Growth and Growing Pains

During a December 1926 meeting of the University of Omaha Trustees, attention was directed toward faculty discontent relative to University facilities. Faculty members were invited to communicate their concerns. The faculty responded by providing the trustees with a set of resolutions. They also invited the trustees to review such things as crowded classrooms, science facilities, and the library. Faculty members were especially disturbed by the paucity of library holdings.

Our library, while containing a number of useful volumes, is largely built up of cast-off remnants of private libraries, books mostly unsuitable to college use, and is almost wholly lacking in books of reference, both technical and literary. We urge the board to remember that a library is the heart of a school, and that with so meager a collection of books, the process of learning must be greatly impaired.

The University of Omaha enrolled 968 students in 1926. The trustees prepared a statement regarding the economic impact of the institution on Omaha's economy. They estimated that since its founding in 1908, over $1.4 million had been spent on real estate acquisitions. Further, students and staff helped the local economy by spending at least $2.6 million for a variety of personal needs during 1925.