Computer distribution separates ‘haves,’ ‘have-nots’
While the debate rages on over how much students pay for their
UCLA education, or how much the state should subsidize our higher
learning institutions, let’s not forget the other side of the coin:
Where is the money going? Maybe if we paid more attention to the
"for what," the "from where" would matter less.
Is money being wasted? Absolutely. To a degree, it’s inevitable.
The UC system is huge, and a certain amount of bureaucracy comes
with the territory. To condemn all excess is like cursing the
flooding after praying for rain through years of drought. We get
the whole package, one way or another.
But just as it makes sense for us to control the flooding and
limit its impact, so too is it reasonable to expect that waste and
mismanagement should be capped. Some misuse of money is
unavoidable. But systematic, widespread abuse is another matter
entirely. Is it bad? I believe it is.
To illustrate the point, I’d like to focus on one example.
Computers.
That’s right, computers. They have become such a given in our
lifestyles we take them for granted. Virtually every UCLA office
and student now has a computer, or so we think. Tasks once
considered labor-intensive are now assumed to be easily and quickly
doable with a computer. There is little sympathy for the student
who wants to turn in handwritten work, just as there is little
tolerance for a campus department that can’t serve student needs
because of old or no equipment.
That’s why it’s so frustrating for many staff members stuck with
10-year-old, pre-Windows-compatible clunkers (or the original Mac
Plus) that are supposed to pass for viable computers. And yet these
are the machines often assigned to the people with the most
computer-intensive work. These are the computers that fail
miserably at sending out form letters to students or maintaining
important databases or performing essential spreadsheet work.
Meanwhile, the shiny, new powerhouse processors often collect dust
on the desks of supervisors or faculty members who occasionally use
them for memos or e-mail.
When it comes to computers, UCLA is definitely a have and
have-not society. Some of the haves need what they’ve got. Many
professors fill their desktop friends with volumes of research or
perform scientific calculations that require speed. Some staff
members also have large processor requirements. But for many, and I
do mean many, the power of their computers has a direct
relationship to the power of their positions, and not much
else.
For example, the supervisor in one of the offices I work in
recently acquired a new computer. As a result, a chain of
hand-me-downs started. Her old computer was passed down to someone
less important than she, and so on until finally, the coordinators
who actually deal with the students got an 8-year-old model to
share. Previously they had none. Yet they are regularly expected to
send out thousands of letters involving hundreds of students per
quarter to maintain databases, process regular statistical reports
and even design fliers to promote their programs.
The supervisor types memos, sends e-mail and creates several
budget-related spreadsheets annually. Most of her time is spent in
meetings that don’t involve a computer at all. So what did she need
for this? A Power Macintosh 7100/80 loaded with AV equipment, a
CD-ROM drive and a 17-inch color monitor. Throw in the new HP
LaserJet 4 and the cost, even through our campus computer store, is
around $5,000!
For much less money, every single coordinator could have
received their own brand new, albeit less fancy computer capable of
getting their jobs done. Why not? Because they don’t assign the
budget, the supervisor does. And all the other supervisors were
getting the new Power Macs, so why not her, too?
Never mind that she doesn’t need it, or even that the rest of
the office uses the MS-DOS machines, it’s the latest status of her
position and power. If her peers have it, then she needs it, too.
Sound immature? Maybe, but it’s happening all over campus every
day.
At another department I work for  an entire undergraduate
major  is run using two old Mac SEs. The chair and many of
the professors fare better, but all of the administrative work is
done on two old machines with 20 megabyte hard disks. They are
constantly storing daily work straight to floppies just to keep
from crashing.
It’s one thing for the university to offer computers as part of
an incentive program to attract key faculty. It’s perhaps a
necessary evil. But it’s quite another to encourage or turn a blind
eye to systematic abuse of power by staff members asserting their
budgetary discretion to "keep up with the Jones’."
While I obviously can only speculate, I have business in enough
campus departments to venture that at least hundreds of thousands
of dollars are wasted each year through this kind of waste. And
it’s a double crime because not only are students forced to help
foot the bill, but they also lose because the staff members they
deal with are stuck with the sub-par equipment.
There are some that would claim this isn’t a university problem;
it’s true everywhere. Frankly, that’s wrong. Before working at
UCLA, I spent several years with a private company. The top
executives got great salaries and nice benefits, but when it came
to company resources, computers or otherwise, those with the most
need got the best stuff. The president took my computer
hand-me-down. With fiscal and customer satisfaction accountability,
that’s the only way it could work. UCLA apparently has neither.
In the grand scheme of things, computer abuse is a minor thorn
in the budget’s side. But is it symptomatic of a larger disease?
Before the university claims as much, why not prove it? Prove me
wrong; make my day. Examine the supervisors’ budget expenditures
and allocations of resources more carefully. Or better yet, let the
students who pay for it do it. Is that too much to ask?
The identity of the author of this article is on record with the
Daily Bruin, but was withheld from publication in order to
safeguard his position at UCLA.