My viewpoint on Technology currently at the University

Senior Leadership Team Members,
At yesterday’s ASG Senate Meeting the members discussed and debated on a Resolution which included a Vote of No Confidence on the Institutional Technology Department. At this time I advised them the best course of action would be to take a straw vote on if the votes were available to pass the resolution (it would of passed unanimously) but to table it until the first meeting in the Spring Semester to see if any progress is made in the areas of their concerns. The resolution would of put vast restrictions on additional monies being granted to IT through Student Fee Governing Board.

Ironically enough, yet again, a major outage hit campus yesterday evening and we are still in the midst of it at 5:51 Tuesday Morning as I write this email. Enough is simply enough. I almost regret asking the Senate to table the resolution. This is absurd. We cannot deal with these poor technological services any longer. If and when this resolution passes this will be the first time such a statement has been made by the Student Senate in years and will be much supported by students all across campus. I ask the Senior Leadership Team to really take a look at our IT Department and what changes need to be made in order to guarantee these outages not occur EVER again.

I have received no less then 15 text messages along the lines of, “not helping that the printer at school Isn’t working, and I cannot get into my school email where my project I emailed myself is.” In some regards we are our own worse enemy. We have seen complete website outages which ensures that any potential student will most likely not be attending our university because there is no website for them to go to get an application as well as affecting retention because students get easily fed-up with technology because in the year 2009 the trusting of technology is taken for granted.

Thanks,
Steve