“When I first investigated (the architecture program), the laptop was part of my decision in taking these courses. Who wants to come in on weekends when they could be home?”
- Sally Massman, graduate student who lives in Eagle

“As our students’ needs continue to evolve, we will continue to work with them to find the best computing solution, which balances price, performance and support services.”
- Kyle Talbott, chairperson of the SARUP Technology Committee and the SARUP & I&MT e3 Committee

Nearly 300 laptop computers will be turned in at the end of May and exchanged for desktop computers at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning in an effort to reduce the cost to students by 10 percent.

Since fall 2002, the Electronic Educational Environment Program, known as e3, has provided SARUP students with laptop computers, already loaded with the required software needed for course studies, at a fee of $525 per semester, which included use over the summer and during WinteriM.

The decision to switch to desktop computers, effective for the fall 2006 semester, has caused graduate student Sarah Keogh to lead her peers in a petition to reassess the decision to do away with the laptops.

One of SARUP students’ main concerns regarding the switch to desktops is their lack of portability.

Many graduate students are homeowners with families and children; therefore the ability to be at home in the evenings is valuable, Keogh said.

She also said that some commute from nearly an hour away, making it hard to be restricted to campus to work on a design.

“When I first investigated (the architecture program), the laptop was part of my decision in taking these courses,” said Sally Massman, a graduate student who lives nearly 45 minutes away in Eagle. “Who wants to come in on weekends when they could be home?”

Keogh said that SARUP students are expected to work over break.

“Every studio professor I’ve had has said this or required it,” she said. “This will not be possible without the laptops and the programs that the school supplies.”

The space that desktops occupy is also a concern, as some SARUP students complain that the studios are already too confined.

“Our studios are cramped, and adding 10 to 15 desktop computers that we can’t just put away is going to significantly reduce our work space,” Keogh said.

Kyle Talbott, chairperson of the SARUP Technology Committee and the SARUP & Information & Media Technologies (I&MT) e3 Committee, said that space is a “real concern.”

He said that each student who receives an e3 desktop computer would also receive a special computer table, which is compact in size.

“This should minimize the impact on space, but a space crunch is definitely a second disadvantage of the desktops,” Talbott said.

Senior Garrett Maas is worried that, without a laptop, he will not be able to present his designs as profusely. He said that, to some, a laptop is a walking portfolio.

Yet, Talbott said, this should not be a problem. SARUP will have a larger pool of laptops available to students for checkout from its central computer lab.

If a student wanted to go to a job interview with a laptop, for example, he or she would just check a laptop out the day before, he said. Also, this central pool of laptops can be used for giving digital presentations in the school during project reviews.

Keogh said that the decision to eliminate the laptops was not made with proper representation, but Talbott said that the change to the e3 program is the result of a two-year effort to improve the program in response to student feedback.

During the 2004-2005 school year, students had many opportunities to learn about the proposed program change, Talbott said. He said that they were given the opportunity to discuss the changes and offer suggestions and then ultimately to support or oppose them.

These opportunities included “town hall” discussions, public meetings of the e3 Committee, widely distributed student surveys and forums conducted by the American Institution of Architecture Students (AIAS).

“In all these settings, students overwhelmingly supported the change to desktop computers,” Talbott said.

The e3 program changes were developed, reviewed and approved in many stages by various groups over the previous two years.

The changes were planned by a joint committee of SARUP and I&MT representatives, which also included student representatives from the AIAS. The new program was approved by the SARUP faculty and reviewed and approved by the Student Association as part of SARUP’s differential tuition proposal, which was ultimately approved by the UW System Board of Regents on March 10.

Through differential tuition, architecture students will be charged $11 per credit hour for all 100-level architecture courses and $41 per credit hour for all courses at the 200- through 800-levels. Differential tuition would be collected instead of the current laptop fee.

Because the current fee proved insufficient to cover all of the costs of the program and due to rising computer hardware and software costs, an increase to $665 per semester in 2006-2007 would be necessary if the program was to continue using laptops.

Talbott said that there are two central advantages in changing to desktops.

First, the desktop computers have more processing power and memory, which improves speed and performance. Second, the cost of desktop computers is less than that of laptops, which reduces e3 program costs compared to an equivalent program using laptops.

“The overwhelming majority of students preferred to have better performance at a lower price in exchange for the convenience of mobility,” Talbott said. “Giving up mobility, of course, means that students will no longer have access to their e3 computer outside of the studio setting, over the winter break and over the summer.”

Talbott is confident that all technical and administrative aspects of the fall 2006 e3 desktop transformation will go smoothly.

“We have done extensive planning and preparation in our efforts to ensure a systematic and efficient rollout,” he said. “However, the psychological aspects of the change may be bumpier. Students who just arrived this year at SARUP and students who did not choose to participate in the feedback process last year might find the change unexpected and undesirable.”

Even those students who supported the change might have second thoughts, he said, once they come to terms with the static reality of desktop computers.

“They might find that mobility is worth more than they anticipated,” he said.

SARUP is making every effort to design the best computer program for its students, Talbott said. The e3 program is revised every year in order to listen to students’ needs and concerns.

“As our students’ needs continue to evolve, we will continue to work with them to find the best computing solution, which balances price, performance and support services,” Talbott said.

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