2008 Woodie Awards
Restructuring of Campus Computer Labs Causes Extended Waiting Times
Shauna Foster
Issue date: 10/9/03 Section: News
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Last year, the Office of Residence Life and the Office of Information Technology (IT) teamed up to make MSU students' lives easier by opening several computer labs.
Computers were available to MSU residents and commuters in eight academic buildings, such as Russ, Freeman, Bohn, Morehead, Dickson, Richardson, Chapin, and Blanton Hall.
According to Stacia Straley, Director of Technical Support Services, throughout last year, computers began to get older and each of them was in need of an upgrade.
Although those computers were replaced, new computers also began to break down, which created a repetition of broken computers. This caused an altercation between The Office of Residence Life and IT, since the Residence Life Department did not want to be responsible for worn down computers.
According to Straley, as a result of non-functioning computers, IT was forced to shut down all public academic labs with the exception of Richardson Hall Room 105 lab, which is only available to Computer Science majors who have access to a Pegasus account.
Since then, for the fall of 2003, the only three public computer labs available to MSU residents and commuters are the Sprague Library Computer Lab, Morehead Hall's lab, and the Student Center Lab. All are becoming packed this fall as many MSU students are taking advantage of the technology resource.
According to Straley, The Office of Information Technology "are six months into a total refurbishing and reorganization of our public computing lab facilities."
As part of this program, every computer in these facilities was upgraded to a brand new high capacity PC or MAC," Straley said. " All of our teaching and learning laboratory facilities were upgraded in the same manner. By all reports, these improvements have been very well received by our faculty and our students. As for the particular question of the public computing lab facilities, it is true that the total number of public computing lab facilities on campus was reduced (the number of rooms). This was done to maximize the utilization of this greatly improved equipment."
Computers were available to MSU residents and commuters in eight academic buildings, such as Russ, Freeman, Bohn, Morehead, Dickson, Richardson, Chapin, and Blanton Hall.
According to Stacia Straley, Director of Technical Support Services, throughout last year, computers began to get older and each of them was in need of an upgrade.
Although those computers were replaced, new computers also began to break down, which created a repetition of broken computers. This caused an altercation between The Office of Residence Life and IT, since the Residence Life Department did not want to be responsible for worn down computers.
According to Straley, as a result of non-functioning computers, IT was forced to shut down all public academic labs with the exception of Richardson Hall Room 105 lab, which is only available to Computer Science majors who have access to a Pegasus account.
Since then, for the fall of 2003, the only three public computer labs available to MSU residents and commuters are the Sprague Library Computer Lab, Morehead Hall's lab, and the Student Center Lab. All are becoming packed this fall as many MSU students are taking advantage of the technology resource.
According to Straley, The Office of Information Technology "are six months into a total refurbishing and reorganization of our public computing lab facilities."
As part of this program, every computer in these facilities was upgraded to a brand new high capacity PC or MAC," Straley said. " All of our teaching and learning laboratory facilities were upgraded in the same manner. By all reports, these improvements have been very well received by our faculty and our students. As for the particular question of the public computing lab facilities, it is true that the total number of public computing lab facilities on campus was reduced (the number of rooms). This was done to maximize the utilization of this greatly improved equipment."