The Original Vision Plan

Strategic Plan for The University of Texas at Austin

ACADEMIC COMPUTING

March 29, 1989

The Original Vision Plan, 1989

In 1989 the Committee, under the leadership of Bob Schutz, Aerospace Engineering, developed a strategic plan called Academic Computing: Strategic Plan for the Period 1990-2000. This plan became known as the Vision Plan and proposed major changes in academic computing for the campus. Encompassing the period from 1990-2000, it visualized an academic computing system that would:

Give faculty, students and staff access to a variety of desktop computers and workstations, as well as to large, leading-edge computing machines such as those used in massively parallel processing.
Be supported by an extensive and responsive academic computing infrastructure.
Acquire adequate funding for hardware and software (an additional $5 million a year for 10 years).
Develop strategic plans for each school and college.
Obtain broad-based input.

Designers of the Vision Plan foresaw major changes that machine-assisted intelligence would bring about, not only in the sciences and engineering, but in the humanities as well. They urged the University to act quickly to obtain and use these new technologies in its pursuit of academic excellence.

The original Vision Plan urged (1) developing campus-wide academic computing facilities and services and (2) finding a consistent source of funding for them. In addition, the plan recommended that the University identify key programs, projects, and individuals to integrate such an environment into research and instruction. Four basic components--information environments, access laboratories, information age classrooms, and infrastructure--were identified as essential elements.

The Faculty Computer Committee (FCC) that (1) new funds be allocated by the Provost's Office in response to proposals from deans of colleges and other components of the University, and (2) that the FCC should then be replaced by an Academic Computing Committee that would continue to advise the Provost's Office and the Computation Center on academic computing needs of the campus. Finally, the FCC recommended that another smaller committee should advise the Provost's Office about allocations among the schools, colleges and other units. Finally, Vision Plan designers encouraged the University to expand its partnerships with industry.

14 February 1996
Faculty Computer Committee at UT Austin
Mail to: markl.decker@mail.utexas.edu