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senate[s83,jmc]		Senate of the Academic Council

Oh yes, by the way, my office window doesn't close all the way;
John, can you get them to fix it?  And ther isn't enough parking
on the oval.  What are you going to do about it?  And I'm sick
and tired of it raining so much and ... - Ullman

Parking and C.I.T. - Feigenbaum and Cheriton

	I don't know that I can do much about parking or C.I.T.,
and getting Jeff's window fixed should be taken up with my staff.
However, I do promise to do something about the rain.

Resolved: Whereas, as is well known, most faculty members were lured
to Stanford in the first place by promises of good weather, therefore
our employment with Stanford contains an implied clause that the
Trustees will act so as to insure good weather and not so much rain.
Therefore, be it resolved that Stanford move to Death Valley or the
Gobi Desert.


hoover[s83,jmc]		Attack on Hoover Institution

A faculty petition, aimed at placing a resolution on the Academic
Senate agenda, urges the 
Board of Trustees to investigate Hoover's alleged partisanship.
The petition claims that "the existence of a partisan organization,
whether liberal or conservative, with the University raises grave
questions concerning academic independence" and Stanford's national
reputation.

John Manley - Political Science
Ronald Rebholz - English
Alexander Dallin - History

Although some faculty and administrators believe the way to bring
Hoover under control ...

Henry Levin - education, attacks Hoover for "political litmus test"
but declined to sign the petition.


From: Brian Reid <reid@Shasta>

I would heartily concur that CIT is one of the biggest solvable
problems. Anything we can do to reduce their size and their budget and
their influence on the University will be an improvement. 
Ed, parking is not solvable. I ride a bicycle. Not for everyone.

∂25-Apr-83  0951	ALS  	CIT again
To:   JMC@SU-AI, EAF@SU-AI, reid@SU-SHASTA 
I would like to comment on Brian's statement that "anything that we can do
to reduce their [CIT's] size and their budget and their influence...".
Isn't this the wrong direction to go.  Their size, their budget, and their
influence are important assets that should be conserved and redirected.
The problem is that these assets are currently being misused and misdirected.

So, what can be done to reestablish the control over the activities of
this organization that the Computer Science Department once exercised and
later relinquished with the formation of CIT? This, John, is your problem.

Obviously, we (and by we I mean the Computer Science and the Electrical
Engineering Departments) do not want to get involved with the nitty-gritty
detail of managing what has become and is a big operation but we should
have a say and an important say as to overall policies.  Perhaps we should
have two or three representatives on a pseudo-board of directors to whom
the director of CIT will have to report.  McCarthy, Feigenbaum and Reid
might serve in this capacity.

I presently intend to make C.I.T. my main concern in the Academic
Senate if there is leverage to do so.  However, I don't suppose my
election is effective till Fall, and there is currently a Senate
committee on C.I.T.  Perhaps it will report then, and we can react
to the report.  I say "we" with the intent of trying to solicit CSD
reactions.  It would be helpful if people would spell out their
criticisms and desires relative to C.I.T.

My own present opinion, subject to modification by study, is more
along the lines of Brian's than of Art's.  While there is often
a technological advantage in centralization (more bang for the hardware
buck), it can be outweighed by the effects of Parkinson's law
in an organization that expands.  I think this has happened with
C.I.T., and I doubt that it can be substantially corrected in
the administrative environment of Stanford where all kinds of
bureaucracies have been permitted to grow and impose costs.
However, the technology permits decentralization, and if C.I.T.
were abolished its clients would find other ways of meeting their
computing needs given that its budget from general funds were
suitably distributed.  The advantage is that a suborganization
of the University meeting its needs out of its own budget will
reach a different balance between money spent on computer personnel
and money spent otherwise.  The last time I knew the figures the
amount C.I.T. spent on personnel was many times what it spent on
the computer.  At LOTS I would guess that twice as
much goes for amortizing the computer as goes for personnel.

These financial matters are a major reason why computer science
expertise per se is not the key to cost-effective computing.
Incidentally, it would not help our efforts to reform C.I.T.
if we were to make a financial bungle with CSD-CF that forced
us to let the University take over its financial affairs.