With the end of the war every effort was made to bring the University
back to normal conditions as soon as possible. The speedy demobilization
of the S.A.T.C. made advisable the abandonment of the plan of a year of
four quarters and the semester system was restored by February. The
members of the Faculty gradually returned during the year, and by the
fall of 1919 everything was as usual, save for the extraordinary
enrolment, which totaled 8,057 students on the Campus during the year,
with a grand total of 9,401 in all, including the Summer Session. This
increase was largely due to the men returning from service to finish
their abandoned work, or to take up a belated University course. Eighty
men who had been wounded were sent by the Government Rehabilitation
Division.
Such an unprecedented number of students, which was larger by 1,500 than
ever before, naturally brought with it many difficult problems,
particularly in living accommodations. These difficulties were
aggravated by the sharp rise in room rent and board, which brought
hardship in many cases and was only adjusted by the prompt action of the
Rooming Bureau of the Michigan Union, which made a complete survey of
the city and brought pressure to bear in cases of outrageous
profiteering. Equally difficult proved the question of teachers and
class rooms in the University. This was only solved after many new
instructors were engaged, a difficult matter at so late a period in the
year, and the creation of many emergency class rooms. Special credits
were also given the men returning from service, in some cases as high as
fifteen hours, equaling a semester's work, in recognition of their
special war-time experience and training and the new earnestness and
appreciation of what a university education meant, with which they
returned to their class rooms and laboratories.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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