Despite NIU’s continuing budget strain, a record amount of funds will be devoted to faculty research this summer.

NIU President John La Tourette announced during the University Council’s last meeting that the NIU administration has found another $50,000 to add to a previously allocated $125,000 aimed at “scholarly research and artistic projects” for the summer of 1993.

The $175,000 will support a record number of faculty stipends to maintain 52 NIU faculty members in research projects, said Jerrold Zar, dean of the NIU Graduate School and associate provost for Graduate Studies and Research.

This year’s funds amount to more than four times the amount allocated to summer research in 1992. Zar described the $40,000 in funds allocated to summer research in 1992 as “an absolute disaster because the budget was hit so hard.”

Zar also noted the total funding is “significantly larger than the previous high of $150,000 that was available in the last decade.”

Another $66,000 also will be contributed to non-salary faculty research expenses such as paying graduate assistants, travel expenses and printing.

The budget for summer research fluctuates greatly because “there is no ongoing budget for the summer research,” Zar said. Funds that are devoted to the summer are budget surplus found by La Tourette.

Zar said this summer’s budget is high because of an increase of funds brought in by NIU’s research projects and an in-house “standard policy.

“We had agreed all along that units that engage in research and public funding, if they gain money, it will be turned toward other research projects,” Zar said.

He said that refunding successful research units will be in line with the Illinois Board of Higher Education’s call to streamline state universities and emphasize undergraduate education.

“It is conforming to (streamlining), because what they’re telling us is the state money should be geared toward the state’s interests,” Zar said. “What we’re using are funds obtained through research. This is helping to do what the Illinois Board of Higher Education has suggested.”