The Board of Regents Friday approved NIU’s request for $500,000 for fiscal year 1989 to develop a Ph.D. program in physics.

Before the Regents meeting, Chancellor Roderick Groves said he was sure the funding request would be approved.

“I think everyone is behind the physics program, and I’m positive the Regents will vote to give them the money,” Groves said.

NIU has temporarily withdrawn its request to the Illinois Board of Higher Education for authority to offer a physics doctorate. NIU Graduate Dean Jerrold Zar said $750,000 originally was requested for the first year, and about $2 million was requested over the next five years. The $500,000 is for developmental work so the physics department can build up the existing program, Zar said.

NIU Provost Kendall Baker said he does not know how long it will be before the department can offer the Ph.D. degree.

“Everything depends on the plan the physics department develops. They are anxious to get the program so I’m sure they’ll work hard for it. I know the administration is totally committed to the proposal,” Baker said.

ichard Preston, chairman of the physics department, said, “We need to build the program so we can offer a good doctoral degree. We’re going to take it one year at a time.”

Preston said the department plans to use the $500,000 to hire more faculty and lab technicians, add graduate assistants, purchase equipment and increase the number of journals the library gets for the department.

Most faculty members have research relationships with FermiLab or Argonne National Laboratory. Preston said new professors will also have research they are working on, and they will need to “start from scratch with new equipment so their research can be up-to-date.”

Baker said NIU administrators decided to expand the program before requesting doctoral degree authority and they believe the IBHE will be receptive to this approach.

“Normally, when degree approval has been requested, the program has already been built to doctoral level. But there are extraordinary equipment costs associated with physics, and we currently don’t have the resources to develop the program to what we consider doctoral readiness,” Baker said.