County Clerk Terry Desmond asked the Student Association Sunday to endorse placing the Superconducting Super Collider in Illinois.

“We need input from people like you with impact to send letters and petitions to the president of the United States,” Desmond said.

Desmond said Illinios is one of seven states being considered for the super collider site. He said Illinois has a chance to be one of the top three locations when the choices are narrowed down.

“Funding for the $4.5 billion collider is one of the greatest federal endeavors in the history of the government,” Desmond said. It is the biggest federal project ever committed and will operate on a $250 annual budget, he said.

If built in Illinois, the collider would be an extension of the accelerator of Fermilab in Batavia, Desmond said.

He said the super collider will benefit the Illinois economy and will be an advantage to NIU. Construction of the super collider, which will take seven years, will add more than 7,000 jobs for labor and more than 3,000 specialized jobs will be retained.

“What it will do to the University of Illinois and this institution will be mind staggering,” Desmond said. The collider would bring great scientific minds to the area, and many of the the scientists might teach at NIU, he said.

The decision on where to locate the collider will be made in January 1989 by the U.S. Department of Energy, and construction of the collider will begin in 1990, Desmond said.

SA senator Joe Annunzio said he and other interested members of the senate will make a resolution and present it to the Feb. 21 senate meeting.

In other business, Student Regent Nick Valadez said the Board of Regents endorsed a “reasonable budget” by the Illinois Board of Education. The IBHE’s budget recommendation amounted to $1.8 million, a 16.7 percent increase from last year.

He said Illinois governor Jim Thompson said he has given up his leadership role and will not do anything about asking for a tax increase.

Valadez said if students want a tax increase to get funding they will have to do it themselves, otherwise tuition will increase again. “We have to fight for ourselves in a year when there is going to be an election,” he said.

“The real story is that it doesn’t look good, and it doesn’t look like it will get any better,” he said.

Already teachers are leaving because the salaries offered by NIU are not in competition with salaries of universities in neighboring states, Valadez said.

He said there is an NIU recommendation to increase professors’ salaries by 10 percent. However, he said there was no raise last year, which averages to be a five percent increase for last year and a five percent increase for this year. He also said the recommendation is in jeopardy because Gov. James Thompson has not decided on whether to accept the recommendation.