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( RESOLUTION PURCHASE OF COMPUTER EQUIPMENT FOR INSTRUCTION (Board of Trustees Meeting, June 9, 1985) | WHEREAS, the computer has become an important instructional and productivity device for students and faculty and computer literacy for all College of the Virgin Islands students is an important intermediate range goal; WHERAS, computer resources for instructional and research purposes are very limited on the St. Thomas and St. Croix campuses of the College of the Virgin Islands; and the gap between the academic computer facilities at the College of the Virgin Islands and the academic computer facilities at other institutions of higher education has been growing. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the President and Vice- President for Business and Financial Affairs be authorized to appropriate $50,000 from the Educational Resources Reserve Fund for the purchase of academic computer equipment on the St. Thomas and St. Croix campuses according to recommended priorities identified by the Vice President of Academic Affairs in consultation with the Education Technology Committee. CERTIFICATION The undersigned does hereby certify that the foregoing is a true and exact copy of a resolution of the Board of Trustees of the College of the Virgin Islands adopted at its meeting on June 9, , 1985, as recorded in the minutes of said meeting. DATED: 10 June 85 ies ra AL. a Secretary of the Boar 209 . ‘ JUSTIFICATION FOR PURCHASE OF COMPUTING EQUIPMENT 4 ‘ ~ 2 VV It is difficult to compare the investment in academic computing facilities at C.V.I. with other institutions. Universities acquiring thousands of microcomputers are often supported by grants, as were the initial purchases at C.V.I. Microcomputers and other educational techzology have been acquired and many applications and programs successfully initiated at the College, but there is nevertheless a perception of losing ground. This perception has been aggravated by difficulties with power and recruitment of personnel, but the basic problem is funding. The committee on educational technology has developed a two year plan to bring the academic computing facilities up to a minimum acceptable level. This development includes provision on each campus for centralized facilities which can support group instruction and lab practice, and which can provide access and supervision to begin to meet student demand. Improved graphics capabilities would be ‘available to meet general student and faculty demand as well as more specialized needs such as the theatre arts. Communications facilities would be strengthened to improve sharing of facilities between campuses as well as giving some support to exploration of approaches through which special communications applications in fields such as journalism can be achieved. Better support would be available to faculty developing CAI or other instructional applications, and an initial small system would be provided for research. This plan would not make C.V.I. facilities comparable to large institutions, and does not pretend to include provision for all of the applications of computing to instruction which can be expected in the long term. The development plan will, however, relieve present problems and move facilities at the college closer to the national norm of expectations. An immediate supplemental allocation is requested to initiate improvement of academic computing support facilities. It is hoped that completion of the plan and future support can be achieved within the normal budgeting process, hopefully supple- mented by grants or other external sources. Progress has been made, but more is needed. The resolution before the Board is a first step in meeting this critical need.