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Title: Subject File, 1951-2001

ID: 11/16/1

Creator: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Office of Bioengineering

Extent: 3.0 cubic feet

Arrangement: Alphabetical

Languages: English [eng]

Subject files for the Bioengineering Department (1951-2001), including faculty and administrative correspondences, committee reports, department and faculty proposals, expense reports, research papers and summaries, and information on department programs, conferences and classes, regarding Allerton conferences, the department's executive committee, faculty member recruitment, grants and fellowships, the Lucille Markey Charitable Trust, proposals concerning the Beckman Institute, an MRI facility and an fMRI facility, Illinois Power, FIPSE, education technologies, and veterans' affairs, the ROT program, earth grant, and the public health service, and John Chato's research reports from the University of Cincinnati (1951). Significant correspondents include John Chato, Mike Chen, Richard Magin, and Joon Bu Park.

The Bioengineering office was created in 1973 when the Urbana-Champaign Senate approved a recommendation from the College of Engineering for the establishment of a bioengineering option. Because students in any of the engineering curricula were eligible to participate in this option, this office was placed under the control of the Dean of the College.¹ As of 1987 the bioengineering option was recognized as a special program in the College of Engineering. In 2003, the program was established as a department in the College of Engineering.² It is an interdisciplinary field that brings together engineering, biology, and medicine to study ways to improve the quality of human life.³ See also Record Group 11. An option in bioengineering is also offered by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. It is administered by the Department of Physiology and Biophysics and studies new techniques and devices to deal with specific medical problems.⁴

1. Board of Trustees Transactions, 57th Report, March 21, 1973, p. 234.

2. Board of Trustees Agenda Items, July 9, 2003.

3. 1987-89 Undergraduate Programs, University of Illinois, p. 180.

4. Ibid., p. 264.