Volume 2. No 4 Information Technology News of the University of California, Davis Summer 1994

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ITAAC Chair Comments on IT Annual Report

Beyond question, Information Technology has assumed a new strategic position in the life of UC Davis in the last year. Associate Vice Chancellor Barone's annual report speaks to the developments that have contributed to this outcome, across a broad front. From a campuwide perspective, two or three things stand out.

First, after some delay attributable to a very thorough review, triggered by the Academic Senate, there is a decision to move ahead with Network 21. This project, first approved by the Regents in November 1993, will bring fiber-optic cable to every place on the Davis campus where the cable can be used and be useful. This new infrastructure will replace the slower and more limited "hard wire" access to the network we now have. Network 21 will, thus, put in place the tools UC Davis needs to transform itself as a place of higher learning.

Second, as a result of several decisions by both the Academic Senate and the campus administration, IT gets a new oversight structure, starting in fall 1994. The old Senate Committee on Computing, which died at the start of 1994, and the Chancellor's Information Technology Administrative Advisory Committee (ITAAC) will effectively be merged into a new Campus Committee on Information Technology. This is more than just a cosmetic reshuffle. The new joint committee offers a model for a fresh approach to University governance. If this new enterprise breeds trust, and if it can move beyond mere oversight to planning and policy development, then it will provide some effective joint leadership. The benefits of this could extend beyond the case of IT, and I would not be surprised to see that happen.

Third, a variety of important initiatives are moving the people who are the IT division, as well as computer and networking technology itself, closer and closer to the heart of teaching, research, and service. This increasing interdependence between people of IT and people in other academic and administrative units brings with it stresses and strains, and new challenges. It isn't clear how everyone is going to adapt. We have not seen the end, yet, of the pain associated with reorganization and rethinking of how we do our work.

The word is out, however, to our students, to our colleagues at other universities, and to the public and private sponsors of our work that UC Davis is moving ahead. A year or two years ago, we could not have said that. We can look back, then, to a year of substantial accomplishment, and forward to what I think is going to be a very bright future.