1957-07-01

              IUCKMOE MORAL UBRAKT
ILLINOIS WESLEYAN WVERSIT1
JUL 31 1957
Illinois Wesleqan Universitq Bulletin
ALUMNI ISSUE JULY, 1957
President's Report
President Merrill J. Holmes and General Carlos P. Romulo leading the academic procession to Illinois Wesleyan's 98th
Commencement exercises.
It is a privilege to prepare a report to the
alumni of Illinois Wesleyan University on the
experience of the year now closing. There is a
problem of strategy in public relations which
arises whenever such a report is undertaken,
whether it be to Trustees, to alumni, to the com-munity
of Bloomington-Normal, to the Method-ist
Conference, to corporations which have re-cently
made gifts to the college, or to the general
public. This is the problem: How does one pre-sent
a fair and balanced statement of good
achievement on one hand and of growing oppor-tunity
and urgent needs on the other hand? It
is easy to present the achievements, for much is
to be said on this side of the report. But if
cnly achievements are presented, it is easy for
the public to assume that things are going so
well that we can all rest on our oars. However,
if a tale is told primarily of an opportunity for
greater service and urgent needs which can be
met only by prompt and generous giving, there
can be another reaction - one of weariness be-cause
of renewed requests.
In this report we shall endeavor to give a rea-sonable
balance between good achievements and
urgent and developing needs. We hope your re-action
will be one of gratification for progress
made, and also enthusiasm for the still larger
program which lies ahead.
Here is a primary question which any one per-son
may ask concerning the reaction of people
in other groups. "How do students, faculty, Trus-tees,
the townspeople, and corporation officials
making gifts to Wesleyan, feel about the work
of the college?" As a matter of fact, members of
all of these groups have been making very favor-able
comments about the year's work at Wes-leyan.
Here are some of the facts about student
activities and achievements and the program at
IWU that underlie that judgment.
GIFT