Sooner or later, this is bound to be good for a quote:
State Sen. Michael Connelly (R-Naperville) wants there to be another public Big Ten school in Illinois.Connelly and state Sen. Matt Murphy (R-Palatine) have introducted legislation in Springfield to study the feasibility of making one of the current state universities a Big Ten school.The measure, Senate Bill 3526, would create a study commission to explore the possibility of establishing an existing Illinois public university as another Big Ten university. The bill passed the Senate Higher Education Committee on March 19 and will be called for a Senate vote soon.The two lawmakers said the idea developed due to concerns that some suburban students seem to be leaving Illinois to attend other, high-priced Big Ten institutions out of state.“This is something that has been under the radar but is now getting a much stronger drum beat,” Connelly said. “I’ve got three kids that are college age and we know that there are a lot of kids with 34 ACT scores and high class rank that are rejected by the University of Illinois and wind up going to places like Kansas and Indiana and other states. Michigan has Michigan and Michigan State — two Big Ten public schools — and we thought why not do a feasibility study to see if we could do the same?”
Sort of like, if you pass it, they will come.
The measure passed the Illinois Senate, by the way.
The Big Ten has not spoken with Murphy about his proposal, he said.
Now there’s a surprise. I’m sure Big Jim will be calling you any day now, fellas.
Get The Picture 
And they want a pony, too.
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Here’s a suggestion to senators Connelly and Murphy: Buy Northwestern.
As a now-public school it put an end to all this goldarned union talk plus give Illinois its second public state university B1G Ten member.
Two flies with one swat.
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“puts” and “gives”
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Makes me think of a great one-hit wonder song from the ’70’s – “Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You”
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Typical backward thinking as with most politicians, unfortunately. As far as I know they appear to be trying to address a real problem by wanting to establish a second university to sit alongside their flagship institution. (I’ve heard from a few locals that some of the second-tier public universities in Illinois are really pretty useless.) However, they’re doing it ass-backwards.
One of the things Jimmy D. prides himself on is his schools’ AAU membership. But to get that you already have to be a prestigious institution–which leads you back to the original problem with a lot of money spent on a useless feasibility study.
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