STATEMENT BY JAMES J. STUKEL
PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
RE: FY 01 STATE BUDGET

The State of Illinois has taken a huge step toward its quest to become the leading high-technology state in the heartland with the General Assembly's enthusiastic endorsement of Gov. George Ryan's visionary VentureTECH initiative.

Both the VentureTECH plan and strong support for our operating budget reflect a deep understanding of the University of Illinois' special role in economic development and in educating the workforce for the new century.

Our operating budget increase will support both special salary enhancements for valued faculty and filling key faculty vacancies, will allow significant improvement at our libraries, and will underwrite other academic programs to benefit our students.

Under the VentureTECH plan, state appropriations to the Capital Development Board will permit planning for several projects that both take advantage of major strengths of the University and position the State of Illinois for dynamic and sustainable growth in the technology sector.

• The National Center for Supercomputing Applications, already the leading supercomputing center in the nation, will be poised to leverage hundreds of millions of new federal and corporate dollars, thanks to a new facility on the Urbana-Champaign campus, with planning funds approved in this budget.
• A new Post-Genomics Institute, also on the Urbana-Champaign campus, will exploit and expand the University's biotechnology capabilities in an enormously competitive scientific environment. Both planning and strategic hiring funds were approved in this budget.
• An MRI facility on the Chicago campus will house the world's most powerful research magnetic resonance imaging device, creating the opportunity to examine body processes at the atomic level, paving the way for 21st Century treatment and drugs.

At our Springfield campus, some key planning funds will enable our smallest campus to add an important classroom building, vastly improving our teaching and learning space for our students. And the proposed Siebel Center for Computer Science at Urbana-Champaign will benefit from planning funds, as well.

On behalf of the University of Illinois-its students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends-I want to thank Governor Ryan, the legislative leadership and the entire General Assembly for their foresight and their confidence in us.

-UI-