|
Campus Computing NewsThe Great MigrationBy Claudia Lynch, Benchmarks Online EditorW e have liftoff! After years of planning, the majority of the Computing and Information Technology Center's operations are moving to the UNT Research Park. The CITC administrative offices, security team, data communications, UNIX Support Services, and the telecommunications groups moved Friday, April 7. Administrative information systems, Central Web Support, and Distributed Learning Support will be moving Friday, April 14. By mid-May, the GroupWise, Novell, and network operating system support groups will have moved. Academic Computing and User Services, including the Help Desk, will remain on the main campus in their current offices on the first floor of the Information Sciences Building. Campus information operators will also remain on campus in the ESSC.Plans for a move from crowded offices in the ISB, GAB, the Hospital, and Marquis Hall have been in the works for a long time. There was just never a consensus on where everyone should move. Several times it has looked like we would get a new building or build an addition on to the ISB. When the University purchased the old TI Plant in 2001, plans for a move and consolidation of CITC staff began in earnest. In fact, the very first tenants of the plant, re-christened UNT Research Park in 2002, were members of the EIS Project Implementation Team. That team consisted, in part, of CITC employees. A little history ...This has certainly been a memorable academic year for the Computing and Information Technology Center. Besides the move to the Research Park, Richard Harris, who was basically the founding father of computing at UNT, retired after 43 years of service. Coy Hoggard, who joined UNT a couple of years after Harris, also retired. In 1964 Harris, Hoggard and the IBM 1440*, which was purchased to perform administrative data processing, were housed in the basement of the Administration Building. In 1970, the University acquired an IBM 360/50 mainframe computer and the Computing Center moved to the ISB. UNT was known as NTSU until 1988 and had several other names before that. The Computing Center became the Computing and Information Technology Center in 2003 and the rest, as they say, is history. For pictures of the CITC areas in the Research Park, and more, click here. * See "A Mainframe Memoir" for more on the IBM 1440 and the men (now retired) who made it - and other mainframe computers - run.
|