Technology in the SPARK Building Is Not Working

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REQUEST 1: Please have the doors to the Faculty Hoteling Rooms in SPARK left unlocked.

The calendar system for booking the hoteling and conference rooms in SPARK is not currently working. This has lead to several problems:

•  The only way to book a Faculty Hoteling Room is to go to the room itself, hope that the touch-pad is working, then reserve the room.
• In order to actually use the room, you must go down to the front desk and ask the very helpful staff to come and open the room for you. The Faculty Hoteling Rooms are kept locked at all time unless a faculty member has asked at the front desk to have a room unlocked.

The result of this is that Faculty Hoteling Rooms are inconvenient to use and very useful rooms in SPARK sit locked and empty all day and evening. The reason I was given for keeping the doors locked is that faculty have complained that sometimes students are using the room and behave in a less than gracious manner when asked to leave. I suggest this be handled with a poster on the door clearly indicating that priority for room use is first given to faculty with reservations, second to faculty without reservations, and that students may only use the room if there are no faculty requesting its use at that time.

REQUEST 2: Fix the hardware problems with the projector and AMS equipment and/or allow us to use our own equipment.

The tech support person in SPARK is great. But he spends a lot of time getting classroom equipment up and running on a daily basis. I now tease him with “see you next class”, when he comes to fix things in my classroom. I give up 5 – 20 minutes of teaching time about every third class. My colleagues teaching in SPARK express similar frustrations, from projectors that don’t work, to classrooms that don’t connect properly to students on other campuses, to recordings that only pick up half the class, or the wrong class, etc. Although I appreciate VP Davis’ concern that if I and my students were running their own personal zoom, WSU tech support might not help us with technical issues (the crimson support desk provides great service when I call), I can assure you that I have had far fewer technical issues working with students and colleagues over the last five years using our my own laptop than I had in the first three weeks of the semester in a WSU classroom. And if it is WSU equipment I am using, I can not fix it, so I have to put up with losing class time and the frustration for all of us working with a system we cannot trust and have no personal ability to fix. I would also point out that I expect my students to use technology to do homework and participate in out of class activities, so the expectation that they can use their own equipment is already there. Finally, I want to make sure when we look at the cost of upgrading or repairing a an IT system in SPARK, we are comparing it to the cost of paying IT people, day after day, to keep the equipment running.

REQUEST 3: Fix the broken door next to the parking lot.

Having the door broken means that someone with accessibility issues has to go to door farther from the parking lot, access to health services, access to the Access Center, etc. in order to exit the building.

Final Comment:

As we watch student enrollment and national rankings fall, having what should be our premiere building for educating students in such an obvious state of disrepair does not reflect well on our commitments to students and faculty.

Response

We reached out to the Provost’s office. Please see their response:

We appreciate the concerns shared by members of the Faculty Senate regarding IT issues in the SPARK Building and Webster Hall.   After discussion with our partners in Academic Outreach and Innovation (AOI) and Facilities and Operations, please find below preliminary responses to the shared concerns.

• Concern #1 – Access to the Faculty Hoteling Spaces in SPARK: These rooms are now unlocked during the hours that the building is publicly available.  The rooms were locked because several faculty shared concerns that students would often use these spaces and that faculty were uncomfortable asking them to leave.  With the doors now unlocked, faculty will need, at times, to remind students that the rooms are reserved for faculty use. AOI will post signage asking students not to use the areas and remind patrons that the rooms are intended for faculty hoteling space.
  • AOI is aware of the issues with the scheduling displays outside of the hoteling space, and they are working to replace those panels as soon as possible.  Once those panels are replaced, they will begin to lock the doors again in the future.
• Concern #2 – IT Infrastructure in SPARK and Webster Hall Classrooms: AOI has been notified about these issues, and they are testing the equipment and will work to replace as needed over the coming weeks.
• Concern #3 – Entrance to SPARK being in disrepair: Our partners in Facilities and Operations have been working on a solution to this problem for many months.  As many of us have experienced, supply chain issues have made getting the parts and materials for this repair challenging. The contractor now has the glass and frames for the replacement doors in their shop, and we anticipate the installation of the new doors soon.  A new wind wall will be installed later near that entrance since wind gusts on the west-facing doors contributed to the faster than expected need for repair.

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