The recent U.S. Department of Energy decision to construct the proposed $4.4 billion Superconducting Super Collider in Texas, coupled with inadequate state funding for higher education, could negatively affect the multi-university at the College of DuPage.

The proposed multi-university would consist of many Illinois colleges and universities providing scientific and technological education at the COD campus.

Kenneth Beasley, assistant to NIU President John LaTourette, said, “The multi-university concept would bring together the institutions as well as the expertise of Argonne (Laboratory, located in DuPage County) and Fermilab (located in Batavia).

“The SSC would have brought high-tech education to the multi-university,” Beasley said.

NIU Provost Kendall Baker said constructing the SSC in Texas “does not exclusively” affect the multi-university. He said the lack of state funding for higher education in Illinois is the main reason for the slow development of the multi-university.

“The super collider is going to take many years to construct in Texas, and Fermilab will continue to attract researchers and corporations” to the research and development corridor, Baker said.

There still will be a need for higher education in the corridor without the super collider, he said.

“The higher education needs of the western suburbs are still there” and NIU will continue to support its existing projects, Baker said. “The expansion of the western suburbs is not exclusively related to Fermilab or high energy physics,” he said.

The multi-university, however, “cannot develop without additional funding from the state of Illinois,” Baker said.

He said NIU would like to participate in the development of the multi-university, but NIU administrators currently are not looking for outside funding to support it.

Tom Montiegel, vice president for development and alumni relatons, said building the super collider in Illinois “would have given us another argument” to get more state funding for higher education. But “there are still a massive number of technical employees along the corridor,” he said.

NIU needs state funding for off-campus, high-tech education because a large sum of money is required to establish the necessary fixed sites and to purchase engineering and technological equipment, Montiegel said.

He said the higher educational programs in the western suburbs include courses in education and health care, but there are very few technical courses offered.

NIU is not offering the off-campus technical education “that we’d like to,” Montiegel said. The Illinois Institute of Technology, located in Chicago, “is developing and filling the spaces where technological education is needed,” he said.

IIT recently has received a private donation to begin construction of the first college building in the corridor.