sentences:  Motivated by financial difficulties of the Great Depression, both presidents envisioned the efficiencies to be achieved by merging the eighth-largest university in the nation by enrollments (Northwestern's approximately 14,000 students) with the 15th (Chicago's approximately 12,000 enrollments) and creating a three-campus system with graduate work based out of the Hyde Park campus, professional schools on Northwestern's newly opened Chicago campus, and undergraduate professional and liberal arts education on the Evanston campus.There were significant synergies to be achieved under the proposal, since Northwestern's poorly endowed Graduate School and School of Education would be assumed by Chicago's more prestigious programs while Chicago's unremarkable schools of law, commerce, and continuing education would be merged with Northwestern's more respected programs.The initial proposal was so secret that the investigatory committee was titled the "Special Committee on an Important Problem" but by November 1933 the proposal had become public knowledge and created a strong backlash among Northwestern students, faculty, and alumni as well as members of the Evanston community.