The construction of the Superconducting Super Collider in Texas, in accordance with the tentative decision of John Herrington, secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, could have a negative effect on NIU’s present advantages.

The SSC is a 53-mile underground tunnel that will replace the Tevatron at Fermilab, located in Batavia, as the world’s most powerful atomic particle accelerator.

Herrington will announce the final, official site for the super collider in January.

Kenneth Beasley, assistant to NIU President John LaTourette, said the super collider being constructed in Texas “will have a negative effect, unfortunately,” on NIU.

“The best physicists who are doing advanced research in high energy physics will want to go to the most powerful machine,” Beasley said. The SSC is expected to be constructed by the year 2,000 and Beasley said NIU will not be affected until the collider is constructed.

Rep. John Countryman, R-DeKalb, said the super collider’s construction in Texas “takes away from the great potential” of NIU and its physics department. “One academic community spurs another academic community,” he said. If the SSC was built in Illinois it would “boost” NIU’s academic community.

NIU has four physicists working at Fermilab who are full-time faculty members, Beasley said. He said NIU students have the opportunity to work at Fermilab part-time during the school year and also during summer break.

Physics department Chairman Richard Preston said the SSC’s Texas site will have the biggest effect on NIU undergraduates. “We are the only university that can send undergraduates to Fermilab,” Preston said. NIU is “better off” than other universities by having Fermilab within driving distance, which allows students to use its facilities, he said.

Beasley said, “The physics department will continue, but the opportunity to build a strong high-energy program will be limited” if the SSC is ultimately constructed in Texas.

If the Texas site is chosen for the SSC, NIU physicists will have to leave the university for long periods of time to do research there, Preston said. “People go where the accelerator is. Right now, it is very nice (for NIU physicists) to commute between here and Fermilab,” he said.

Faculty members from other universities travel to Fermilab to do their research so there is “no reason” why NIU faculty would not commute to Texas, Preston said.

Because the SSC is not expected to be constructed for about 10 years, physicists will continue to work at Fermilab after the super collider is constructed, Preston said. Physicists are currently working on research projects that they will not have completed by the time the SSC is built, he said.

Preston said he does not expect that NIU will lose any of the physics faculty members because of the SSC site determination. “I am pretty confident we can keep them here,” he said.