HASCS struggled to meet student needsthroughout the year, but the extraordinary demandwore down an already weary group of technicalwizards within the organization.
Several Staff members spoke openly of having towork 80-hour weeks without the benefit of overtimepay. HASCS, they said, suffered from a lack offunding, poor working conditions and staff andspace shortages.
These problems hurt the quality of servicestudents received. HASCS's computer serversregularly crashed, leaving e-mail inoperable forours. And the organization's user assistants, whowere assigned the task of answering studentquestions and introducing them to the network,were badly trained and ineffectual.
A frustrated Steen acknowledged the gravity ofthe situation in a confidential January 31 memo tothe FAS information technology committee.
"Faced with immense challenge, our small grouphas pushed on over an extended period of time inexhaustion, stress due [to] constant pressure andlow morale for about one-half the staff," Steensays in the memo, which was obtained by TheCrimson. "In the last several months, several havespoken with me about work induced health issues ornegative effects on marriages, families, andrelationships due to the constant burden of tightdeadlines."
"This pace will not abate, only increase," thememo continues. "Despite the best efforts toimprove efficiency, HASCS is a ship taking onwater faster than it can bail it out."
The ship seemed powerless at times toaccomplish basic tasks. Thousands of dollars worthof Hewlett-Packard computers donated to theUniversity sat in their boxes for weeks becauseHASCS staff had no time to install them and noplace to put them.
'A Necessity'
Last month, Franklin Steen was appointedpermanent director of HASCS.
One of his first acts was to take a newHewlett-Packard computer out of its storage boxand to set it up in his new office.
Steen, a lithe, middle-aged man who wears ayarmulke over gray hair, thinks computers arevital. He just has to complete the job of makingevery last student believe it.
"I think having an e-mail account is anecessity. Not like food and water, but anecessity," Steen says. "It would be very hard totake computers away. Imagine. I mean, you justcouldn't do it."
Steen could be the person who helps pull HASCSout of its hole and makes the network even moreaccessible.
He says over the next several months he willfocus on three priorities: getting the network to"work well," meeting the heavy student demand fore-mail and newsgroups, and improving services for'net users.
Steen says he will also put a training programin place for user assistants. And he has movedquickly to fill two of four empty positions withinhis staff. The other slots, he promises, "Shouldbe filled shortly."
"Standards have to be maintained. We have tounderstand that we can't support everything, but abase knowledge has to be imparted," he says. "Youdon't come in with a service mentality--you haveto be trained."
Steen knows, however, that more Harvard moneyis necessary to get what he wants: a "ubiquitousnetwork" comprised of several top-of-the-linecomputers. But to secure big dollars, the newdirector will have to do a better job lobbyingthan his predecessor.
"They are all financial issues," Steen says."How much we can provide depends on how much theUniversity wants to spend."
Source: An Institute of politics Crimson pollof 148 randomly selected students. Only the 119students reporting that they use the Internet wereasked for what purposes they use it.
Source: An Institute of Politics/Crimson pollof 119 randomly selected students.