Author: Mallory Fencil
Thirty-four Occidental faculty members added their names and complaints to a letter sent to the leaders of the Information and Technology Services (ITS). The completed letter lists insufficient maintenance and repairs, poor training of student workers and the lack of an administrative effort to rectify any technological problems as major impediments to efficiency in the classroom. The original letter was written by Critical Theory and Social Justice (CTSJ) professor Mary Christianakis.
“I got tired of walking into class only to find that I had no projector, a substandard DVD player and a computer that isn’t updated,” Christianakis said. “Throughout the whole semester, I have managed class with a tired old chalkboard. I had called ITS over and over only to receive the same story that the bulb wasn’t working. However, nobody would ever change the darn bulb. I couldn’t figure out why they wouldn’t change it.”
Despite the fact that Christianakis called ITS several times throughout the past months about the projector in her classroom, the problem was not addressed. Christianakis decided to send a formal complaint via email after teaching the entire semester without media. The complaint seemed to resonate with many of her peers.
“I received an overwhelming response, the strongest show of solidarity that I have seen since I began working here,” Christianakis said. “Within the hour, I had over 20 faculty responses. By the end of the day, dozens more. But more importantly, the moment my second class ended, ITS was waiting with a new bulb in hand.”
The email was then fowarded to Vice President for Finance and Planning Amos Himmelstein, Associate Vice President for Information Technology Services (ITS) James Uhrich and Manager of Media Services for ITS Michael Kerwin. Uhrich acknowledged that the ITS department has improvements to make.
“There’s clearly communication challenges that exist coming from my group out to the campus,” Uhrich said. “If you’re expecting something’s going to work, and it has broken, we have a responsibility to make sure that you know when you walk in there and to come up with an alternative.”
Since the original message, 34 faculty members have added their signatures and the email has evolved to include an account of specific complaints, a catalog of classrooms in which teachers have experienced problems and a list of requests and suggestions. Professors across all different disciplines took part in compiling the final email, and the issues span six buildings throughout campus, including the newly opened Dumke Commons.
Some of the classrooms mentioned in the letter will be included in an eight-classroom ITS maintenance program this summer. Uhrich also explained that this fiscal year’s budget allocates more money specifically for maintenance problems. ITS has assessed every classroom on campus and laid out a plan to address these issues.
“My responsibility is to make sure that we provide the right information and provide training for those who want it,” Uhrich said. “We realize there are issues and we are addressing them in a strategic way. There are definitely technical issues.”
The faculty members asked for action to be taken by May 1. Uhrich requested an in-person meeting with Professor Christianakis, but there has been no response from Vice President Amos Himmelstein.
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