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.