University of Illinois - Illio Yearbook (Urbana Champaign, IL)

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HHHHHH ■■ wmKM THE COLLEGE OF LAW Dean Albert James Harno Legal education has undergone some rapid changes since the last century. Even in the beginning of the present cen- tury, preparation for the bar was still largely through the apprenticeship method. Today the modern law school, with its staff of instructors, has almost completely taken over the field, and the period of required study has been substantially lengthened. This period may be divided into two stages, the pre-legal, which involves from two to four years of college work, and the professional, which covers three years of in- tensive work in an approved law school. Also bar examina- tions, which at one time were but pro forma institutions, have become hazardous occupations. All these, beyond their significance as educational agencies, are effective screening devices through which only the finer materials are permitted to pass. The College of Law of the University of Illinois is one of the recognized and approved law schools of the country. It requires for entrance a minimum of three years of college work at the University (for those entering from other col- leges and universities, the requirement is a degree) of a stated quality. Albert James Harno, Dean of the College of Law, is now serving his seventh year as Provost of the ijniversity. He was born January 30, 1889 in Holabird, South Dakota. After his graduation from Dakota Wesleyan University in 1911, Dean Harno went to Yale where the Bachelor of Laws degree, Magna Cum Laude, was conferred upon him in 1914. He practiced law in Los Angeles until 1917, when he went to Topeka, Kansas to become the Dean of Washburn College of Law. Two years later he went to the Uni- versity of Kansas, where he served as Professor of Law. He came to the University of Illinois in 1921 to fill the position of Professor of Law. He was appointed Dean of his college in 1922. 1931 Page 31

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THE COLLEGE OF EDUCATION Dean Thomas Eliot Benner Thomas Eliot Benner, Dean of the College of Education, was born in Danvers, Massachusetts, February 11, 1894. He received his first degree from Harvard in 1914 and, in 1924, the degree of Doctor of Education. After serving as statistician and editor for the Alabama State Department of Education, he became the acting dean of the College of Education at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute. He was also Chan- cellor of the University of Puerto Rico (1924-29) and visiting professor at Columbia University (1929-31). Since 1931 he has been the Dean of the College of Education at the University of Illinois. He has served on a committee of the state legislature which investigated vocational education in Illinois, and as chairman of the advisory committee to the Educational Commission of the 1935 legislature. Among his activities are Phi Delta Kappa, Kappa Delta Pi, and offices in several national professional organizations. One of the major functions of the College of Education is to contribute to the building up of better relationships between the University of Illinois and the public schools of the State in the interests of the million and one-half pupils in the public schools of the State. The more effec- tively the University performs in its relationship to the public schools, the more certainly it can count upon the kind of good will which will result in bringing to the University the most promising of their graduates. The College of Education, which is in a sense a liaison office between the public schools and the University, had its origin in 1893 in the influence of Charles de Garmo, Professor of Psychology. This resulted in the creation of a chair of Pedagogics and the selection of Dr. Frank Martin McMurray as its first occupant. In 1900 a Department of Education was set up which became, in 1907, the School of Education and later, in 1918, received its present title, the College of Education. At the same time, the Bureau of Educational Research was established. The College contributes to the preparation of teachers, supervisors, principals, superintendents, and teachers of education in colleges and universities. 1937

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THE COLLEGE OF FINE AND APPLIED ARTS Dean Rexford Newcomb Training in the Fine Arts was provided in the original plans for the University of Illinois and courses of instruc- tion in Art and Architecture were offered early in the his- tory of the institution. Courses in Music also were intro- duced early and the School of Music was organized in 1897. Training in Landscape Architecture has been offered for the past quarter century. Thus there has grown up at the Uni- versity strong departments offering instruction in each of the major Fine Arts. For a number of years it was felt that these Fine Arts in- terests should be brought into closer relationship but this was not possible until 1931 when the College of Fine and Applied Arts was constituted by a grouping of the depart- ments of Art, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and the School of Music. To these was added the Bureau of Com- munity Planning in 1934. The College enrolls some six hundred profesional stu- dents annually and offers ten curricula in the various branches of the arts. These curricula are so framed that the student obtains as wide a training in liberal studies as is compatible with the laying of firm foundations in the par- ticular art which he proposes to practice. SuuJtus jJO Rexford Newcomb, Dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts, is the first head of this college which was organized in 1931. He was born at Independence, Kansas, and received his preliminary college training at the University of Kansas. Next the Dean came to Illinois where he obtained the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Architecture. From there he transferred to the University of Southern California where he received the degree of Master of Arts. His academic studies were supplemented by wide travel in both Europe and the Orient. For five years Dean Newcomb served as Director of the Department of Fine and Applied Arts at Long Beach Polytechnic (California), and for four years as Director of Adult Education and Principal of the Long Beach Evening High School. Before returning to Illinois in 1918, he served on the faculties of the University of Southern California and the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College, holding professorships at both. Dean Newcomb has written many magazine articles and some eleven books concerning the fine arts. Page 32 1937