The new academic year began last week and the College is full of activity. The Clapp Library is looking busy and alive. One knows how busy the Library is just as you enter – the exterior door has some issue (wear and tear) and the next set of doors are typically left open (patrons are too busy to close them; they really think that they are swing doors that should close automatically, but they don’t!). Sorry, the doors are my pet peeve and my attempts to get them fixed permanently have always resulted in the answer of how costly it would be! I even suggested an old style cord of sorts for the interior door that the student or the staff at the service desk can pull to shut them. But then we have insurance liability to worry about because some may trip over the cord. All kidding aside, we are on a mission to get these fixed soon (Hope is everything)!

There are some days that you never forget – the landing on the moon (I was here listening to tamil translation of a BBC broadcast on radio), the Challenger disaster (Watching TV here ) and of course 9/11 (I was at work at Wesleyan where we all gathered to watch the horrible scenes on TV). I found this op-ed in NY Times on 9/11/2012 to be interesting (though we have heard many of these before, when you look at it collectively, it sheds a different light on the problem). Of course, this is just one version of the events preceding the horrible tragedy. Hearing some of the survivors of the tragedy recount their loved ones even now makes one feel so sad. On to other things.

We are in the process of developing a short term strategic plan. One question we are interested in the question is the future of networking. It is the most fundamental technology we rely on 24/7/365 (or 366 every four years) and take for granted. Whether it is cloud computing or Mobile First, all of which we will incorporate, having a reliable and fast network infrastructure is critical. Note that I said reliable first! (more…)