A professor and his computer: a miserable journey through the jungle of university administration

Many years ago, I would order computers via our Science Store. The computers would arrive quickly, and I could install whatever operating systems and applications that I needed. Everything worked beautifully and efficiently.

Now I have to order through a slow and torturous web application called WorkDay. The order must go through a series of approvals. It may be sent back demanding a justification, as if a science professor, especially one in bioinformatics, typically does not need a computer so a justification is required for such an extraordinary purchase request. After all the troubles and waiting, WorkDay would notify us that the computer had arrived. I would go to the Science Store to pick it up, only to be told that it had to go through our IT department first. After a few days, I would receive an email saying a service request had been registered, and be asked which room the computer would be located in.

One might be curious about the need to specify which room the computer is located in. This turns out to be important at my university. Ethernet connections in my laboratory can only work with computers configured to stay in my laboratory. They will not work with the ethernet connection in my office although my office and my laboratory are close to each other on the same floor. Similarly, if I buy a computer to replace my office computer, I cannot just send my original office computer to my laboratory because no ethernet connection in the laboratory will work with this office computer without going through the lengthy process of having it reconfigured by our IT. If my office computer breaks down, I cannot just take one of my laboratory computers into my office as a temporary replacement because it does not work with the ethernet connection in my office without going through the lengthy IT reconfiguration again.

If you think that the reconfiguration simply means something done remotely by an IT administrator, then you will again be in for a big surprize. Not only do you need to submit a request for help, but you also need to bring the computer physically to the IT office located in another building on campus. This is also true if you want to install Linux instead of Windows, as I learned earlier today. If you are a UO student, a staff member or a professor, you probably have seen a white-haired professor pushing a cart with computers through ice and snow.

The university administration does gain one key advantage in creating a single subnetwork for professors. Should the professors decided to take a job action such as a strike, the university can block professors from accessing their office computers by tapping a single switch, but keep alive the network access for all other university employees. If laboratory support staff should decide to join the strike, then one would just need to press another switch to block their network access as well.

I will try to make the long story short. After waiting for several more days and checking frequently with Science Store staff if my new computers had come back from IT, I would finally receive an answer that the computer was ready to be picked up. Upon having received the IT-configured new computer from our Science Store, I will find the computer installed with unwanted programs that automatically run and consume much of the computer resources. Some years ago, I received my computers pre-installed with a gigantic monitoring program called SOPHOS which had numerous tasks running in the background and consumed gigabytes of RAM. It monitored what I did and took a detailed record of my clicks on web pages. It also had the power to decide what websites I could or could not visit. I naturally found it too intrusive and asked our IT why it was needed, and why I could not have a less intrusive alternative. I was told that it was for my own protection and that I was not allowed to uninstall it in spite of my Administrator privilege. A lengthy communication process lasted over many days without bringing me closer to any solution. After several years, the university quietly stopped the SOPHOS business without any explanation, perhaps having found it too expensive or replaced it with more cryptic monitoring software.

Our IT would also set the BIOS password and enable Bitlocker encryption on new Windows 11 computers. The computer will prevent me from logging in if I add a new hard drive to the computer. What is more frustrating is that the computer will not allow me to log in even after I have removed the newly added hard drive. I must again submit a request for help, asking for a Bitlocker recovery key, and spend much of the unproductive and frustrating effort in order for the computer to work again.

I also need to reset the Remote Desktop option to "On" because the PC coming from the IT configuration has Remote Desktop set to "Off". I doubt the wisdom of setting this "Off" option because all professors I know of use Remote Desk frequently to connect to their office computers in the evenings and on weekends.

I am aware of cybercrimes. We all need this banana of network security. However, we do not need the giant gorilla holding the banana or the jungle behind the gorilla. We may lose sight of the banana when our eyes are dazzled by this monstrous jungle.