Drama: Submitted by John Frick

The day after I received the directive and guidelines for the Faculty Senate Survey on Computerization, I both e-mailed it to Drama Department faculty members and left hard copies in their mailboxes. By my deadline of Monday, November 8, slightly less than one-half of the faculty had responded to me in writing (or e-mail), while three additional members had spoken to me in person. The following is a summary of their perceptions/opinions:

1. There is a consensus that e-mail is a tremendous convenience and enhances communication greatly. Several respondents stated that they couldn't remember what they did before it. On the downside, one faculty member, who subscribes to two association listserves and is an officer of two associations, complained that he frequently spent upwards of an hour/day responding to routine requests, inquiries, etc. This is in addition to other forms of "routine" correspondence (i.e., letters of recommendation, responses to applicants for a department vacancy, etc.). A second faculty member echoed this feeling, claiming that since the advent of e-mail, she is "now plowing through TWICE the meaningless information that [she] received pre-e-mail." The same faculty member noted that there is inconsistency in the frequency of e-mail use among the university community. Whereas many faculty members and students check their e-mail several times a day, many others (both students and faculty) check their e-mail as little as once a week, which can be problematic if e-mail is used for the routine dissemination of class or committee information. Increasingly, those who routinely use e-mail assume that when they send an e-mail, the message has been received. When the receiver is not a regular e-mail user, communication problems ensue and business and business relations suffer. Continuing the assessment of e-mail, another faculty member lamented the loss of personal contacts, as e-mail (and voice mail, it must be admitted) replaces speaking with another over the phone.

2. Likewise, there is a consensus that word processing (in lieu of typing) is a boon. The ability to delete, transfer information, format, spell-check, edit, print, revise, and print again constitutes a time saving that is appreciable and significant. And, with laser printers, the end product is far superior to the typed product.

3. Several faculty members expressed fears that there was not enough support for the rapidly increasing demands upon faculty, machines and software. There is, for example, no support on weekends, when faculty are often forced to work to meet deadlines and complete projects. In these cases, when a problem does occur and no support personnel are available, the faculty member feels "abandoned." At present, the department has one computer specialist assigned to it, but since he also services a number of other departments, when a problem occurs, he often is not able to work on it for several days and faculty and/or departmental work necessarily suffers. Further, as one professor pointed out, there is little "in-house" training on either the machines themselves or on software. Most training is through ITC workshops that are often scheduled at inopportune times (i.e., class or studio times) and are perceived as somehow "remote" and too technical for the layman.

4. The internet also has brought mixed blessings, according to over half of the faculty who responded. While there is undeniably a wealth of information "out there," as a research tool, it is limited. It is often difficult to access information efficiently; it is exceedingly difficult to determine the credibility of on line sources; it is most often reductive in its content; and, since websites appear and disappear with astonishing frequency, it is unreliable. Unfortunately, our students, who place their trust in what is on a computer monitor and haven't yet had the opportunity to develop a healthy scholarly skepticism, are all-too-often seduced by what they locate on line. They frequently are unable to distinguish between what has been posted by a reputable scholar and what has been posted by a public relations specialist or an aficionado. Until scholars and librarians take charge of their share of the net, we can expect to wade through a host of unreliable websites, not only on line, but in the research papers we receive. There was also some trepidation expressed over the effects upon students' work ethic as a result of their using a tool that promises that an "immediate response" will be forthcoming and blurs the distinction between immediate results and scholarly valid results.

5. One of the most consistent complaints (and most serious) expressed by respondents was that computer use -- even routine use like e-mail -- has sapped work time that they can ill afford to lose. When a faculty member undertakes a major computer project like an on-line class or an image file, the demands made on time are significantly magnified. Two faculty members who have recently undertaken such projects expressed the fear that they wouldn't be able to maintain them unless other activities like research, writing, directing, designing, and even preparing for class were sacrificed to some degree or another. In short, there is a pervasive feeling that we are working for the computers, rather than that they are working for us.