Last summer students made more than 500 inquiries about buying personal computers through ResNet, a housing-related technology project. Those developments also help account for the Carolina Computing Initiative's initial goal to put computers on the desktops of every faculty and academic staff member in the College of Arts and Sciences and have all of its buildings properly wired, both by 2000, Moore said. Related new academic initiatives are planned in the College of Arts and Sciences, said Dr. Richard J. Richardson, provost. For example, a new series of freshmen seminars that begin next January to better integrate first-year students into the intellectual life of campus have technological implications, he said, because 40 new faculty members will be hired to supplement the teaching load in their departments while more senior faculty lead the seminars. New faculty will be hired based partly on their interest or skills in using information technology.
Computers can add tremendously to the learning that takes place in the classroom.
We look forward to monitoring the results of this new program for freshmen and preparing our faculty for such an exciting opportunity. The bottom line is that we think learning will be enhanced.