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Ransom Hall renovations spread computers around campus

Written by Sharayah Sherrod, The Shorthorn staff

Monday, 18 January 2010 08:16 PM

Music media freshman Jake Kirby shops at the relocated Computer Store on Friday at the University Center. (The Shorthorn: Aisha Butt)

Chair-less desks and cord-free electrical outlets are all that’s left of the Ransom Hall computer center as renovations continue to turn the building into University College. The student success center, also known as University College, will focus on helping students get past freshman year and all the way to graduation — something that will move the university closer to Tier One status, said university spokeswoman Kristin Sullivan.

“A measure of the success of a university is its graduation rates and its retention rates. This university wants more students to earn their undergraduate degrees in six years than currently do,” she said. “So, to make that happen, we’re working to attract more academic scholars, but once you’re here we want to give you all the advising, tutoring, and counseling that you need.”

Administrators are completing the bidding process to decide who the university will hire to do the renovation. Sullivan said she does not know how far along officials are in the selection process.

Construction will begin in February and end in August in time for the fall 2010 semester, according to the Facilities Management blog. However, preparation work must be completed before the actual renovation can begin.

As facilities crews rolled carts of equipment and fixtures out of Ransom Hall Friday, they said it took most of the break to transfer computers out of the three-story building.

Chief Information Officer Suzanne Montague said that of approximately 130 computers in Ransom Hall, about half of them have been moved to other areas. Thirty-six computers were added to the second floor of the University Center and 10 went to the Web Connection downstairs. Twenty-one Macintosh computers were placed in the Fine Arts Building in Room 411 and crews replaced twenty-four computers in Room 404 of the same building with Macintosh units as well.

Locate campus computer labs and check computer availability:

Go to: http://www.uta.edu/oit/
Under ‘Services,’ click on ‘Computer Labs.’
From there, click the orange links below the horizontal picture to view the maps or the real-time computer accessibility charts.

“We’re taking the rest of the computers that have been in Ransom Hall and updating the other labs that had older computers,” Montague said.

With computers now more spread out, she said, students can check the Office of Information Technology’s Web site before heading to a computer lab. The site has a real-time computer availability program that tracks which computers are being used — something Montague says will help students avoid arriving at full labs. “I hope it’s going to be very helpful,” she said. “The biggest issue is if you’re walking across campus to see where computers are, you almost need a computer to look that up.”
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