"It's Stupid": Faculty Opinion Split On New Phones

Mathew Biadun | News Editor

With a new parking system and new laundry machines, Eastern students have started the semester experiencing changes to their day-to-day campus experience. But they aren’t the only ones. Professors and other staff are being introduced to new, digital phones systems that replace now disconnected physical phones. Faculty opinion has been split.

To gather a small sampling of faculty sentiment, the Campus Lantern surveyed eight professors for their thoughts on the phone system. Two professors were supportive, three opposed, and three mixed on the new changes. The reasons for their opinions varied.

“I’m always supportive of new technology,” one professor smiled, approving of the changes. “There’s more you can do with [the phones]...and I think the university should always stay open to new technology.”

Others spoke of the low usage of the current phones. “Usually when I get a call, I have to respond through email anyway…most communication is through Outlook, email, these days,” a professor hummed. 

“My phone’s only rung three or four times in as many years,” another professor commented.

Several faculty members pointed to certain uses that phones remained good for. “I still receive phone calls that are important for me, and use [the phone] independently of the computer. Seems unnecessary and…potentially problematic.” One professor mentioned that their department was using part of its budget to buy a phone for the department head, who needed it most.

Some professors were more hostile to the changes.

“Stupid, it’s stupid,” one huffed. Another professor seemed unaware of the changes, and exclaimed in response, “That’s ******!” Motioning to my notepad they added, “If there’s a, ‘that's *******’ column, put me in that one.”

For further context, the Campus Lantern reached out to Tony Hayes, the university’s Chief Information Officer. As the project had begun before his time at Eastern, his knowledge was limited. However, he attributed the motivations behind the changes to be driven by ‘long term cost savings and a general modernizing of our telecommunications infrastructure.’ He mentioned several perks behind the new Teams system, such as being available to faculty on their phones through the Teams app. 

The savings ‘...are not massive, but every bit helps’. He said that the money would partially go towards paying for Zoom, with the rest going back to the general university budget. While he’s not sure on what other state universities or agencies were doing, he added that many from Wisconsin (where Hayes came from before Eastern) were doing the same. 

As of now, the phones are still at Eastern, though no longer functional. Connecticut has specific state guidelines for what will happen to the phones, though ‘reuse, resell, recycle’ would be the preferable order of possibilities for Hayes.