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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 20, 1981)
,ocal THE BATTALION Page FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1981 ight funds make computer classes a hassle rica KRFMMFRir'H Dinkel said the computing 1 -M 3 it m leave By ERICA KRENNERICH Battalion Reporter Inadequate funds for student seofWylbur, a component of the exasA&M System computer, is feeling the quality of instruction Indents receive, but will not pre- nistudents from completing re lied projects, Dr. John Dinkel, iead of the business analysis and search department, says. Dinkel said that because the ill [diversity doesn’t own the com- meonet ito> it must buy computer time. Texas Engineering Experi- ieiit Station owns the computer, 'theUniversity did own the com- uter, it could have its computer me free. . a ! He said the vice president for ndmgli ^dmuc affairs allocates money iach college for instructional imputer use, or student use, and ays happy hour time from the ttir car et around enterinj if some ■ the 1 do xpecttl * ata J >rocess i n g Center. Happy I ll resp t’s what. ven s it 'atulate lame. M J, belie )r »ur is from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. londay through Thursday. It’s r* irsmall student jobs, and thestu- un '.* entsaren’t charged for their com- J™* uting time. Dinkel said that the College of Isiness gets $20,500 a year for earn for fractional computer use. The nsiness analysis and research de- up figll artment gets most of the money ' ‘ "cause it has the most students ho use Wylbur. liana 217, an introductory com- uter course, has 1,200 to 1,500 indents each semester. Each stu- ntreceives $3.50 for the semes- irforcomputing, he said. If 1,500 udents enroll in the course, 250 is used each semester. In a year, about half of the busi- college allocation is used by ns course, he said. Dinkel said the computing money is usually used up in the first semester of the year. After that, the department supports the computer classes using depart mental money. Department money is used to pay its bills, support faculty travel to attend meetings and support fa culty and instructional computer use. “When we get to departmental operating expenses, not only do we have to support instructional use of the computer, but we also have to support faculty use of the computer,’ Dinkel said. “We simply don’t have enough money to satisfactorily cover either of those. So we re in a conflict and both suffer as a result. “We don’t have enough money, but that’s not only in (the) Bana (department); that’s every depart ment in the College of Business Administration and probably in most departments around the University. Part of the issue in the business college has been our rapid growth in the last couple of years. We’ve had enormous growth in terms of students and new faculty. ’ Dinkel said he assessed the im pact that the lack of funds caused and found the situation worse than he thought it would be. “The University allocation for computing this year is exactly the same number of dollars as last year,” Dinkel said. “Our growth in the department is about 16 per cent over last year in terms of stu dent credit hours. So we re look ing at covering about 16 percent more students, with increased costs from the DPC, with the Multi-faceted system Four computing centers, like this one in the Sterling C. Evans Library, are available to Staff photo by Greg Watermann faculty for instructional. By JOHNA JO MAURER Battalion Reporter Texas A&M University stu dents and faculty have access to two sophisticated computers through the Texas A&M Data Pro cessing Center network. Four campus computing cen ters in the Sterling C. Evans Lib rary, Teague Computing Center, Zachry Engineering Center and Kleberg serve as access points to the main computer system. A fifth center will open in July in the Academic & Agency Building. The local network is used for academic, research and adminis trative purposes. Dick Simmons, director of the Data Processing Center, said stu dents can use the computer neU work for statistical analysis and simulation routines. students and research and administrative purposes. Today's almanac same number of dollars. So each student gets less money.” Lack of funds does have an im pact on courses, he said. “First, we re forcing students to rely on happy hour,” he said. “Second, without exception, all of the courses are cutting back on the programming exercises that are being done. Instructors simply don’t have the resources, and they require less of the students, which means students are getting less ex posure to the computer.” Dinkel said that if a student runs out of computer money, the student’s files are removed from Wylbur and he can run keypunch cards at happy hour, which effec tively means free computing. The problem, Dinkel said, results when the student has to compete with many other students who use happy hour, and when he has to find a working keypunch machine. “No student has been unable to complete the required projects because he’s run out of money,” Dinkel said. “But he has been put at a disadvantage in having to go to cards and use happy hour.” Dinkel said he is confident the University will deal with the com puter problem. “I think it’s an issue the Univer sity is going to have to deal with,” he said. “Texas A&M is growing rapidly and the faculty is growing rapidly. There are a large number of faculty coming from other uni versities where the computing re source is essentially free for in structional use.” He said electrical engineering students can simulate circuitry with one of the many program ming systems in the computer, architecture students can simulate structural design, and aeronautics students are able to simulate rock et and airplane design. Jack Foster, manager of the University computer network, said students also use the campus network to learn the many compu ter languages. He said Fortran is the most widely used language, but others such as COBOL, PL/1, SAS, and PASCAL also are used exten sively. Fpster said the Data Processing Center has tapes with statistical information on certain areas that students use to analyze data. About 600 courses use compu ter time for problem solution. A computer happy hour that is offered from 6 p.m. to 10 p.rn. Monday through Thursday allows free usage to students for compu ter jobs. The computer network is used for administrative purposes also. The Fiscal Office, Housing Office, Academic Counseling Center and Student Records are among many offices on campus having direct ac cess to the computer for data col lection, accounting and informa tion filing. Simmons said the University computer system is the regional center for the state computer net work, whose users include Uni versity of Texas at Tyler, Tarleton State University and Texas State Technical Institute in Waco, Amarillo, Sweetwater and Harl ingen. These network users are con nected by telephone lines to the Data Processing Center. Today is Friday, Nov. 20, the 24th day of 1981 with 41 davs to On this date in history: In 1620, a baby girl was deli- ered aboard the Mayflower in Jassachusetts Bay, the first white Id born in the New England alonies. She was named Pereg- ine White. In 1945, 24 German leaders cut on trial at N uremberg before ^'International War Crimes Tri- nal. In 1968, an explosion entombed 78 men in a coal mine at Farming- ton, W. Va. In 1975, Generalissimo Fran cisco Franco of Spain died. Also that day, Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomina tion in 1976. A thought for the day: Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle said: “Music is well said to be- the speech of angels.” Appearing LIVE ‘%EIF KAIIAIv” Friday & Saturday Night Cover sgoo 4L4110 Coilcgtz Main n.; ..... PETROLEUM CORP. Jeingj r has in msurt proudj or well alize, I wantti Dayen|]j| win Fifl dd Mai McC Thoniaj will be on campus NOVEMBER 23 & 24 to interview for B BA/Accounting |\/|BA/F' nan /„ the beautiful fh orientated company : ,n d omr, K »» "1'f dway-Memorial ar& a y 0 urs^ to seek an a,te ^ ;e on e of the best her 9, 1981. 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