These are the minutes of the meeting of 8/7/97.

We started by discussing how we would take minutes, and concluded that we would share the job on a rotating basis.

We discussed the documents that Carol and Rebecca submitted, but my notes don't suggest that we came to any particular conclusions.

 Then we got to vision. This was a wide-ranging discussion, as anyone would expect. We talked about the Jon Crystal vision and Keith pointed out that Doing-IT had a great vision statement, but that not one of us could remember what it says. The point is that we need something that is simple enough that it will make a difference, rather than sit on a shelf.

 Mark suggested that we need to have a vision statement that tells us what UVM needs to do, and leave the other stuff aside. He specifically mentioned budgeting for IT and considering the issues of organization and support. Rebecca followed this by suggesting that if we have a plan, someone important must adopt it and make it a working plan. This fits with the next person who suggested that the Doing-IT goals were so inclusive that no one knew where to start.

 Martha suggested that we ought to start by listing what is broken so that we know what needs fixing. That's a dangerous place to start, because many people have toes waiting to be stepped on. That idea sort of petered out.

 Mark said that he wants to hear from President Ramaley, and we agreed to ask her to meet with the committee.

 We gave ourselves an assignment of writing our own vision/goals/outcomes for IT and a set of problems to be addressed.

 We made a list of information that we will try to collect. It included

  1. Wages and salary will give list of people with computer-type jobs.
  2. Property control will get list of computers.
  3. Purchasing will tell us what they can.
  4. Jim Whitby will tell us about classrooms.
  5. Martha will get a bunch of stuff.
  6. We'll find out about equipment replacement reserves.
  7. Martha will look into what is spent on training. 

 Submitted by David Howell.