University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Division of General Studies | University of Illinois Archives

As approved by the Trustees on June 8, 1939,¹ the Division of General Studies was established in 1940² to offer undergraduates a four-year "non-departmental" program in liberal education, with a provision that the curriculum be regarded as "tentative and subject to continuous study and possible revision."³ The division's purpose was to promote the ideal of the "well-rounded man" by offering a balanced program in the sciences and humanities to those students who wished to have a general introduction to learning and culture before entering upon more specialized training or who had conflicting inclinations toward different professions.⁴ The freshman and sophomore curriculum consisted of seven general courses, whereas juniors and seniors chose one of four fields of concentraion for a total of 32 semester hours in the chosen field, (15 semester hours in one department of that field.)⁵  Those students who met the requirements and had a minimum of 120 semester hours of credit received a B.A. degree from the division.⁶ In 1945, upon a recommendation made in 1943, the Trustees reduced the program to a two year course of study aimed at setting up a curricula of basic, general well-balanced courses for students who have never completed college, or thos desiring a preliminary orientation before entering another division, college, or professional school.⁷ Major revisions were introduced into the program in 1961,⁸ and in 1962 the certificate of Associate in Arts was discontinued "because of lack of interest."⁹ In 1968, the division was discontinued entirely due to a serious problem of "self-identity" and its courses and functions made a primary administrative responsiblity of the Committee on General Education in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The College offered instead a two-year general curriculum in which freshmen and sophomore students could register according to their own option rather than select a departmental major.¹⁰ Operations were terminated in 1969.

1. Board of Trustees Transactions, 40th Report, June 8, 1939, p. 349.

2. University of Illinois Annual Register, 1940-41, pp. 262-63.

3. Board of Trustees Transactions, 40th Report, June 8, 1939, p. 347.

4. University Archives, RS 15/11/24, Harold R. Wanless Papers, 1916-1970, Box 4, "A Well-Balanced Program," p. 2.

5. "A Well-Balanced Program," pp. 2, 5.

6. "A Well-Balanced Program," p. 6.

7. Board of Trustees Transactions, 43rd Report, June 30, 1945, pp. 513-14, and November 23, 1945, p. 918.

8. Board of Trustees Transactions, 51st Report, September 21, 1961, pp. 1087-88.

9. Board of Trustees Transactions, 51st Report, April 18, 1962.

10. Board of Trustees Transactions, 54th Report, April 17, 1968, p. 996.