Architecture: Submitted by Reuben Rainey and Kenneth Schwartz

The Faculty Senate Questionnaire is an addition to an active, ongoing discussion in the School of Architecture regarding information technology for a number of years. Much of the discussion has been channeled through chairs at the departmental level or through the School's Computer Committee, which represents the concerns of the four departments of the School. This Committee advises the Chairs and Deans on the use and acquisition of information technology and has tended to be the catalyst of the discussions. To date, with a few exceptions, the intellectual climate of the faculty is quite positive regarding the application of this technology to the pedagogical and research mission of the School. Opinions differ concerning the scope and nature of the task.

Four members of a relatively small full-time faculty (50) have received TTI grants, six have received fellowships or associate fellowships with IATH, and others are actively involved in various pedagogical experiments with new technologies. Some faculty have offered mini courses for their colleagues to bring them up to speed on certain applications. A concerned core of about ten faculty have tended to lead - most of these have served on the Computer Committee.

The Senate Questionnaire was distributed to all faculty by e-mail and hard copy. The percentage of responses was quite small, about 10% of full-time faculty. Those responses received were all thoughtful and comprehensive. This reflects the previously mentioned situation in the School of a concerned core that tends to initiate dialogue and implementation, while others follow. We have quoted the full spectrum of responses, grouping them under the headings of the four questions.

1) Gains and losses brought thus far by the use of networked computers at UVA?

Terrific library progress, helping with research and opening new horizons, checking out books and recalling them, finding books in other libraries, etc.

Positive attributes: announcements to faculty and students. The clearest gain is in enabling positive patterns of communication that couldn't happen before. These patterns are pervasive, influencing teaching, research, and service. The communication occurs among people in the same building, across grounds, and around the world. *more facile communication with colleagues and students, *greater efficiency and quicker reply time in responses, Negatives: using email as a substitute for face to face communication and resolution of disputes. A rift in a sense of community because we don't HAVE to talk to one another face to face, *more decisions being made individually rather than collectively due to the "pass around" that occurs with email (rather than a true meeting and synthesis of minds and opinions)

The biggest loss concerns the significant annual cost of maintaining a networked computer infrastructure. There's no way to avoid it in today's world, although it deserves a lot of care to keep from running out of control. Five years ago, there was not a need to have a networked computer with good speed and display quality on every faculty member's desk. It is taking money away from other important areas.

2) Greatest possibilities, limitations, and dangers these machines pose in the future?

Impersonal communication, particularly problems with email in this regard. Excessive "bite" or acrimony in, or generated from email as a medium.

I had a primitive "toolkit" set up for class communication last semester, and I look forward to establishing more interactive formats in the future.

Day-to-day academic work visible to people outside the university. There is enormous value in making visible to the public the ordinary work of scholarship: syllabi, problem assignments, student work, research synopses, data sets, and so on. Having those documents on the web demystifies a university, making it much more transparent and accessible. Universities that do this well will gain relative to universities that don't.

*DEEPER not easier teaching. there is a danger in thinking that computers will allow one to spend less time on teaching. rather, one spends more time, allowing more deep, more synthetic, and more comprehensive learning., *tremendous research and theory investigations, especially in the realm of scholarship, *programs like iath and tti are CRITICAL to the University-- big recruiting and retention tools for faculty limitations/dangers: *right now in the A School, computers are not being considered seriously for their pedagogic potential. the truly pedagogic and effective initiatives are the exceptions and not being very well supported, *greatest danger: an untrained faculty. currently, students are doing too much of the driving. this is not laziness, just out of necessity. The dangers are 1) that the pedagogy will continue to slip from faculty hands; and 2) that some faculty (without training) will continue to either fear computing or regard it as some kind of voodoo (overstated, but you get the point). *limitations: (aside from untrained faculty and weak pedagogy), in the A School the administration of computers is mysterious, too personal-agenda driven, and controlled by too few people who are considered "insiders." I'd suggest 3 things: 1) faculty need to know what the potentials are and need examples for successful application. 2) allocation of resources (computers, software, lab time, placement of computers) should be a School-wide decision through a committee of junior and senior faculty members, chairs, and deans. 3) junior faculty should never be directly in charge of resources for other junior faculty.

3) What priority should the university place on information technology?

Faculty instruction, and more staff assistance for faculty in instructional contexts. We need to be given time and formats for learning these new tools. People like me in their early 40s will be teaching for another 20 plus years. We cannot afford to not learn how to use these tools.

Library collections? Faculty desktop machines? Research-oriented high-performance computing? Classroom improvement? Technical staff support? Enhanced dial-in capacity? No matter how big a slice of the budget pie goes to info tech, resolving those questions will be hard.

1. initiatives that CLEARLY articulate both research AND teaching substance

2. initiatives that have progressive, pedagogic relevance

3. initiatives that advance shcolarship

4. initiatives that concern efficiencies>

4) Please add any additional comments you would like to call to our attention.

We are absorbing over $10,000 of student-generated printing costs from the school laser printers. And this has occurred, at a time when faculty have strict telephone and xerox budgets. Its absurd that this has not been resolved.

The web has a very important role to play in junior faculty development. When you've got a new research project going, put up a one-page synopsis, and link it from your home page, along with other bits of work that you're proud of and like people to know about (e.g. paper abstracts). In teaching, this helps your students get to know you. The web provides a powerful new avenue to supplement conference presentations and print publications in making work visible and building a reputation, not to mention attracting graduate students who share interests and can help move an agenda forward. Most junior faculty don't understand this, and they probably won't really appreciate it until senior faculty start telling them. I hope that the faculty senate conversation will raise awareness among all faculty.