Consultative Committee
October 4, 2004

Present:  Brenda Boever, Tim Brooks, Sarah Campbell, Steph Charbonneau,
Roland Guyotte, Margaret Kuchenreuther, Michelle Page, Rebecca Webb, Mary
Zosel

Absent:  Joyce Amborn, Jeff Ratliff-Crain, Renae Faaborg

Guest:  Roger Boleman

* It was discovered that two student members have not been receiving
emails and perhaps are not on the email list.  Michelle will call
Computing Services and try to resolve this.

* With new members added to the committee, scheduling needs to be
reexamined.  Michelle and Margaret will look at schedules and see if a
meeting time is available.

* Roger Boleman was invited as a guest due to his role as chair of the
search for the Director of Computing Services and his knowledge of
technology at UMM.  Many questions and issues were brought up in regard to
the new director search and technology in general:
o A technology plan was made in 2002.  This was shared with the committee,
who commented that a plan such as this could be useful and might be shared
with Academic Support Services or CRPC and the new Director of Computing
Services.  Currently, it seems that there is little unified vision or
support for technology; rather, little pieces of this are located in
Computing Service, Media Services, Briggs Library, and even Duplicating
Services.
o A big technology issue is centralization-how centralized do we want to
be?  How can we support usage of multiple technologies and offer choices
to faculty, staff, and students but still make this manageable for
Computing Services and Media Services?
o It was noted that clarification may be needed in the tech. fee request
system-how is technology defined?  The criteria regarding successful
projects/proposals keep shifting-are there more specific interpretations
that could be put into place?  Is there conflict of interest in the
current procedure?  Are we funding things that are essential through
unreliable "soft" money like tech fee requests and grants?
o An ideal candidate for the Director of Computing Services job may be one
who is a visionary and advocate-one who can think about big picture plans
and vision for technology usage and support at UMM and one who can
effectively advocate and gain resources when dealing with the university
(both UMM and UMTC) 
o CC would be happy to assist with forming interview questions for the
Director search or to serve in some other capacity, should the search
chair request it.