OPINION

Refuge, Prospect, and Intimacy Gradients

Terry Calhoun, Commentator
Society for College and University Planning (SCUP)
University of Michigan

As I begin writing this morning I am sitting in Reagan National Airport. I have found the perfect spot to wait for my 9:35 am flight. I am alone in a row of only three seats, with a bulkhead behind me, a power supply just to my right, and huge windows in front of me that allow me to look over the tarmac, and even over the Potomac River beyond the airport. I have found what anthropologists, psychologists, and designers call a place with both “refuge and prospect.”

The “refuge” comes from the fact that I am comfortable and secure, in a spot from which I am relatively protected on my blind side from predators and with a broad view of terrain in front of me. The “prospect” comes from the fact that I can look out over a vast terrain that holds a number of potentially good and/or interesting things that I can think and plan about. I am more comfortable here, on the edge of the refuge and the prospect than I would be if I were deeper in the bowels of the airport or sitting out on the tarmac.

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IT NEWS

Price Haggle for PeopleSoft

Oracle is now likely to offer much less for PeopleSoft. After beating it up for two years in a major takeover fight, Oracle now reveals that PeopleSoft isn't worth the $21 per share it initially offered and intends to reduce the price. (USA Today)
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Challenges Face New IT Director at Tufts

Tufts University is working to strengthen and better connect the networks currently operated a little too independently by the various colleges. (tuftsdaily.com)
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IT Fees Yield Uneven Returns at UT?

Department by department, service by service, the fees students pay at the University of Texas-Austin for IT are not necessarily returned in equitable ways. (Daily Texan Online)

Students Lament School's Sluggish Technology Adoption

Simpson College students are outspoken about IT on campus. But when it comes to laptops and wireless, you can please some of the students some of the time, and some of the administrators some of the time, but you can't please all of the students and all of the administrators all of the time. (The Simpsonian Online)
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Kalamazoo, Michigan May Go Wireless

Like some other college towns, the home of Western Michigan University is exploring the possibilities for wireless. The consultants brought to Kalamazoo to look at plans for creating a wireless network that encompasses the entire city and the university, say that a wireless network is "the bus system of the digital world." (Kalamazoo Gazette)
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Play Me a New Song: “Big Music in Universities”

"The entertainment industry's deep penetration of the US Congress and its iron control over segments of the American university higher education system should be a shocking embarrassment to the US administration. Apparently, however, it's acceptable…" (P2Pnet.net)
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Upgrades in Iowa

Iowa campuses are quickly upgrading technology for students. Ubiquitous wireless laptops and mandated or free laptops are becoming the norm in the state known for beef and corn. (DesMoinesRegister.com)
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RESOURCES

CampusEAI Consortium

The CampusEAI Consortium is a non-profit organization founded by educational institutions to address the unique integration needs of the education community. CampusEAI’s mission is to facilitate collaboration among member institutions for sharing, developing, and distributing community source software. A depository allows member institutions to exchange source code for portlets and application programming interfaces.
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DEALS, CONTRACTS, AWARDS

NSF Funds Chat Room Surveillance Research

Nope, the federal government isn't trying to make better, more user-friendly chat rooms; it wants to develop models, with help from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute mathematics professors, that can be used to survey and locate topic-specific chat room discussions at a rate of speed fast enough to cover the Internet. (USA Today)
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