University finishes plan, replaces faculty computers

The future of the University was the recurring theme Tuesday at the University Faculty Council meeting, as members discussed everything from a new computer turnover system to the effect of the community college program on IU.\nTo keep pace with constant technological advances in computing systems, the University announced at the meeting that it completed a three-year revolving cycle for all faculty and staff computers.\nMichael McRobbie, vice president for information technology and chief information officer, said this announcement might make IU "the first university of this size anywhere in the world to have achieved full life-cycle funding for all its desktop computers."\nIn December 1998, the board of trustees and IU President Myles Brand approved a five-year strategic plan for University Information and Technological Services. The plan included a list of 10 major recommendations, at the top of which was this cycle funding program.\nUnder this plan, 10,000 faculty desktop computers have already been replaced and all 15,000 are less than three years old. The funding for these computers comes from a "life-cycle funding pool accrued over the three years of the computer's service," McRobbie said.\nAlso at Tuesday's UFC meeting, a representative of the Indiana State Commission for Higher Education fielded questions from the council members.\nCommission member Dan Reagan, a political science professor at Ball State University, presented the Commission's goals for their interaction with IU and answered questions, mostly about the community college system.\nReagan continually stressed that although the Commission is sometimes seen as an adversary to IU, he wanted to improve this relationship.\n"I'm concerned, in these stressful times for higher education, that too often we are divided," Reagan said. "So we can help dispel some of the stereotypes they have about us."\nReagan is a representative of the Commission whose head, Stan Jones, reportedly had a battle with Brand over the community college system earlier in the year. At a UFC meeting in March, Brand called Jones "delusional" and publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with the commissioner and the community college plan.\nSome of these tensions appeared to resurface at Tuesday's meeting.\nWhen Reagan said, "We went to IU, and IU wasn't interested," in response to a question about why Vincennes University was picked to partner with Ivy Tech instead of IU, Brand shot back with his own response.\n"That is false," Brand said. "Stan rejected our offer."\nBrand then reiterated his previous statements about the community college system, saying the problem with the plan was when "there is duplication -- where state funds are not being used to their fullest"