April 16, 2001
Dear Joe,

Yes, each of the students at UNC is required to purchase a computer, and now
the only problem is to educate the faculty as to how to make maximum use of
the students' computer wisdom. There has already been some impact in that
our entire course in comparative anatomy is virtual, and most faculty are
using the student's new-found toy to do things like putting the course
syllabus on-line, sending out various reading assignments or messages to
students on-line, communicating with students on-line rather than
face-to-face, etc. I think that it will take a decade before anything really
unique is done in a big way. Basically, the younger faulty have grown up
with computer games and are taking more advantage than the older faculty who
still believe in printed syllabi and face-to-face meetings with the
students. Perhaps a generation shift is required. In essence, most faculty
are not trained as well with the computer as are the entering freshman.

Each faculty member has received a computer and that has been the only pay
off. The university has made a real effort over the last several years to
renovate and modulate medium and large size classrooms to be master
classrooms that are IT-ready. They are really unbelievable and now all we
have to worry about is having the faculty learn how to use all of that
equipment. Even in our own biology seminars, things seem to get screwed up
all the time. I believe that we have received some funds from the university
system to help with this initiative, but most of it has come from our own
resources. What we get from the legislature depends on economic conditions
and the winds of our brilliant politicians. We have literally invested 20-30
million dollars a year over the past 5 or 6 years just getting the campus
ready for the computer revolution. This meant renovating buildings to put in
the correct transmission lines and of course, we always stumbled on
asbestos. Now that all those several hundred million dollars have been
expended, it looks like the future will be wireless, and so it goes. I,
personally, teach in an atmosphere where students can ask questions directly
to me and I can feel their pulse, their aura, and determine whether they
have really understood what I was saying. I am too old for this whole thing,
but there is no question in my mind but that it is the future. Good luck.

Sincerely,
Larry
Lawrence I. Gilbert
Executive Editor
Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 
Department of Biology
Campus Box #3280
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC  27599-3280