University of Arkansas Fayetteville - Razorback Yearbook (Fayetteville, AR)

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Board of Trustees The Governor of Arkansas. Ex-Officio Chairman Hon. Charles H. Brough, Little Rock. The State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Ex-Officio Hon. J. L. Bond, Little Rock. First District Hon. James K. Browning. Piggot Second District Hon. H. L. Ponder. Walnut Ridge Third District Hon. Z. Lytton Reagon. Fayetteville Fourth District Hon. James D. Head. Texarkana Fifth District Hon. Frank Pace... Little Rock Sixth District Hon. A. B. Banks. Fordyce Seventh District Hon. Joe K. Mahoney. FA Dorado

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Growth of the University of Arkansas T HK University of Arkansas was opened in 1872. It enrolled the first year 16 collegiate students. Although founded as an agricultural and mechanical college, and called for many years the Arkansas Industrial University, almost the entire curriculum was composed of courses in literary and scientific subjects. Very little work in agriculture or engineering was offered. In the twenty years from 1872 to 1892, the attendance of college students had grown from 16 to 168, and the number of members of the faculty had also increased to a considerable extent. In 1892, the University was still adminis¬ tered as one division which comprised the work of all departments. The col¬ legiate faculty, which consisted of all professors and associate professors in the University, numbered less than twenty. Ten years later, the student enroll¬ ment had grown to 234 in the collegiate department. In 1907 it was 530, and in 1912 there were 712 college students. During the twenty years from 1892 to 1912. the requirements for entrance to the freshman class remained almost stationary. At the beginning of that period, the requirements were about two years of high school work, and. n 1912 the University was still taking boys and girls from the grammar schooigjgiving them two years of high school work in its preparatory department andr putting them into the freshman class. Since 1912, the preparatory department has been dropped and the requirements for entrance to the freshman class have been raised to the standard 14 units or four year high school course. In spite of the great increase in entrance requirements, the attendance of students had in 1915-16 reached 812, of whom 724 were of college grade, according to the increased standard of entrance. The growth of the institution has within the last ten years been such as to make necessary a division of the University into colleges, and we now have four such divisions; namely, Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Agriculture, and Education, each presided over by a dean, who is the administrative officer for his college. The membership of the combined faculties is about 75. In spite of financial disabilities of the state, the University has grown also in material resources and equipment. It now has twenty brick and stone build¬ ings with reasonably good equipment for all departments and with an adequate corps of well trained, competent specialists in its teaching force. The legislature of 1917 has treated the University very generously. It passed appropriation bills for the University carrying total amounts greater by $141,000 than any previous legislature. It also passed an act levying a special tax of four-ninths of one mill for the support of the University, and when this tax becomes available, it will Iving in on the present valuation of the state about $200,000 a year. In the last four years, the University has greatly increased its activities in the way of extension work. It is now carrying on extension work in agriculture and home economics in all the counties of the state and is coming in direct contact with the people of the state at many points. With regard to student attendance it may be said that the University of Arkansas enrolled students this year from seventy of the seventy-five counties in the state; that, considering only the subjects and departments located at Fay¬ etteville, it has more students than any other college or university in the southern states except two; that, in the last nine years, its enrollment of students of standard college grade has increased more than 200 per cent. No further back than five year ' s, graduates of the University of Arkansas who desired to enter the great post graduate schools of the United States were required to do one or two vears of extra work in order to obtain an advanced degree. At the present time, a graduate of the University of Arkansas who entered with 14 or more standard high school units, is admitted to the greatest post graduate schools of the country on the same basis as the graduates of the leading universities of the United States.