TASC MEETING
Minutes
January 19, 2007

Call to Order
Mike Duff called the meeting to order at 3:32pm. Members present were Marcus Stein, Patrick Eustis, Ashley Berken, T.J. Moore, Clayton Moreau, Dr. Wayne Fetter, Janet Woolman, Dr. Todd Furman, Michael Graham and Michael Duff. Others in attendance were Shannon Davis, Chad Thibodeaux and Brenda Gallow.

Minutes
Michael Duff accepted the December 12, 2006 minutes by acclamation.

CITO Update
Michael Graham stated the Dial-Up Internet Bids came back and Structure X was the lowest bidder at roughly $87,000/year. After a brief explanation Mike asked for a motion to continue the dial-up service, otherwise if the committee does not agree than service would discontinue in 11-days. Marcus Stein motioned to continue dial-up and Ashley Berken seconded. The committee approved and motion carried.

Mike Graham stated the university has approved through the riverboat fund about $35,000 for ‘Graduation Monitors’ which consist of some rear projection equipment and screens (large venue items) to be able to show the actual graduation ceremony on big screens. The estimate from Creative Presentation is about $70,000. This would consist of a camera to shoot/record the event which will feed to projectors on the screens. There would be 2 screens set up in front of the Dias and possibly 2 on the sides in order to view each graduate walk thru the line and shake the president’s hand. Mike said this information is for possible committee consideration to be discussed at another time. Mike wondered if this would be something the committee would be interested in enough to get more information, and have Scott Albarado from Creative Presentations come in and give a presentation and possibly go out and look at the venue. The committee agreed they would like more information.

Mike Graham updated the committee about the Blackboard and Luminus pricing. The cost of the servers would be $143,137 and the university will spend about $250,000 on the network to speed it up and get the network as fast as it can be. And, other than LSU (and maybe Louisiana Tech) McNeese would be the only other 10GB school in the state. Mike said he would like to get Luminus up and running for the fall. Starting in February or March the Banner platform will be done. We have the software for Luminus, but do not have the hardware, Mike said. He asked the committee for the approval to purchase the servers. Both Janet Woolman and Mike Duff agreed this would be a good purchase.

Mike also asked the committee to think about what to do with the money set aside for the Holbrook Expansion. Presently, approx $500,000 is just sitting there. Would the committee like to put the money back into the general usage fund to be used for other projects? And later, at some point in the future, another committee could decide to take $500,000 off the top for the Holbrook Expansion and fund the TASC Proposals at $50,000/each. After some discussion Dr. Furman motioned to take the Holbrook money and put it back into the general usage fund. Janet Woolman seconded. The committee approved and motion carried.

Janet Woolman motioned to approve the money for the new Luminus servers. Motion was seconded. After some discussion, the committee voted to approve the purchase of the new servers and motion carried.

Mike Graham asked the committee to think about the Blackboard cost of $41,412. The university would pick up the first $10,000 and Mike is asking TASC to pick up $31,412. Mike Duff suggested putting this on the agenda for the next meeting.

Old Business
Mike Graham asked the committee to start and narrow down ideas, i.e. kiosk and print management or any other ideas in terms of projects due to the additional money available in the general usage fund from the Holbrook Expansion.

Janet Woolman stated she was approached by Dr. Stinnett and Dr. Santostasi regarding the telescope. Dr. Stinnett said they have put some new information together based on some of the TASC Committee recommendations; such as committing some of the money for the project. Dr. Stinnett said they have been talking to several area Plants and one of the Plants is interested in fixing the base. So there is a good possibility of money coming in, which will allow the Physics Department to commit some of the money. As a result, Janet agreed to bring the request and ask the committee to allow the Physics Dept. to present their new information in a new format for reconsideration.

Mike Graham asked the committee if they wanted him to do a survey. He could run it for a week or two on the internet and ask students something like ‘If this were here, would you use it?’ Dr. Furman asked Mike if he ever got an answer on buying time on another telescope and Janet wondered about the ability to view thru the web. Mike said he did not think they felt it was feasible, but he would call Dr. Stinnett to discuss.

In terms of projects, Dr. Furman commented he would like to see the committee spend a lot of money in one area to be best at something, such as the money spent on the band in the past. Dr. Furman said that brought in a lot of students. He would not mind reconsidering spending money in that direction again. Mike Graham agreed in terms of the idea and suggested the committee come back with ideas on how to spend money. He suggested each member get ideas from others and/or put ideas on paper for the next meeting and maybe decide in a couple of meetings what to do.

New Business
The following TASC Proposals were reviewed:

College of Science ($50,431.92) – the committee discussed briefly, agreeing to downgrade the monitors from 20” for the requested PC1 computers. Dr. Furman motioned to accept the proposal with the changed to downgrade the monitors to 19” and not to exceed $50,000. Motion was seconded. The committee approved and motion carried.

College of Nursing ($48,330.59) – the committee discussed briefly agreeing to downgrade the monitors from 20” for the requested PC1 computers. Dr. Furman motioned to accept the proposal with the change to downgrade the monitors to 19” and not to exceed $50,000. Motion was seconded. The committee approved and motion carried.

College of Business - Mike Graham stated that Dr. Michell Adrian, the new Dean, would like the committee to give him a little time to look at the proposal and tweak it. Both Mike and Shannon Davis will meet with Dean Adrian on Friday, 1/26/07 to discuss. Dr. Furman motioned to let the new Dean take a look at the College of Business proposal. Motion was seconded. The committee approved and motion carried.

Other: Student Government ($10,700.03)- after a brief discussion, T.J. Moore motioned to approve the TASC proposal for 7ea PC2 computers w/Office Suite and 1ea Adobe Web Bundle 2.0 software. Motioned was seconded. The committee approved and motioned carried.

Other: Library – Janet Woolman gave a brief explanation of each of the 4 requests. Request 1 ($7,110.06) - for 6ea PC3s to replace PC workstations, heavily used by students, located on the first floor of the reference department. Mike Graham suggested the committee upgrade to PC2s. Ashley Berken motioned to accept the proposal with the change to upgrade from PC3s to PC2s. Motioned was seconded. The committee approved and motion carried.

Request 2 ($696.00) - for Ariel 4.1.1 software. This software would allow students to scan, view and print articles. After a short discussion, Clayton Moreau motioned to approve proposal for software. Motion was seconded. The committee approved and motion carried.

There was a motion and a second to extend the meeting for 10-minutes to consider the remaining proposals. The committee approved and motion carried.

Request 3 ($2,250.00) - for two PC3 computers to be used for microfilm reading technology. After some discussion, the committee decided to table this request and get more information and come back to it at another time.

Request 4 ($8,339.00) - for a Xerox WorkCenter 7132 and Jamex 6557 with base used by students to make copies of current and bound journals and other copy needs. After some discussion, Marcus Stein moved to table this request and come back to it once more information is obtained on whether copier could be compatible with the one card system.

Janet thanked the committee for their consideration.

A motion was made to table discussion on the remaining proposals, i.e. Liberal Arts and College of Engineering, until the next meeting.

This year the university will commit to half, if TASC will commit to half the cost of the renewal at $8,952. A motion was made and seconded to accept the renewal at a 50-50 split. The committee approved and motion carried.

CoTASCO Update
N/A

The next TASC Meeting will be on Friday, February 2, 2007 at 3:30pm in the McNeese Room.

Mike Duff suggested, at the next meeting, the committee may be able to iron out a meeting schedule for the rest of the semester.

Adjournment
Meeting was adjourned at 4:40pm.