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Contact: Tom Parisi, NIU Office of Public Affairs
(815) 753-3635

October 27, 2003

Manzullo: NIU will get funding to work
with Rockford museum on dinosaur project

Rockford, Ill.--Congressman Don Manzullo (R-Egan) is helping Northern Illinois University strengthen its ties to the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford, home of the celebrated 65-million-year-old dinosaur fossil known as Jane.

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean Frederick Kitterle was on hand Monday morning in Rockford as Manzullo announced that he has secured $1 million to advance plans for the Burpee Museum campus and research center.

That figure includes $100,000 for NIU to bolster its collaboration with the museum on the dinosaur project. Manzullo said the House and Senate are expected to vote on the funding in the next few weeks before sending it to the President for his signature.

"The incredible find of the unique Jane by Burpee paleontologists offers our region a one-in-a-million tourism and educational opportunity," Manzullo said during his keynote address at the annual breakfast of the Rockford Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. "With a little help from Northern Illinois University, the new museum campus and research center would become one of the foremost places in the world to study and view paleontology."

With the discovery of Jane, Burpee is expecting about 115,000 visitors this year--and the dinosaur isn't even on full display yet. However, visitors can watch as the bones are prepared and assembled in a viewing laboratory. Burpee Museum officials plan to build a new campus around the dinosaur exhibit and connect a research and educational center.

"The bottom line for me is to have this be the beginning of a permanent relationship with NIU," said Burpee Museum President Lew Crampton. "We talked with other universities in Chicago, but it just seems to me NIU is the obvious connection. We have a great working relationship."

Kitterle said NIU is excited to be working with the museum, responsible for one of the most important North American dinosaur finds of the last century. "Already there has been successful collaboration between Burpee Museum and NIU on the excavation of Jane," Kitterle said. "Federal support will help to further strengthen our collaborative research ties."

Burpee Museum staff and volunteers--including NIU Foreign Languages Professor Bill Harrison--discovered Jane in the summer of 2002 during a Montana expedition. A significant portion of the skeleton was recovered, enough to create an accurate skeleton model of Jane in her new home at Burpee.

Dinosaur experts disagree over whether Jane is a juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex, or a smaller, poorly known relative called Nanotyrannus. Jane stood about 8 feet tall and weighed about one ton.

NIU is known internationally for its work in paleontology, making the collaboration with Burpee a natural. Michael Henderson, Burpee Museum's curator of earth sciences and leader of the Jane expedition, is working on his doctoral degree at NIU. Geologist Reed Scherer and renowned dinosaur expert Michael Parrish, both NIU faculty members, spent a week last year at the Montana discovery site working with Burpee researchers. Scherer, Parrish and NIU anthropologist Mark Mehrer also are working with the museum on a description of the dinosaur.

Kitterle said the federal support announced by Manzullo would provide for increased presence of NIU faculty at the museum. NIU could assist museum staff in a variety of areas, including research, public education campaigns, museum exhibits, school initiatives and development of the Burpee research center. NIU students also will benefit.

"Burpee Museum is an invaluable educational resource," Kitterle said. "So we view this as a significant opportunity, and I would hope to have undergraduates work at the museum as research apprentices."

Kitterle also said the collaboration meshes nicely with the university's growing presence in Rockford. Earlier this month, NIU, District 205 and Rock Valley College announced a partnership to enhance teacher quality and student performance at Rockford schools. That project was bolstered by a $5 million federal grant.

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