FACULTY SENATE UNIVERSITY COMPUTER & ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE

MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF FEBRUARY 17, 1998.

Approved as corrected: March 24, 1998.

Present: E. Anderson, D. Blanchard, D. Damery, J. Dubach,
G. Fretwell, A. Gaylord, E. Hurn, T. Jackson, J. Kunkel,
B. MacDougall (chairperson), B. McCandless, M. Wingertsman.

Bruce MacDougall called the meeting to order at 2:35

  1.   Approval of Minutes:

    2.   The minutes of the Dec. 11, 1997 meeting were approved as corrected.
     
  2. Announcements: Recent developments:
    3. A.   John Dubach reported on SIS progress:
    • PeopleSoft has been contracted to provide the software.
    • One live module will go on-line this Fall.
    • Dec Alphas running unix will provide the server side.
    • The project has an equipment budget of $3.1M.
    B.  John Dubach also reported that the University Trustees in their Nov. 15 Report recommend moving to local control of administrative computing.
    • It was noted that this is a momentous change that requires substantial local organization.
    • This further points out additional reason for having an IT Strategic Planning Committee.
    • A question was raised as to the rationale for keeping Academic and Administrative computing separate.
    • The Hogan II Committee, which deals with economy of scale between The University campuses, was mentioned.
    • In the reproduced slides of a presentation to the Administrative Design Project, the "Observations and Recommendations Regarding Deployment of Technology" of the Pappas Consulting Group included "Gradually move to single software applications vendor for 3 primary functions based on campus priorities". The implications of this recommendation are not clear.
     
  3. Old Business
    A. Status of reports requested from the Committee
    1. UIS: Dave Damery and Ernie Anderson
    2. Lib I: Ed Cutting (absent) and Art Gaylord
    3. Lib II: John Dubach and Steve Brewer (absent)
    4. Carlin Tenure Proposal: Norm Sims (absent) and Joe Kunkel
    The reports are due in the Faculty Senate by the end of the Spring semester.
    B. TLTR Motion
    C. OIT Listserve
    In the absence of the questioner (Ed Cutting), John Dubach reported on his exploration to date of the OIT Listserve discrimination issue:
    • On hearing of the controversy over the gender closed Listserve of the Graduate Women's Network, the Graduate Dean has withdrawn sponsorship.
    • The moderator of the list, having been notified of loss of sponsorship, sought new sponsorship from Carol Wallace of Everywoman Center.
    • On being told of the membership restrictions, Carol Wallace said she had not been apprised of those restrictions.
    • Until the current sponsorship moves to confirm sponsorship, OIT will not make any further moves.
    • The situation of the ethnically restrictive ALANA list was not explored.
    • There are no confirmed legal actions that bear squarely on this issue.
  4. New Business.
    A. Rephrased Motion of Ernie Anderson on establishing an IT training program on campus.
    • The chairman voiced a general caution that we not get involved in passing judgments, positive or negative on academic programs brought before us. Our role is to provide guidance on more general aspects of information technology as they affect the broader university community.
    • The committee was reluctant to urge a new program be formed without an apparent groundswell of underlying supportive faculty. It was moved and voted that, until such a groundswell appeared, the motion be tabled.
    B. The Internet II Report will be moved to Old Business in our next meeting.
  5. The meeting was adjourned at 3:58 PM.

    Respectfully Submitted
    Joseph G. Kunkel
    joe@bio.umass.edu
    last updated 4/05/98