The greatest immediate danger probably lies with viewing the computer as some sort of panacea, and plunging ahead with implementations of poorly conceived plans. It is fundamental to the nature of the university that it be a forum where ideas compete and where individuals pursue their own lines of inquiry. This implies that in computing the University is essentially a heterogeneous place. Business models of standardization are inherently inappropriate. The range of faculty needs and potential technology applications seems enormous.
Departments know their own needs best, and the needs vary considerably.
Occasionally, the sentiment is expressed that if computer hardware and software were standardized throughout the university, this would free up time which would allow the computer support personnel at the university to be more creative. Efforts in that direction might well result in a shift of support effort from the support staff to the faculty members, i.e., to those people whose job is specifically to be creative. The result is two groups of people who are doing less of what they have been specifically trained to do. Our feeling is that it is essential that the priorities in computing and any other area essential to scholarship must be set by the faculty. Given the variety of intellectual endeavor which characterize the university, the correct level for the determinination of these needs and priorities are the individual departments.