois University and very much Interested in the conanunity college developmntand one who had had ten years experience in the U.S. Office ofEducation, and had experience in looking at regional areas and this typeof thhg, Dr. Bmer was narned then as the person to do this study.Dr. Brunner had already been meeting with us at our Board meetings. Hehad been present at all of the discussion meetings that I am speabout.So he was well tuned-in to the thinkhg of the State Board and hewas well tuned-in to the discussions that were going on in southern Illinois.So In the spring, or late winter of 1966, the Board entered into a contractwith Southern Illinois University for that study of the whole reglon. Asthat study began, you rernernber, the picture was that nothing had yet happenedat Belleville. The Kaskaskia College district was already formed, beoausethey were all ready for the referendum stage when that Act passed and itheld their referendum in the fall and elected a board in Deceniber. Thepeople of Mat;toon were very actfve, but they ham't done anything yet, andMattoon was in the middle, Route 40 went through their district. Gver inthe eastern part the Olney and Mount Cannel and Hamisburg people and thefolks at Mount Vernon and Rend Lake, nothin@; yet had happened. All oq theseI

Gerald W. Smith 333were workin@; toward districts, so this was the stage setting at the t$rethat Kenneth B mer began his study, and the series of meetings to whichI referred had already been completed, although in some cases I continuedto met with these people in various groups.Fwlthermore, about the t* that; the Board contracted with Southern IllinoisUniversity for Dr. Bmuruler to do that study, the petitions began to cmnein. These people were very active, they were very competitive, so I thinka nurriber of the people feeling that pephaps the best defense was a goodoffense, they begin to draw up boundaries and to petition the State Boardfor the right to hold referendums. So, a@;ain I am not for thls article,I don't think I wed a specific date, but by the emly spring of 1966,there were in the office of the State Board, petitions for proposed districtscentered around Mattoon, Effingham, Robinson, Olney, Mount Ca~mel,Harrisburg, and the Charleston-Mattoon area and clem d m to the southwestcomer, southwest tip of the atate.Q. You had yow work cut out fop you.A. Yes, and at om t3-r~ In that period, by late spring or early smner of1966, there were on file In the State office a set of petitions beghnhgin that Effin@;ham area, swinging clear d m and around the new Kaskaskladistrict, coming down the state and reaching around there, seven petitionsfor the organization of a junior college district, elther totally new orencompassing one of those existing districts which were completely overlapping-- the boundaries were overlapping. They actually constituted anoverlapping link of chajsls, a chain-link affair, and of course this made itirrrpossLbLe to deal with them arbitrarily at that point.The statute made it very clear that in the review of a petition it definitelyhad to be established that the proposed district did not Include theterritory of any existing districts . Of course, the Board could pick oneof those out and settle that argumnt by approving one and that automaticallykilled the other. The Board was not interested in that kind of arbitraryaction, and so it was hoped that the study that Dr. Bmer was going to dowould help us with that problem.The discussions continued throughout the smmer, the people at Mattoonbecam quLte restless because of the State Board was not moving as fast asthey wanted. The people at Rend Lake became quite restless because theBoard was not mving as fast as they wanted it to mve. I continua totravel around the area and continued these meet- and dfscussions withthe people. !he study that DP. B m e r did was reported to the M, asI recall, at a meet- of the State Board on the campus of Illhois StateUniversity at Noml. I believe it was in October, but at any rate it wasIn the fall.Q. October of 1966?A. Yes, of 1966. Concurrently with the study which Dr. Brurner was dqing,I concluded as executive officer of the State Board, that the meetings !Ihad been holding and the continuous series of conferences that I held Beguiredme to make a report to the State Board on my fhdings and viqwpointswith regard to it.

Gevlald W. Smith 334So at the met- to which 1 refer in the late sumner, the Board recedvedthe repoYZ, of Dr. Bmer and rqy report Tor the proposed districts. Inthe manthe, I had came to one conclusion. This probably be-cloudedthe issue, and I need to put it in here so werybody M11 know that 7: remhdhonest as I report thls because qr action twrned out to be onethat stmed up a little storm. As I did give qy study, and I held allof these methgs, and as I observed the actlon of the people, therewere two thhgs that became elem to me. One was, wfth the exception ofthe lnterest of the people at Effin@;ham, the proposed districts for M&ttoonwas in good shape. Their boundmies were clean, They had had an excellentfeasibility study. There was nothing to cloud the issue, except the promtion at Effbgham, for the petition sWtted by the Effingham people wasreally a petition that would have to be found inadequate to be- with.Agah, I thhk it had been put in as a defensive issue. 1 dtd ~lecommndto the Board In the smr of 1966 that the petition fim Eff'ingham b$denied and that the petition f'rorn the people at Phttoon, the Lake Land dlstrictas later named be approved, and be allowed to go to referendum. TheState Board did that. There were no repercussions tow recomrmndati~nor that action, other than the local people at Effinghan, sane nepresentativesof the Chamber of Cmrce who did call on me and were somewhat perturbedwith the decision that I made. However, they were very reasonablepeople and as I described this matter to them the reasons f'or rry recormnendationand rationale, they very reluctantly concurred that this wasprobably go- to be the ultimate result anyhow. So there were no reverberatingrepercussions as I recall. A little later Fn the smr, I thinkprobably it was b August of 1966, as a result of rqr continuous studfesand activities down there, I becam convinced that the Rend Lake districtwas a certainty. It was to be built around the existtng Mount VernonCollege. %!he studies there were older than most of the other studies. Itseemed to me that in that particular area of the state, with Mount Vemonand Benton and Pinckneyville and the 0 t h cluster ~ of corranunities in thatarea, even though the population base of the proposed district was onlyabout 75,000 or slightly over (but I wished it had been 100,900), it seemedto me that there was no question but wbt we were goin@; to use that basefor a district. So I reconanended to the Board, and thls was you see beforerrg later report or before Dr. Brumerfs report was finished, it wax st911In progress, I recarmended that we apprwe the Rend Lake proposal, Thtsdid bring about considerable ~percusslon. The people in the other areasof the state felt that this was an unfortunate recormendation by me, andW. Birchler fbm the Chester area appeared before the Board and requestedthat the Board delay the actlon on q reconmendation until later on. Theother people in these other areas, while unha.ppy with my decision to W ethe reconmendation, did not oppose the action of the State Board with regwdto that proposal. They did express their dissatisfaction with me,There were a few people that really felt I had double-crossed them, Sqrmehowor amother they had a feel* that I had cmmLtted myselr to take noaction with regard, to any of that area until all the studies were complete.'Q. I wondewled about that as you were talking, whether thls was a straf

Gerald W. Smith 335perhaps to take it in little pieces and get some decision made ratherthan waiting for the whole?A. No, in terms of the strategy, I think not. I cannot honestly saywhether or not there was any kind of pound for the* feeling that Idouble-crossed them. I did not at that tirw have any recollection ofever having made any publfc statement in fkont of the Bawd or at any ofthose meethgs, that everything was going to stand still until the studywas completed. On the other hand, I can well understand how some ofthese people might have felt that it was implied.Q. Well, when people are unhappy with the results of anything they'regoing to look for grounds.A. I want to make it very clear that I made that decision and that I madeit on the basis of the judgement that I've already stated. It seemed tome that we were going to put a district there and the status of their developmentwas such that it was an appropriate the to mve with reg& tothat recomnen3ation. Again, there were some people who felt that, becausea group of ~presentatives of that district had met with the Board at ameet- in Carbondale that was held on the Carbondale campus in 1966,that somewhere or another that pressure had taken its toll on the Bod.kt me say in defense of the State Board, that in the five years that Iworked with the State Board I never observed a time when I felt the Boardresponded to pressure. The State Board was human. They felt pressure,they observed it. But the State Board was a statesmen-like group ofpeople, that were just as ready to disapprove a recomndatlon of dne asthey were to approve it.Q. That's the way it should be.A. There were numbers of cases where they did it. The working relationshipbetween the Board and me was that if I felt there was an action theyought to consider when I made that recmndation, after which they approvedit or denied it or modified It according to their own wisdom. If I had notgiven the kind of leadership that brought those issues to them, they wouldhave been dissatisfied. So, I simply want to state for the record thatthis decision was made, whether it was right or wrong. It was made on themtionale which I have already given. But there were scune repercussions toit.Q. Well I can well understand why you want to get something like this outand get it explained here; at the same time I can't m n e that mybodywould ever feel yau would do anything like that.A. Well, you think about things h the position you are in. Let me say,that I never lost a friend to knowledge, through it all. These werethe people that were will- to sit down at a table and say to me face toface, "we think you double-crossed us" and then smile about it.

Gerald W. Smith 3%After the report of Dr. Brunner and uyself were before the Board, by thewa~, they turned out to be quite sWlar, the picture that we described tothe Board and the suggestions that we made to the Board were very mchin Une with each other.A. You had not compared notes with each other?A. No, we had compared notes continuously during the period of the study,but he brought his report to the Board w2thout seeing it. 1 mde wrecorrpnendations to the Bow that day, and he didn't know I was go- torrake them. The action that the State Board took in response to the repor'tsthat they received frm Dr. B m e r and f'romme at that meting was to sayto the representatives of the whole area down there, on the basis of thereports that are now before you, our ExecutLve Secretary and the reportfYom Southern Illinois University, we say to you that we feel you shouldeach gohackto your own areas and that you should study these reports andthat if, in a few months, you can come back to the Board separately with apattern of districts that have clean boundaries, that are not overlappingand that are reasonably located, we will then consider your proposals.We are not prcanising to approve a single one of them, but we will considerthem in the light of your new studies and we're going to hold every petitionthat we have here that is not yet acted upon until you have studiedthis matter and come back to us again. But they were in essence sayingto the people in those areas, 'lWelll yield quite a bit on the mtter ofthe standards for the district in view of the population problems insouthern Illinois, but we do wish that you would resolve, essentially,that boundary issue and that you would come up with as strong a proposalas you can for a pattern of districts there."So, the result of that was beginning then In 1967, in the late winter andspring of 1967, these cormaulities did then return with their proposals.The ccmnunities that came in with petitions were Olney, which already hada college, with a proposal for a district which I've already describedbecause this was a new one. The Mount Carme1 area came in with a proposal,and, of course, one of the things that had happened, Kaskaskia districthad already established in 1965 and the Rend Lake district having been establishedin October of 1966, descrLbed the eastern boundaries of thosedistricts and therefore really, to a certa5n extent, helped these new areas.There were no longer debates in that area. Then Mount C m l came in withtheir proposal and the people fn the John A. Logan district which is nowthe John A. Logan College - they then called it the Egyptian district (youknow, Little Egypt ), came in with their proposal. The State Board had torrake two or three decisfons to clarify some of this. In the southwesternor extreme south district there, where the population was sparse, and wherethe Shawnee National Forest extended across there and took a lot of taxproperty off the rolls, the State Boasd had to make a p~oposal. Interestinglyenough, in th& territory, just outside of Metropolls, is a largeutility power plant with a high assessed evaluation, They were going toget the benefit of that.

Gerald W. Smith 337'Rut north in Union County, in the northwest comer of Union County andsouthwest of Carbondale, is another big power plant with a huge assessedevaluation. The people in the south tfer of counties and obviously thepeople in the Carbondale-West Frankfort ma, were each desirous of includingthat territory within their boundary. I have forgotten exactlywhat the precise course of action was, but at any rate the State Boardtook a course of action that settled that Issue by giving the Shawneepeople southeast, the south district, that territory iln theb boundaries.The State Board also took action which disposed of the proposal ofMI?. Birchler in Chester. His Six County Study never resulted in the formationof a district. I don't want to gLve the Board total responsibilityfor that problem. &. Bjrchler had a problem. Chester, as you know, ison the Masissippi River on the west side of Randolph County and in doinghis Six County Study he had gone so far nor+th as to be within a very, vexyshort distrance of the Belleville College. So he ran into a problem.The school districts in the north end of his proposed six-county areawere not at all interested in being identified with a district centeredat Chester, and so in essence, while they had participated in the study,deserted him on his proposal. The s m was true of the people atPhrphysboro and Carbondale.They were not interested In being part of hisproposal and Pinchyville, which had been in hfs Six County Study, hadmade the decision under the leadership of Dr. Allen Baker to go with RendMe, So his proposal just sort of dissolved around him. So that did notmaterialize as far as that part of his proposal was concerned. The resultthen was, as I say by late spring, early sunaner of 1967, a yearafter these studies started, the new petitions had cane in with cleanboundaries with the problems at least narrowed to the field where theycould be resolved either by the people themselves or by decisions thatthe State Board made with regard to them. So therefore, we were able tomove ahead in the fall of 1967 wLth the organization of the districts thatincluded Olney, the Southeastern College at Fbrisburg, two existing dlstricts,and at the same tim move ahead with those areas forming entirelynew districts, such as the one In the south areaflow known as Shawnee andJohn A. Logan. Shawnee and John A. Logan were both voted on September 16,1967. By the fall of 1967 we had the total southern ma covered. I mightadd as I have mentioned earlier that the southern districts namely, Olney,Central and Southeastern which absorbed the existing districts actuallydid not get voted on until October of 1967, but I've already covered theirmganizatLon earlier.Q. Who was the fourding wsident at John A. Logan?A. The founding President at John A. Logan was Nathan Ivy, who had beenthe president of a junio~ college in Michigan, who came to Illinois toseme as the fourdin@; president and stayed there until he became Presidentof Thornton College In northern Illinois. The fowldfng President ofShawnee was Dr. Loren Klaus, who at that time had just completed hisDoctor's program at Illinois State University, where at that time he hadbeen semring as Superlatendent of Schools for the unit district in Normal.

So by the end of 1967 then, we had seven more districts out of a wholenew territory. We had formed six such districts in 1966, now in 1967 weformed seven more and along with those seven in southern Illinois wealso settled the issues of the districts down there. I think perhapsto complete this namative I should make reference now to what happenedto the college at Mt. Cml, at the Wabash Valley College. In all ofthis discussion and in all of the studies you will notice that I havementioned the cmties of Effin@;ham, Robinson, Mt. C m l , Carmi,Chester, examples of cormPlnities that were interested in the developmntof colleges, which obviously did not develop cormunity colleges becauseI mi@;ht also say that by the end of 1967, the area in southern Illinoisrunning ln line from St. Zouis diagonally northeast on U. S . Route 40, wastotally organized with exception of the c m t y of I;avrenceville, anda few little pockets, tiny pockets, the pattern was ccarrplete by the fallof 1967.I want to speak now first on the Wabash Valley situation. The people atMt. Carme1 had organized a district down there and had been running onefor five or six yews and very success~ly. They had had strong leadershipin the promotion of their district, they had developed a very strongprogram in agiculture, and they were enrolllylg students frm all overthe state. The enrollment In this district, was, if I remember, in excessof 800, which was large for this area of the state. 1 recall verywell attending the public hearings for the proposed dAstrict in LakeCounty, which was extreme northeast area and probably 200 miles north ofMt. Carmel or more, of hearing a farmer testify in support of the proposedLake County district on the pound that agriculture was an *ortantsubject and that his son had had to travel clear down to Mt. Cmelto find an agricultural program in a junior college. So they were attractingpeople f'rm all over the dtate. They felt that their district, forexample, was a year older than the one at Olney. Yet it was the Olneydistrict around which the districts were formed, as I've already reported.The people at Mt. C m l were very eager to have a district and they didpetition for It and I think I've already reported this under the reorginazationof districts. So I simply repeat that ultimately the Mt. C m land Robinson commmities and area annexed to the district established atOlney formed the Illbois Eastern district. The Effingham people veryquickly decided that their best interests was to become a part of thenewly established Lake Land distrlct at Mattoon; they therefore joinedthat district and considerable area around it. The area over in thewestern side of the state around Chester, remained for the most partoutside of a jutlior college district until the legislature passed SenateBill 1188 in 1972, at which time almnst all of the territory included inNe. Birchler's Six-County Study annexed to Belleville, and the BellevilleArea College. The large part of that area, the area mound Murphysbom,etc., had gone Into the John A. Logan district to begin ~ t h . So practicallyall of this area went into the Belleville district.Q. That1 s quite a story, Gemy, and this is certainly a beautiful ex*ple of democracy at work in this pondercrus, awkward, slow, stumblingand yet purposef'ul way.I

Gerald W. Smith 339A. Speaking now to the pattern of districts that did develop in southern,Illinois, again going roughly k m U.S. 40 south, the Lake Land distrlctfkmn the very be-ing was a sizeable district; it became much largeras time went on and never presented any problem with regards to population,size, etc. The Kaskaskia district likewise which was organized by virtueof having gotten additional territory became a district well above the~~ standards that we had in mind. Now again I'm never talking aboutstatutory standards, I'm talking about what we thought were workingstandards. Obviously, Belleville, which was already above the standardsto be@ wfth, dfd. The Illinois Eastern district, which included thecmmmities of Robinson, Olney and Mt. Carmel, for tax purposes and foradmFnistrative purposes and for general management purposes, also ultltnatelybecame a district well above the minimum standards. Of course, therethey are operating with three attendance centers scattered mound theirarea. I believe this turned out to be a very satisfactory solution. Igo back to the fact that we were operating in the formtion of this state'ssystem under the Public Junior College Act, with a kind of combination ofstate leadership amd management under the State Cormmu?ity College Boardbut also the law said a local initiative. The State Board always felt thatthat local initiative was an impofiant factor. I might also say that themembers of the State Board were always Inclined to give very serious considerationto the attitudes and the ideas and the concepts of the peoplein that area had. They weren't trying to say that those people hew theirown m a better than we do. This was sort of the attitude. I think thatone became a very satisfactory district. Now, in own judgement, Ithink that I would feel that the area of Rend Lake and the John A. Logandistricts and the Southeastern district would have perhaps in the long-termbeen better served had there been not more than two districts; where thatthree ma distrLct is. I'm not sure that I would have the wisdom to havesaid what specific boundary terrttory would have been better. But, ineach case these districts are either below or crowd the minimwn populationbase that is preferable. Rend Lake has never passed 75,000 populationbase; 100,000 would be so much better.END OF SIDE ONEA. I've already said that they never passed the 50,000 mark, although thecomter problem has to be taken into account. The John A. Logan district,by virtue of ha* the cluster of towns, such as West F'rankfort and Marion,Carbondale, etc., on paper more nearly approaches the 100,000 populationexcept that I am always suspicious that population figures of a universitycommunity stand to skew those figres somewhat and I am not at a11 surethat it is a totally realistic population. WLth regard to the one In theextreme southern end of the state, the Shawnee district, again I think itis possible that they could have been--it may be the four districts f'romthem could have been theoretically two. Now I am doing a little bit ofbureaucratic thhkbg. I am sitting in Springfield and looking at themap and these of thhgs. I might say that in the discussion wl'ah

the people and the County Superintendent in the Alexander County at Cairo,Grace Duff was one of the prlme leaders in that area. I think she is asgood an educational thinker as I have ever known and a woman who hasgiven mmrkable leadership to the southern Illinois wea. She fkequmtlysaid in our conferences that she just could not buy the idea that thoseareas 50, 60, 70 miles away &om towns like Carbondale or Hamisburg, 80or 90 miles away -- she could not conceive that; those areas would getthe kind of thought and treatment that they needed, and she believed thatthose people down there were better fitted to deal with their own problems.So, I guess I conclude, and a- taking the record now as itreflects these past ten years since it was formed, that those people probablyare deserving of their sepmate college, locally admhistered andrelated to in terms of their own problems. You know, down there you evenhave the barrier of that chain of the Ozarks running across southernIllinois that you have to cross to get up to Carbondale. So rry conclusionis that while I think I feel that 531 the long term it might have beensomewhat better to have had at least one less district in that area, inthe overall picture the people themselves thou&& the problem through andrrade the kinds of hard decisions and sornetbs decisions they d.tdnftreally like. I sort of feel that southern Illinois is well served by thepattern of colleges that emerged down there out of two years of discussion.Q. If is quite a story and I am sure that you are very mindf'ul that youhave lots of reason to be grateful, that you can be as confident of theoutcame of all of this as you are, Gerry. Not that you should have expectedanything else. So often one does have to settle for less than whatone would like to do. For what it is warth, I have spent two days nowvisiting at Shawnee and I mst say that it seemed llke an anomally, acontradiction in terms sitthg out there on top of the hill out in themiddle of nowhere with no population around, but I must say this is orre ofthe mst interesting of the consnunity colleges that I have run into and Ihave m l y seen one that is as mch run like a taut ship as this one.These people know what they are doing and they are very responsive to thecodty. I am not offering judgment, I am simply making some cmentson what I have observed here.A. Well, I think the Shawnee district is serving people well. Wle weare talking about it we have to point ou6 maybe, we have in private before,that the Shawnee district has no population center mound which to filterand what population areas there are are on the outskirts, the fringes,therefore, they have to have a different delivery system and yet they havefound a campus which geographically is quite well located. I thMc it isjust about in the rdddle of the center of population, it is probably prettywell located, except that there is almost no population in sight of thecampus itself. Between the use of their central campus and thefr deliverysystem to such cormamities as Metropolis, Cairn, and up on the Anm-Jonesbcrro,I think they are serving their people very well.Q. I would summarize ~QJ Lrrpressions in this way. I had the very distinctfeel- that this college was really functioning more Fn keeping with thebasic purposes of the cornnunity college idea, than just about any otherone I have rwl into.1

Gerald W. Smith 341A. Well they are certainly doing a splendid Job of it.One more district was organized in 1967, out of territory not incluwany existing districts, namly in Lake County, the extreme northeasterncorner of the state. Thls district likewise was a year later in fhaldevelopment than had been anticipated by the organizers of the dristrict.In 1966, the people of Lake County submitted a petition to the StateBoard for the organization of a junior college district encompassing theCounty of Lake in toto: They simply used the county boundaries as theproposed district and on receiving it at the offices of the State Boardand in engaging In the study which the statutes required, it was the conclusionof the staff that this was an excellent proposal. Lake Countyis a populous county, and it has all of the characteristics needed tosupport a splendid, ccanprehensive cormunity college. Therefore, withoutmuch delay the staff recarmended the approval of thfs district to theState Board, and the Board did just that. It went to the Board trf HigherEducation and they also found that it was satisfactory and returned it,so it went to public hearing. But at the public hewing things came tolight that had not been brought to our attention insistently, namely,that there was considerable contmversy h the Lake County area aboutthe proposed district, and the controversy centered on the southwestcorn of the county and the southeast comer of the county. In thesouthwest corner the comnunity of Basrlngton, and in the southeast comerthe ccxmmmities of Lake Forest and Himland Park, where the contxoversieswere. At the public hearin@; which turned out to be a long one instead ofbeing conducted mutlnely in up to two to two and one-half howls in oneevenin@;, it took three evenings to hear all of the testimony with regardto the district. The people in the southwest comer of Barrwon objectedto being included in the proposed Lake County district. They had noobjections to a Lake County district as such. They just did not want tobe a part of it.It happens that the cowty line between Cook and Lake Counties is MainStreet in Baylrlngton, so half of the incorporated codty is in CookCounty and half of it is in Lake County and they live perpetually withthe problems that exist of being stretched across county lines. Thismant that a part of their c-ty was already in the William RaineyHarper dfstrict in Cook County, and it was their argument that the folkson the other side of the county would mt to go to BaYrington.mistaken about that, maybe the other part wasn't already in 8arrington.I'd better say I am not quite certain. But anyway, it was their judgementthat they wanted their corrrnunity all in one county and they hadalready made up their llllnds that; that was to be the William Ralney Harperdlstrlct, and so they cMmd that they had made their &shes knm tothe pup who had developed the feasibility study. They said they hadW e this clear at all tims. They also ccanplahed that they had beenignored, to a mat extent, in the development of the feasibility studyand they pouted out that, although we had a petition tn the Springfieldoffice with 5,000 s i ~ t on ~ it, s there were less than 24 from theireodty.Maybe I am

Gerald W.SmithThe petition really had not been circulated there, and they felt that jthey were being dragged into that proposed district against their will andwithout due consideration of their welfare,IIn the southeast corner of the district at Highland Park and Lake Foqst,the argwrrents presented at the public hearing were in a somewhat sin~Llarvein. The people at Hghland Park and Lake Forest said that at such th~as they might go into a c m t y college district, they believed thatthey would want to go with the New Trier High School and the EvamtonHigh School with the north shore area of Cook County, saying that firstof all that was their codty of interest; that generally speaking tothe north and northwest in Lake County which is more rural etc., they hadlittle identity; their ldentificatlon was with the North Shore corrmmitieson the Cook County side of the line. They all said their transportationpattern was to the south, that the large numbers of thek people worked inthe City of Chicago, that the transportation pattern moved in that direction,and therefore it was logical for them to go in that direction. They alsocomplained that they had been largely ipored in the development of thefeasibility plan, saykg agah that they have had very little participationor input into the development of the study, 'and that again when thepetition was circulated to pick up those 5,000 names, there was littlecirculation of It in their c m t y . As a result of their complaints, Ihad a secretary count the number of signatures I could find from LakeForest, Highland Park and Barrdngton on the petition; and at least to thatextent I found that their argwnents to be justified because In no casewere there more than a handml of sig-~tures f h m any one of those commmlties,and those were populous c~ities. As I remember it, the combinedsignatures of those 5,000 fkmn the three camunities (cormmities up inthat area are hard to deflne, as you how) but with the word Highland Park,with the word Lake Forest, with the word Barrington, I could find fewerthan a hundred of the three aombined, so I think that it was the truth.As a result of the controversial nature of the proposal it was recatmen-dation -- I go back agan to say that the Board already debated arecorrmendation -- it was recormendation that the finding should bethat it was not in the best Fnterest of the schools in the area or thepeople in the territory to allow that referendum. So, the Board on Nwewber 28, 1966 denied the orighal petition for a referendum. The peopleof Lake County then, other than in those areas, proceeded after that denialto revamp their feasibility study, leaving out those cormunities and thensubsequently in 1967 cam back with a new petition and with a new propsal for a district deleting the hi@ school districts of Lake Forest,Kighland Park, of Adlai Stevenson which is just to the west of there, andthat part of Barrington that was In the* county. Then, on the basis ofthe new petition and the new feasibility study, the Board did approve thehewing -- and I might say the next public hearing went very, very well --and so the people of Lake County then went to the polls on October 7, 1967which was 11months after our dental, and voted for the organization ofthe College of Lake County.Q. In the process of this second mu? thmugh of the petition,etc., werethe people Ln the areas that were excluded finally, were they given every1

Gerald W. Smith 343opportunity to declare that they did or did not want to be in on it?A. Yes, and they had in the first place, too.Q. You were satisfied then?A. Oh yes, on the basis of the hearing there was strong, tremendouslystrong support for a Lake County district. The only dissenters werethe representatives of those areas of which I mentioned.Q. Was it careless planning on the part of the people who had handledthe original petition?A. Well I wasn't there when they were doing it and I can't say honestly;I donlt think I would be justified in trying to decide whether it was alack of judgment, whether they misjudged the attitudes of the people, orwhether they guessed wrong, or whether they just felt if they went aheadand did it the people would do that. I might say that the County Superintendentof Schools for Lake County at that time was the senior CountySuperintendent in terms of tenure in the State of Illinois, and he enjoyedthe confidence of the people a peat deal. 1 think he really felt, Pornthe standpoint of his discussion, that probably the folks in those areaswould accept their inclusion even though they had not been involved. Ido not believe that he anticipated the repercussions that came fran that,but at any rate it was done. I rdght say that the people in the E3ar~lmgtonconmnunity did inmediately proceed to annex to the Harper district,but the people in the other areas then just remined outslde a juniorcollege district for a long time to cam.That brings us now to the development of the junior college districtsf'rm September of 1965, to the end of the calendar year of 1967, which istwo years and four months after the effectfve date of the C d t y CollegeAct and the work of the Board began. As we come, then, to January 1, 1968,or to the end of 1967, we find that there are in the State of Illinofsnow 33 c m t y college districts that have c m about by the processesthat I have described; the reorganization of the existing districts, 17of them, a part of a school district, 5 of them the new area type of districtscreated under the 1959 law; and the addition of 14 entirely newdistricts in the State of Illinois and as you know there are at present39 distrkts in Illinois, so that by the end of 1967 or the beginning of1968, 33 of those out of 39 had cane Into being. By this time as a resultof qy continuous study and work throughout the state, I was saying in 1967,in the fall of 1967, that I could see ultimately a statewide system ofc m t y colleges nwnbering not fewer than 40, nor more than 43. It wasbe@nriing to be that well defined with the state. I think n-y judgment myultimately be off by one district. I guess we do have the 39, we mightulthately have 40, and the mxbnm I can see is 41 now. The patternbegan to emerge, so it was very clear.Q. I think it is going to take quite awhile before we get 40.

Gerald W. Smith 344A. Well, maybe not as long as you would think with regard to that, aqdif we do, maybe that would be the only one. We will be talking aboutthose matters in the f'uture. Let me say that after 1967, only one digtrictcame Into existence in 1968, and then it was 1969 before there wasanother one.Before I leave this area of 1967, in order to keep chronicle campleteI think I would appreciate it if the typist would put this in the writtentranscript at the appropriate place with Zake County. The Board ofTrustees that was organized in or elected for the College of Lake Countyengaged Dr. Richard Erzen as the organizing president of that districtand as of the maklng of this chronicle he continues to be the presidentof that district.Q. Do you happen to recall about how old Dick was at the time he wasappointed?A. I would suppose that Dick was 35 years old, quite young because hestill is very youthf'ul looking. Yes, he had more experience than youmight think. He had had a period of years as the assistant principal ofthe Ridgewood Hi& School in Peoria, He had received his Doctorls deqeeat Illlnois State University and I believe had gone on the staff ofIllinois Valley College, so I would say he was in his early or middle30's.Q. Well he is a very capable and young looking man.Q. This discussion is now being continued on Monday morning, October 4,and we will conthe discussing the developmental pace of the variouscolleges in the codty college system, building on where we left offlast time. So, Gemy, I think we are ready to continue.A. Repeating what I think I have already said earlier, by the end of1967 there were 33 Class I districts in existence brought about by the establishmentof the 14 new districts created out of territory not includedin a junior college district, about which I have been speaking most recently,plus the reorganization of the existing districts at the time theAct was passed. In 1968 only one me district was added to the rosterfor Illinois, mly, the Spoon River district in Wlton County, in theCanton area, This was one of the reorganizations of an existing district,the story having been told when I was dealing with the cluster of districts.Fmrn the beginning of 1968 to the present, then, the organization of thedistricts has occu~"ed at a mch slower pace, as you know fkmn the factthat with the organization of the Spoon River dtstrict we had #34 andthere now only 39 districts in the state.Two new dfstricts were added in the calendar year 1969, one of these beingin Cook County, in the Niles Township area of Cook County and In NilesCenter, Morton- rove and in that general area, a district that is nowknown by the name of Oakton.

Gerald W. Smith 341This district was established by referendum on April 8, 1969. The activitiesin prepamtion for the organization of this district were spearh+adedby the superbtendents of the underlying school districts in that mfparticularly the Niles Township Hlgh School and the lvIaine Township HiSchool, arad they were the f"samework on ach this district was establ shed.A strong citizens' cormittee was recruited by the leaders in this rnovementand the proposed district was m e the subject of a feasibility study.There were no problems In connection wtth the 6-mnth procedure of a petftion,the study of the district, and the referendum, so the distrlct wasorganized. The organizing president elected by the Board of Trustees wasDT. William Koehnline. He came fYom somewhere in the East and as of thismrning is still the president of that college.The other college established in 1969, is the State C m t y College ofEast St. Louis. This is a special story that has to be told In its aw~lright because the organization was done by a procedure entirely diffelrent than the organization of any of the other districts in the state.The reason for a separate procedwe .gows out of the corditions that existin East St. Louis. As a prelude to the organization of the district, theactivities 9n that codty had begun in 1965. There was interest in thecollnrmnity of East St. Louis in the establishment of a cammmity collepdistrict, and as the Executive Secretaxy for the State Board, I firstattended a meet% called by the myor of East St. Louis in the winter of1966, to which he had invited representatives of East St. Louis and theccwnnunities of Cahokia and Dup'o to the south along the MssissLppi River,and LoveJoy, Pkdison, and Venice to the north. The meeting did not leadto any specific action.Q. Do you remember the name of the Mayor?A. Oh, yes, the name of the Mayor was Mr. Fields. He was a 10%-time myorof East St. Lous. No actlon grew out of that meeting, prh-mily becausethe Mayor f3m-11 Cahokia made it very clear that he was not in favor of hiscormunity being a mmer of any corrmnity college, either A new one inEast St. Louis OY in Belleville. At that time the people to the northwere interested in a feasibility study, but were in no speclal humy. Subsequentto this meeting a citizens1 codttee was formed in East St. Louisand began the development of a feasibility study. The chairman of thiscitizens' conknittee was the manager of the local power company, the IllinoisPower Company, whose offices are in East St. Louis. However, the man livedin Belleville. Two of the people in East St. Louis on this camittee wereMr. Wendell Wheadon and his wife, Rosetta Wheadon, both of whom playedvery actlve mles in years to come in the final establishment of a districtand in the operation of it once it was started.Q. In this connection I think it is time to say that Mrs. Weadon isActing President at the mament.A. As of this m nt, yes.

Gerald W. Srdth 346The feasibility study at Fast St. Louis was completed and the originalstudy enconpassed approximately the same area as had been represented 1,atthat meeting that I spoke of in 1966, but as time went on the area beconsidered tended to shrbk, Tor several reasons. First of all, thecomnauzity of Dupo and the one the most south down the river decided toseek annexation to the Bellealle Codty College and did petitionfor that annexation, and that annexation was completed. The cormunitiesto the north, the Brooklyn or Lovejoy Cmty, has both mes; I thinkthe offlcial name of the c m t y is Brooklyn but because there arethree Brooklym in Illinois, it was difficult to direct mail, so theyreferred to themselves as Lovejoy in honor the the great Lovejoy who waskilled, you know, in the slavery days. The people of Venice and Madison,as time went on, decided they were not interested In be- part of adistrict established there but would be looking Instead to the organizationof a district In Madison County; they would be to the north of them ratherthan coming south to Fast St. Louis. Again, as the feastbility study wasbeing completed and as the people in East St. Louis were preparbg thafrpetition, the leadership h Cahokia decided that they did not want to bepart of a district that would include East St. Louis, and so very quickly,I would say almost fYanctically, they decided to petition for annexationto the Belleville district. The purpose of this was to definitely avoidany chance of them being included with East St. Louis.Z"ne Cahokia woup filed their petition with the State Board prfor to theState Bcmdls receiving a petition from East St. Louis, under the counselof Mr. Lamer, the attorney for the Board. It had been a regular policyof the State Board from the very beginning that petitions had to be disposedof in sequence in which they were filed, so if there was any overlappingyou disposed of the earlier one first. That made it necessaxy forthe State Board to proceed with the processing of the Cahokia petitionfor annexation to Belleville. There had been considerable f'uror inBelleville over the potential of the fhture, they not wanting to haveEast St. hub, and they had been very unhappy when Dupo sought to annexto them even though it was only a commmity of about 2500 people and couldhave no great impact on them. The Belleville people saw this as a preludeto the whole river bottom coming into their district, Caholda and EastSt. Louis.Q. Was Dupo primarily a black cormmity?A. No, Dupo was not. These people were prhwily a white corrmunity.They had no objection to Dupo as such; they objected to what they thou@tmight be the sequence of that which would follow, Newspapers in Bellevillehad editorialized quite unfavorably wfth regard to my recmndatlonfor approval to the State Board of the Dupo petition originally and hadsimply said, at one t-, that they felt some of us were engaged in a conspiracyto force East St. Louis on them. I am using their language. Itravelled to Belleville and met with the edftors of the paper, and we hada very frank discussion but they had thii very great concern.

Gerald W. Smith 34 7When Cahokia petitioned for annexation, however, their fears were nolonger so great and they did not raise any objection to the Cahokiapetition. So the State Board really had no base on which to reject theCahoMa petition; therefore, the bard did call a public hearing and didlisten to the arguments of the Cahokia people.I might also put into the recoM that the public hearing lasted about twohorns. I do not recall any testimony in opposition to the proposal toannex to Belleville; however, the heavy burden of the testlrnony was negativein regard to any possibility of ever being put into East St. Louis.It was an anti-&st St. Louis story that the people told that night.Their concern about the large ghetto chwacter of East St, Louis; at thattime East St. Louis was getthg considerable publicity for snipem onroof buildings shooting at people, and for certain crime problems, andfor the character of the political problems down there; and so it was afear type of thlng. I might say when the matter did go to vote, the referendumcount in Cahokia for annexation to Belleville, (and these are notquite accurate figures) was in the magnitude of 2,000 yes against about90 no, so you would have thought they couldnft wait to get into theBelleville district, whereas really it was a clear indication of the fearfactor that existed in Cahokia with regard to possibly being includedin the East St. Louis district.Another factor related to the relationship between the annexation ofCahokia to Belleville and the proposed district for East St. Louis, dealtwith the little c m t y of Sauget, a village of about 300 in which ahuge monsanto chemical plant is located with an assessed valuation ofapproxhately $67,000,000. The Cahokia ccsnnaulity unit school districthcluded the village of Sauget and all of that plant. This area and thisassessed valuation were quite a critical factor with x-egard to the feasibilityof a separate East St. Louis district. I might say that I arguedwith the people at Cahokia that it seemed to me that, if they were sointerested in going to Belle~lle in order to avoid inclusion 5n a districtat Belleville, that surrender of that $67,000,000 assessed valuation mightnot be too high a price to pay, but they didn't see it that way, so theytook Sauget and the $67,000,000 assessed valuation with them. This,therefore, called for a review of the proposals in East St. Louis and itrrleant that once Cahokia had annexed to Belleville, that the area left,the viable area left, included the school district of East St. Louis whichdoes also carry some cmties in addition to East St. Louis; the schooldistrict is a little bit larger than the city. And the codty ofBrooklyn or Lovejoy, whichever you want to call it. As. the data were revilewedand a careful analysis made it becam apparent that the povertystricken ccemau?ity of East St. his with all of its econdc and socialproblems, that the ccmmanity just couldnft handle it. It would have takenan excessive tax rate and in that commmity at that time tax collections,you know, were much lower than the typical around the state.Q. But wasn't the assessed valuation of the property in East St. Zouishigh? Isn't there a lot of industry there, industrial plants?

Gerald W. Nth 348A. No, there are very few. The only industrial plmt M: major iis the Monsanto plant which is in the village of Saugkt-which was out idethe district. This left them without any major industrial plant,see, East St. Louis has picked up so much of the ghettos characterlst YO! csthat the city is dete~lorathg. Industry Is m0vTng out of the city, andh 1969 not only was industry moving out but the professional people werernovhg out of the city; the lawyers, the doctors, the dentists. Thesepeople were moving out to Bellevllle, up to Edwardsville, or across theriver to St. Louis. Everythhg was a negatlve factor. They did not havea strong educational base. They did have the headqmers of theIllinois Light and Power Corrrpany there and they did have, on the east side,the modified industries but none of overwhebbg strength.Q. The minority geography down there is quiet and decise but I havealways camied with me an image of a fa* sized steel mill down therewhich I thought was in the East St. Louis area but obviously it is not.A. No, there is not. There is a lmge stock yard in Brooklyn and a mjora@;rlculturalmay.ket for livestock. These things just do not exist.So the conclusion had to be aftewl the 1968 activity in Cahokia that itwas just not feasible to try to move ahead with a referendum in the district.They just couldn't handle the finances. We had felt that with theadded $67,000,000 of that power plant, again it would have been marginal,but we dLd feel that probably they could handle it. In his campaign forGovernor in 1968, Richard Ogilvie had pranked the people of East St. Louisthat, if elected Governor, he would give strong leadersh5p to provide themwith the benefits of a junior college. In essence he had really said thathe would see to it that they did get a c m t y college. I mention thisnow because this is an Inportant factor in the 1969 establishment of theState Carraraulity College of East St. Louis. In December, 7: believe it was,of 1968, Dr. Delyte Momis, President of Southern Illinois University,whose institution, of course, had been operating in the East St. Louisarea for a rimer of years and which institution had given strong leadershipto the codty of East St. Louis; you my recall that they had aprogram, a special p-llogram in East St. &is f& 100 individuals" whoseeducational baclqg-ound was weak.J3bD OF TAPE NINETEEN SIDE TWO

Gerald W. Smith 349Q. This is tape #20, October 4, 1976. Gerry, Just continue with yoqnarrative about East St. Louis.A. I&. Morris was quite Fnterested in what rrbght happen with regard tothe establishment of a junior college for East St. Louis and how it rxightbe done. Dr. Keith Sdth on the staff of the Ward of Higher Educationwas also interested in this matter, as was Dr. Glenny, the ExecutiveDirector,*and, of course, I had been involved in the continuous study ofthis distrtct since 1965. So in December of 1968, the three of us--Dr. Momis, Keith Sr~Lth and I --- met in our offices at the Illinois JuniorCollege Board for a meeting that lasted a day,The meting lasted a day to discuss wa~s and mans of providing a juniorcollege semrlce system facilities to the East St+ Louis cammity. We hadideas about needing some type of a special structure for the district--one that would be peculiarly suited to meet their needs. But we wereunable to determine a plan for firzancing it; and of course, none of us werein any position to really address ourselves to that problem.After Governor Ogilvie took office in January, he inmediately addressedWelf to the matter of the East St. Louis carmnardty college. He firstconferred with Mr. Jams Brolllan who had been the c- of the EducationCorranlttee for the Chamber of Comnerce, and was now the Exectutive Directorfor the Illinois Assocfatian of Junior Colleges.Q. How is that name spelled?A. B-R44-A4. Jim looked into the situation and wmte a memrandm tothe Governor, suggesting the problems down there and a plan for organizinga district which involved state fhances. I think it was about mch of1969 when I mceived a call in the office of the Junior College Board franthe Govemorls Office, inqufring what the State Board had done,about studyingthe East St, Louis situation, and I reported to them the work thatDr. Momis, Dr. Keith Smith and I had done, and outlined the nature of theproposal that we had discussed and said that we were prepared to explafm itto their office. Without any delay a representative from the Governor'sOffice on HLUKUI Relations came to office, and L gave him the report/ ofour earlier discussions. They took it back to Governor Ogilviels office--and taking the recomnendations that we wide plus those he had f'rm JamesBrm, the Governor concluded that there should be a special dispensationmade for East St. Louis. Dealing with the subject of finance, the Governorslsnply said that those people are unable to M c e themselves, and let'sjust have the state fbance the proposal in toto.So with that deci~io~made by the Governor our office was then requestedto draft legislation to create a special type of district In East. St.Louis, to be knawn as the State C m t y College of East St. Lmis, andto be totally financed and to be governed by the Illinois State ConmmltyCollege Board --- with stipulation that there should be an elected advisory

Gerald W. Smith 350board fmn within the East St. Louis conmmnity.And so, on the basis ofthe discussions to which I referred and the rmmorandum that we receivedf'rm the Governorts Office, owl office with the help of Nr. Lemner weqtto the Legislative Reference Bureau -- the bill writing arm of the Lelature -- with a request for the draft of a bill.Of course, the problem that we faced was one of the constitutionality/ofsuch a district because of the danger of it being described as tclassilegislationtwhen you did it for only one commity in the state. In ordelf. toovercane that the bill that was drafted pmvided that it was to be a dutyof the Illinois Cormunity College Board to establish, maintain, and operatean experImenta.1 junior college district to be known as the State ComrrnrnityCollege of East St. Louis, and the State Board was to fix its boundaries,except that Bst St. Louis had to be withh any boundaries that they fixed.Q. Who had the idea to do it this way?A. Well, I would say the idea of the bill was a combination of the think-Ing of the Legislative Reference Bureau, of Mr. Lmmr, of the Governor'sOffice, of the people that were involved. It was not the idea of theState Board to take on the role of operating a district. I want to pointout that the State Board accepted this responsibility without objection --they did not dew with regard to it, but it was not the idea of the StateBoard.The idea gew out of the t W g of the people that were together, andout of the push from the Governor's Office for a totally state-financeddistrict. So this was in the Act, then; if you want to read about EastSt. Louis, you go to an added duty in Article 11 of the C d t y CollegeAct with regard to the State Board. And, in essence, it provided that theState Board, would establish, mintain and operate an experimental juniorcollege to be known as the State Community College of East St. Louis. Theboundaries to be fixed by the State Board but to include the City of EastSt. Louis, and it also provided for an elected advisov board of sevenumbers in East St. Louis. It also provided that there were to be periodicreports to the Governor and the General Assembly on the prornatrs andproblems of the district, and subsequent recmndations with regard toa permanent structure of that district, but it really was just that sZmpleso far as the language of the law is concerned.The bill was introduced into the General Assembly under the sponsorship ofGovernor Ogilvie. It passed both Houses of the Legislature, and GovernorOgilvie signed the Act into law on August 8, 1969. The college openedwith an enrollment of approximately 1100 headcount on September 28, of thatfall. That is a story which I must tell. also.Q. So you opened with an 1100 headcount of students?A. Yes. The Governor was vwy much interested in having that college beginto serve the people as quckly as possible. So, s~taneously with the