Technology Services Announce Plans in Town Hall Meetings

By Maria Del Nido

The Office of Technology Services at The Catholic University of America held a town meeting in Hannan Hall on Wednesday informing students and faculty about recent initiatives and possible future projects. The purpose of the town hall meeting was to inform the Catholic University community of current projects and future endeavors. Above all, Technology Services wanted to receive feedback from the students and faculty members.

Attendees of the meeting learned that Technology Services has accomplished many activities in the past several months.

First, they worked on the wireless connection in each dorm building to improve the network’s speed. They have begun work on Opus Hall and Reagan Hall. At this time the project is still ongoing, and they will be improving remaining dorms as well. Technology Services said they want to double the campus network bandwidth to the internet to be 4GB.

Second, they have installed a scanner at Catholic University’s Starbucks, located on the top floor of the Edward J. Pryzbyla Student Center, where you can use the Starbucks iPhone app. This is useful for Starbucks’ customers because they can collect points and receive rewards while keeping up with their studies.

Third, Technology Services said they have updated and shortened the University’s Cardinal e-mails from cardinalmail.cua.edu to just cua.edu, which many students have already taken notice of and applied to their own accounts.

Lastly, Technology Services set up a Service Desk to help any faculty or student member with IT problems.

The Office of Technology Services also discussed its future plans for development. They will be upgrading eighteen classrooms over the summer. This will include updating computer systems and projectors. In addition, they will upgrade the Cardinal Station website version to 9.2. Another project on their wish list is to enhance Microsoft’s software usability for the entire campus community. This plan could include downloading Visio and Project for all members of the Catholic University community. Furthermore, Technology Services will remodel the computer lab located in room 117 of Leahy Hall from top to bottom. They are also working on enhancing support for off-campus work and access to on-campus services. Future projects include adding printers at the Edward J. Pryzbyla University Center for student use.

Students’ reactions welcomed these future plans with excitement. Many students noted the convenience of these changes.

“I think it would be nice to not have to go all the way to Leahy to print.” said Alexa Ruotolo, a sophomore.

Another sophomore student Adriana Oliver said, “It would be a success!” Oliver said the change would allow students more time to sleep and less time spent walking in the cold weather to get all the way to Leahy Hall to print.

However, not all reactions were so positive. Some students think putting printers in the Edward J. Pryzbyla Center would take up too much space.

“I do not know where they would place printers in the Pryz and the space there is already crammed.” said senior Sophie Reyes.

The Office of Technology Services held another Town Meeting on Thursday in the Edward J. Pryzbyla Center. If students or faculty members have any concerns they can contact the Technology Services at computing.cua.edu or techsupport.cua.edu.