Many students who use University of Memphis computer labs for their personal and academic work are in for a treat this semester. Sajjad Mahmood, manager of Computer System Support in Client Support Services, said The U of M spent close to $950,000 on 535 new computers for labs located throughout campus and in some off campus locations.
Because campus computers are replaced every three years, not all labs received new ones. Those on-campus labs that were due for replacement and received new ones are located in Dunn Hall, life sciences building, psychology building, Fogelman College of Business and Economics, Meeman Journalism Building, Jones Hall, Communication and Fine Arts Building, Patterson Hall, Manning Hall, Engineering Science Building, and the Field House. Off the main campus, labs in the Millington campus, the Carrier Center in Collierville and Jackson State also received new computers. Additionally, the TigerLan labs located in both Smith Hall and the Ned R. McWherter Library received all new computers.
The University received 483 new Dell PCs and 52 new Macs. Rob Hughes, a lab attendant in the Theatre & Communication Building, welcomed the new computers.
“It was necessary for my lab,” Hughes said. “Our computers were extremely antiquated and tended to lock up often. Last year there were constant problems. For example, a student who wanted to drop into the lab just to print something would be in the lab for a minimum of ten minutes.”
He went on to explain that with the old computers it could take up to five minutes just to log on to the network, and another two to three minutes to access Microsoft Word.
“Students would have to be in the lab a minimum of ten minutes just for a simple print job,” Hughes said. “Now they can be in and out in under five minutes.”
Tommy Towery, the Local Technical Support Provider for the College of Communication and Fine Arts, agreed that the new computers are much better than the three year old machines that were replaced. He said that the main benefits of the new computers are more memory as well as CD-RW drives that can be extremely helpful to students working on major projects.
“In the past, for example, in writing labs, students used Zip disks that could hold 100 megabytes worth of data,”” Towery said. “So if you had a project that was bigger than that, you couldn’t save it. With the CD-RWs you can save almost seven times as much data.”
While the new computers are not necessarily the best on the market, Towery said they are the best The University can afford.
“The better ones would have writable DVDs, which we don’t necessarily need,” Towery said.
While most of the computers in the labs that received new machines had reached their three year limit, the computers that were replaced in the TigerLan labs in Smith Hall and the McWherter Library were only one year old. This may come as a surprise to some, as tuition was raised this year and many students are concerned with where their money is being spent.
“As a student I think, ‘Gosh, they’re raising my tuition but at the same time replacing computers in labs that got new ones in the last year,’” said Hughes, a computer science major.
Towery said the reason for replacing the computers in those labs was for all computers to have the same model number, so technicians would only have one type of computer to work on at any given time.
Dr. John Wasileski, associate vice-president of Information Systems Operations, said the money that paid for the new computers came from the Technology Access Fee that is paid by all students when they pay their tuition. This fee is $112.50 per student per semester.
Once computers are replaced, the old ones are given to faculty members to be used in their offices. Towery said this time around, faculty members got a great deal.
“The faculty got some very good computers out of it,” Towery said. “These computers had a lot of life left in them without needing to be turned over.”
The problem with the new shipment of computers, according to Towery, is that not all of The University’s software is the latest available.
“We may have brand new computers, but we’re using old software,” Towery said. “For example, CFA asked for $43,000 worth of software and we were awarded about $20,000.
“So, we have new computers, but software is not covered in the same area that hardware is. They’re not in such a hurry to update software and it works out to be a battle every year in the dean’s council who gets the software. We end up running very old software on new computers because the funds are not allocated to software the same way they are to new hardware.”
Towery said he feels the new hardware is beneficial to The University, but he feels that software deserves equal attention, because it is just as important.
“If I’m teaching you how to use software that you are going to go out and try to get a job with out in the real world, it doesn’t matter how good a computer you are going to use,” Towery said. “If you don’t know how to use the latest software, you’ll be behind already.”
The process of installing the new computers is not complete. Towery said the project will not come to fruition until all the software arrives.
“For example,” Towery said, “People have bought books for QuarkExpress 5, but the software is not on the computers because it didn’t show up in time to get it installed before classes started.”
“I don’t want to redo each lab every time one piece shows up,” Towery said, so he is now waiting for all of the software to arrive before completing the process of installing the new computers.
