Last week’s conference with Robert Pollin was conducted in a glass-walled meeting room at the back of Luther-Bonney’s computer lab on a television using special equipment. Videoconferencing is rare at USM because of budget and time constraints. The conference was made possible by a special machine with a camera attached that uses the internet to communicate, making the miles between the speakers seem to evaporate.
Mert Nickerson, director of University Computing Technologies said professors should not expect to be able to easily set up their own teleconferences. “It takes time to set it up on both ends and to test it properly,” he said. “I don’t want a hundred faculty members calling me, expecting to just be able to walk in and do this.” Susan Feiner, associate professor of Economics, said the video chat took a week to set up, but was worth the effort.
“[University] Computing was very helpful, and I want to stress that. But there has to be a system in place because it is very time consuming,” Feiner said. She said she would like to see more teleconferencing in the future, but acknowledged that more resources are needed in the form of technical expertise. “We need staff resources and a standardized process for using the equipment.”
Students were pleased with the opportunity to speak with the author of a book they had read for class.
“It’s a great use of our tuition,” said Jerusha Murray, a fourth year economics major. “We normally wouldn’t have the resources to talk to someone like that.” Matt Welsh, a junior economics major agreed. “I liked how his interview beefed up his opinions in the book. Some things I didn’t understand, I got from the interview. He probably got something from us as well.”
The end of the teleconference centered on technology, which the speaker cited as the cause of the Clinton-era stock market surge. “We’re still living with the residue of bad choices during the technology bubble,” Pollin said. “It’s wasteful to produce all this equipment unless it results in increased productivity.” He cited the videoconference as an example of technology well-used “Notice that with all the tech companies going bust we still have two universities benefiting from technology.”
John Bronson can be reached at [email protected]