McNeese State University

Call to Order
Mike Graham called the meeting to order at 2:35pm. Members present were TJ Moore,
John O’Donnell, Patrick Eustis, Clayton Moreau, Tim Rye, Raphiel Heard, Bill Mungai, Dr. Nikos Kiritsis and Mike Graham. Others in attendance were Chad Thibodeau, Shannon Davis and Brenda Gallow. Member absent was Dr. Todd Furman.

Minutes
TJ Moore made a motion to approve the 04May07 minutes. Motion was seconded and approved unanimously.

Mike Graham asked the committee to nominate someone to chair the TASC Meetings. John O’Donnell moved to nominate TJ Moore to chair the TASC Meetings.
Nomination was seconded and committee voted to approve.

CITO Update
Mike Graham thanked everyone for attending the meeting. He informed the committee that Shannon Davis/CoTASCO has announced that he will be leaving McNeese in about 2-weeks. Mike said Shannon’s departure will be greatly missed and thanked him for his service. As a result Mike said the search for Shannon’s replacement will begin very quickly. Mike asked if anyone wants to be on the search committee to replace Shannon, let him know.

Mike also spoke to the committee about the bandwidth. He said now we have a reasonable amount of bandwidth that is being utilized and this amount will continue to improve when we get the LONI connection.

Old Business
Mike Graham updated the committee about several outstanding items:
The Portal - Mike said we are behind but will catch up quickly. SCT, the company we have been utilizing, did not put some things in right and we have had to pull some things down and address them. One thing that was very poor was the mail package. We went out and found Zimbra, which is a very good mail system. Zimbra functions exactly like Outlook. We are planning to start training in November for the mail system and the portal and we are targeting the spring for the ‘go live’ on everything, but will not force it. Mike said he would have a demo for the committee possibly as soon as the next meeting.

Printing System (Go Print) - Mike said we are making good progress. We have identified and purchased a print management system. The committee last year asked for a print management system that could be put into Holbrook and into the Library to try to begin controlling the way printing is done. He said there is a lot of waste happening in terms of toner and paper and TASC is spending about $60,000 to $70,000 in printing. This cost can be reduced significantly in terms of controlling the number of times someone is hitting print. This is what last year’s committee wanted—to try and put a control mechanism in by which you have to release a print before it actually prints. Mike said there is the option of charging for printing if the committee wants to do later, but we have not done nor plan to do this because it was not the original intent of last year’s committee. Mike suggested getting the print system in, trying it out first and see what can be done in terms of reducing problems and saving costs. Other schools have been using it and seem very happy with it. Mike said because the original quotes first received were so much higher than what was originally spent, we were able to replace the HP printers with Xerox printers and we are still approx $20,000 under budget. The new Xerox printers will be put on line later today. Due to Shannon’s departure, we may put the print management system on hold until we get through the semester. Mike said he would update as soon as he is able.

Contraband - Mike said this project is done and they are pleased with the new equipment.
This project also came somewhere around $10,000-$15,000 under budget.

Forensics - Mike said all of the equipment is here and ready to set up. The Chemistry folks will be doing the setup. Mike said we will be the #1 in the state in terms of a forensics program and the long term goal is to build a forensics major around it.

TASC Internet Café - Mike said the original idea was to take the old CCs Coffee and renovate it into a place for students to ‘hang out’. This project will move forward, but there is no timeline set up because he does not have that information from Chartwells. Mike guessed it will be ready for the spring semester. Mike did say there will be IMac computers set up. He said this project should also come in well under budget.

Microsoft - Shannon said he spoke to a vendor contact who is working on a quote. He explained last year the committee wanted to obtain discounts on Microsoft software for all the students, such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, Microsoft Office (for both Windows and McIntosh) at significant discounts. One way would be for TASC to purchase upfront and then get back the funds by charging a little over what it cost per media. Shannon said he plans to have the information before he leaves.
Mike reminded the committee that anything Shannon is doing may take a little longer to get done, once he is gone.

Mike was asked about the TASC budget. He said he would bring the budget information to the next meeting, but his guess was approx. $650,000, maybe a little more.
TJ asked Mike if he could bring the drawings for the TASC Internet Café at the next meeting and Mike said he would bring what he could.

New Business
TJ Moore asked Mike about the TASC proposals. Mike explained how the proposals were submitted in the past 2-years. He said the committee decided to put aside $50,000 per college for equipment maintenance on or upgrade/repair/replacement on existing TASC equipment and then for new equipment for the colleges. The deans are required to rank the proposals, which keeps the focus on the college priority and not on individual requests. The committee then reviews each proposal and votes to approve. There is also another $50,000 put aside for non-college proposals. This totals to approx. $350,000 for proposals leaving somewhere around $300,000 to $400,000 for the committee to do whatever it wants to. Dr. Nikos Kiritsis shared his experience with the TASC proposals, first as a faculty member and now as a dean. He thinks the $50,000 per college works well. TJ Moore asked the committee their thoughts. TJ also stated from his experience last year he liked the way the TASC proposals were handled. The committee had a brief discussion and Clay Moreau moved to allot $50,000 to each college and $50,000 to other departments. Raphiel Heard seconded. The committee voted to approve and motion carries.

Dr. Kiritsis wondered if the committee needed to set a deadline for proposals at this meeting. After a brief discussion, the committee chose to wait for the budget information before setting a deadline to turn the proposals in.

TJ Moore stated he would like to discuss amending the constitution (similar to an emergency action used in Senate Meetings) to have meetings and the ability to vote when quorums are not met. Then at the next quorum meeting the committee could review to approve the decisions made. TJ asked Chad Thibodeau (a former TASC senator who helped draft the constitution) for his thoughts on the matter. Chad said he did not see a problem with this. He feels it would help to push things along.

There was some discussion on the steps to take for the approvals and TJ Moore said he and John O’Donnell will work on that piece of legislation and have it ready for the next meeting for the committee’s approval.

CoTASCO Update
Shannon Davis updated the committee on several things that were approved and have gotten done.
The SmartThinking (for General and Basic Studies) paperwork is in process. Shannon has been dealing with the vendor to try and complete.

Enrollment Information is done. Their 5-computers have been installed and they are happy.

Print Management Printers - As soon as this meeting is over, we will implement the two new Xerox printers into Holbrook.

TJ Moore asked the committee if everyone could meet each Friday at the same time in the McNeese Room. The committee discussed briefly and Clay Moreau moved to approve the TASC Meeting times at 2:30pm of every Friday (excluding the week of Thanksgiving and the Christmas break) for the remainder of the year, to be held in the McNeese Room of the Library. Tim Rye seconded. The committee approved and motion carries.

Adjournment
Tim Rye motioned to adjourn the meeting and Raphiel Heard seconded.
The committee voted to approve and the meeting was adjourned at 3:14p.m.

Want to work for TASC? Click Here to print out an application.