NIU’s president criticized opposition to the Rockford extension site Wednesday.

President John La Tourette told the Faculty Senate why he disagrees with a group called Build on Rockford, that is trying to get the proposed Rockford branch built in the downtown area.

“The students we serve in Rockford neither work nor live downtown,” La Tourette said. “You cannot operate on lack of interest.”

La Tourette called the group trying to renovate downtown Rockford “know-nothings” because they think the NIU branch would offer general education degrees and vocational programs.

The Rockford branch would in fact offer graduate level courses, he said. NIU also would be willing to work with the school district and Rock Valley College to give them assistance, but NIU’s branch would not be a “primary delivery” school.

Philosophy Professor Sherman Stanage said NIU should not neglect minorities while looking toward the future, including off-campus projects like the Rockford campus.

NIU should be focusing more energy on helping inner-city students, said law Professor Rodolphe De Seife.

“We shouldn’t feel we’re so far removed that we can’t be in downtown Rockford,” Stanage said. “Demographics show the minorities will have a need in the (NIU) vision statement.”

In other senate business, a paper titled “External Programming at NIU” written on June 28 last year by Provost Kendall Baker was examined.

The memo, addressed to NIU deans and the library director, “was the document that was used to communicate Dr. Baker’s decision on restructuring the College of Continuing Education,” said former Dean of the College of Continuing Education William Young.

Part of the external programming plan includes proposed NIU branches in Rockford and Hoffman Estates.

La Tourette assured the faculty that though these branches would be built off-campus, faculty would not be asked to join the new facilities if they didn’t want to.