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In This Issue
Trust, but Verify
9/30/2004
In the IT game of Who Do You Trust? We may need more than a hope and a prayer.
However you feel about Ronald Reagan, there is no question that he truly was
a Great Communicator. Reagan (and his handlers) could create or turn a sound
bite into a phrase that would linger long beyond the moment. You may recall
that in 1987, Reagan, citing an old Russian proverb, told Soviet Premier Mikhail
Gorbachev that the foundation for the new
US-Soviet relationship surrounding arms control would be “trust, but verify”
(doveryay, no proveryay). In fact, Reagan’s comment to Gorbachev
has found life well beyond the context of the 1980s US-Russian discussions on
arms control: Google cites more than 16,000 references to “trust, but
verify.”
Interestingly, in recent months I have been hearing that Reaganesque “trust,
but verify” theme, as senior campus officials discuss IT issues affecting
their institutions. For example, “trust, but verify” was clearly
the message that Miami University (OH) President James Garland
offered to the 200 campus IT officials from Ohio colleges and universities who
convened on his campus for the April 2004 Ohio Higher Education Computing Council
(OHECC) conference. In his welcoming statement to the OHECC audience, Garland,
a physicist by training, described himself as a “fan of good technology.”
But, the best technology, Garland observed, “is that which you don’t
notice, unless it is to admire its elegance or effectiveness. Unfortunately,”
he added, “we’re still noticing computers—and not for their
elegance or effectiveness.”
Who Can We Trust?
Speaking about his presidential colleagues and directly to the OHCCE audience, Garland noted that a key challenge confronting senior campus officials is, “Who do we trust about IT needs?” Noting that presidents and provosts “often lack the technical knowledge to evaluate proposals,” he stated that it is senior IT people who must translate technology options and vendor proposals into real and effective campus solutions. Garland’s public statement ech'es the growing number of private conversations (rants?) about IT issues on campus and in higher education.
What, precisely, has fostered the “trust, but verify” mentality among college presidents, provosts, and trustees, not to mention many faculty?
1—Tech consumes big bucks. Perhaps the most obvious factor is that colleges spend lots of money on technology: hardware, software, tech people, administrative systems, course management systems, digital content, campus Web sites, and more. Moreover, the decentralized nature of much of campus IT spending means that most colleges and universities probably need a small team of forensic accountants to unearth exactly how much campus money is actually spent on information technology.
That said, there are some general indicators for campus IT spending: data from the Campus Computing Project (www.campuscomputing.net
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