One of the outcomes of the University Faculty Senate conference on educational technologies last December was CUNYWIDE, an online discussion group which now includes some two hundred faculty, administrators, and staff among its readers.

The lively interest in this new list has been driven partly by its role as a source of information on the fiscal crisis, but most of the discussion has focused on educational technology. It has been immediately apparent that many serious issues are system-wide, and that there is a great need for faculty and staff input from the campuses. There is great diversity among the campuses in terms of what has been done to provide access to e-mail, the Internet, World Wide Web, and multi-media, and one of the functions of the list has simply been to describe what is going on at each campus.

Such descriptions naturally raise issues of policy: what are the most effective ways, given limited resources, to use the new technologies to educate our students and encourage research? What should the funding priorities be for wiring the campuses? For e-mail access for students and faculty, including dial-up access? What about full Internet access from off-campus? Which services should be provided system-wide, and which should be provided by the campuses?

One of the most useful aspects of CUNYWIDE has been the chance for participants at different locations to conduct ongoing discussions of these and other issues. It has always been difficult to develop a faculty/staff voice in a twenty-one campus system. CUNYWIDE provides a forum for sustained discussion and hopefully some useful impact on policy decisions. It doesn't hurt that the list's membership includes many Deans, Vice-Presidents, Computer Center Directors, and other administrators and staff. Membership is open to all CUNY faculty, administrators, and staff, including part-time faculty members.

To subscribe to CUNYWIDE from CUNYVM, type: TELL LISTSERV SUB CUNYWIDE

To subscribe from another host send electronic mail to: LISTSERV@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

The message in the mail should read: SUB CUNYWIDE

-- Dean Savage, Sociology, Queens College; Chair, University-wide Systems Committee of UFS.