NIU’s major research projects all are not performed on campus.

NIU’s Social Science Research Institute, located on 3rd and Locust streets in DeKalb, has conducted several research projects since it was founded in 1980, said Paul Kleppner, director of the institute.

Kleppner said the institute is composed of five offices: the Center for Governmental Studies, the Public Opinion Laboratory, the Program for Biosocial Research, the Laboratory for Cartography and Spatial Analysis, and the Health-Promoting Behavioral Program.

“The Center for Governmental Studies does public policy research and some public service, such as with the Illinois City Manager’s Association,” Kleppner said.

The institute’s Public Opinion Lab conducts computer-assisted telephone polls, he said. For example, the lab took a national poll on support for the space shuttle program after the Challenger disaster two years ago.

The Public Opinion Lab recently received a $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation for a five-year longitudinal study, measuring the attitudes of seventh graders toward science and math through high school. “The size of this grant shows the scale on which we are able to work,” Kleppner said.

The Biosocial Research program is the headquarters of the Association for Politics and Life Sciences and is responsible for publication of their journal, he said. “This office does research which focuses on the impact of aging on political decision-making for the National Institute of Health,” Kleppner said.

He said the cartography lab is connected to the NIU Geography Department as an instructional program. The lab also does some contract work. Kleppner said the program’s new political atlas of Illinois, with maps of the state legislative districts and statistics for each, was delivered from the NIU press just last week.

The health promotion office is a “preventive” program to “inform people how they should modify their behavior for better health,” Kleppner said. Students from the NIU School of Nursing staff the program, which is involved in researching physical fitness programs for various corporations.

Kleppner said the institute is a benefit to NIU in making research activity possible on a large scale.

He said the institute is a “multi-disciplinary research environment, supporting the research activities of the social sciences.”

Expansion throughout the institute’s first eight years created a need for more space, so the institute added a 7000-square- foot addition last summer.

“We experienced a period of rapid growth from having four or five offices to the large building we are in now and from a handful of people to our present staff size,” Kleppner said. He said the institute employs about 15 professional staff members and 35 NIU faculty, in addition to a number of NIU graduate students.

Kleppner said, “We support about three dozen graduate students in areas such as math, computer science and education.” He said the institute provides these students with a salary and some facility use for their research, which is often helpful in graduate degree coursework.

The institute provides space and facilities, such as computer access, for social science projects in the DeKalb area.

“As always, money is the critical factor,” Kleppner said. The Institute gets its funds from “a small return on the indirect costs associated with our grants and contracts. Direct costs are, literally, what is required for the research. Indirect costs are the costs of administering the activity, such as the building and lights,” he said.

The institute receives 12 percent of its indirect costs, with the remainder going to the university. Kleppner said only a few private donors have given money to the institute, but even that small number surprises him “since we are relatively new.”