THE TUFTS DAILY
2
NEWS
<&",+.%"7(.&1*..*.(+)601&",#*( !"#$%&'(.$.&"+,(,0@7".&*(61"#&+#*.("&()**&+,-. FACULTY 0/(3,&*1,*&(/01(#%*",(/$&$1* ENERGY
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state of our energy system. He explained his theory that companies can expand profits through adopting clean and energy-efficient technologies. “We’re hitting a transformation point,” he said. “Most of the world doesn’t realize it’s started. Energy is not oil, gas, wind, coal or anything like that. Energy is an enabler for a new stage of economic growth and development.” Stanislaw went on to address the significance of energy developments, noting their importance as watershed moments throughout history in improving and changing the society that we live in. “From fire to water to the water wheel, all the changes in energy sourcing we’ve had have led to transformation in society,” he said. “We’re in one of those right now.” He underscored the importance of the Internet and software technology as means for cleaner and more effective energy usage. Stanislaw used Nestle as an example of a company that uses such technology, citing the corporation’s use of smartphones to connect dairy farmers in China and Pakistan with instant feedback from its headquarters in Switzerland. Each farmer inputs farming and production data and is then given instant feedback on how to use less water and grain in an effort to make the entire company more sustainable and energy-efficient with-
out affecting the success of their output. Stanislaw expressed frustration that so many industries have failed to adopt this type of technology. “This can be and should be happening in every industrial service and process and in every single government, and it’s not,” he said. He also took issue with the fact that many companies lack a comprehensive energy strategy and a willingness to address their energy usage and energy needs. “Six percent [of companies] have no clue how they actually use energy or what that energy does,” he said. “It’s like throwing things in a grocery basket and not knowing what you paid for.” Small entrepreneurial enterprises led by ambitious individuals are the key to finding solutions to future energy problems, Stanislaw said. He also discussed a theory he called the “power of one,” describing it as the ability of individuals to change the nature of basic societal systems. “You’re the first generation where every single individual every single day can make a difference for the planet,” he said. He emphasized the importance of convincing individuals, corporations and governments that switching to cleaner energy will be beneficial for all of them in the future. “Everything I’m talking about is a mindset issue,” he said. “We have to change that.”
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people recognize that there’s no longer trash, no longer waste, and that the only option is to make these sustainable efforts.” Nothing at past meetings used to be composted, and everything most likely went in the trash, Spieler said. Dubman cited University President Anthony Monaco’s push for a more environmentally friendly campus as an example of the university’s movement toward greener practices. “President Monaco is in the process of creating a sustainability council,” Dubman said. “He’s very interested in sustainability efforts, not just at the local level like we’re trying to implement here, but also what the university as a whole can do to be more sustainable on a much larger scale.” One of the first steps toward this sustainability effort was to gather the right people to discuss what to do, according to Spieler. “We basically took all the heads of the departments … and got them to meet together and figure out how we can make that system work, because that was something that just wasn’t happening before,” she explained. Associate Professor of History Jeanne Penvenne, co-chair of the AS&E Faculty Executive Committee, is pleased with Spieler and Dubman’s efforts and believes that the rest of the meeting participants agree. She also believes that the environmentally friendly initiatives are easy to follow. “I don’t know anyone who thinks it’s a bother,” she said.
SCOTT TINGLEY/TUFTS DAILY
Arts and Sciences faculty meetings and Arts, Sciences and Engineering (AS&E) faculty meetings this semester will continue to practice environmentally friendly habits by reducing paper, eliminating plastic water bottles and ordering less food. “Plus, it’s very effective.” Dubman believes that faculty will now try to include these changes at meetings of different levels throughout the university.
“I think staff members are excited that on a larger scale this can be done, so maybe they can implement it on a smaller scale at their department meetings too,” she said.
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TECHCONNECT
WINTER BASH
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“In the past, clients didn’t have a way of knowing what the status of their request was, short of calling or physically visiting an IT office,” she added. “It makes it much easier to interact with us.” Once a client has signed in, the website includes an option to view the technician’s notes, she explained. Users can even add or make changes to information they initially supplied about their incident. “It definitely allows students to see a little bit deeper into the process,” said Kevin Murphy, the manager of technology support services for the Tufts University School of Medicine’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) and an ITSM project team member. For many years, IT support groups had been utilizing the BMC Remedy ITSM and Request
Tracker ticketing systems to manage client requests, Bilotta remarked, but a more advanced ITSM system seemed most conducive to their needs. “The previous systems were getting outdated,” she said. “Now we’ve combined the IT groups that were using those two systems into using this one ITSM system.” Due to the wide distribution of IT groups on campus, crucial information was often lost between the two main ticketing systems, Bilotta recalled. Fitzpatrick believes that TechConnect should prevent further lapses in communication, as all technicians are now working off of the same online platform. “They can collaborate more easily because they’re using the same terminology,” she said. The ITSM Project Team — comprised of staff members from UIT, OIT, Information Technology
Services (ITS), and the Hirsh Health Sciences Library IT group — has worked since the spring of 2011 to design TechConnect through an intensive process that involved discussion and feedback, Murphy said. He added that ServiceNow, the vendor that hosts TechConnect, was selected based on a unanimous vote. “I’m very pleased with the way that the development process was handled,” he said. ITS Tech Services Supervisor and ITSM Project Team Member Bidiak Amana stressed that TechConnect is still in its early stages. The team hopes to expand the functionality of the system by incorporating more features, such as step-by-step instructions for solving common computer issues. “We are definitely happy with the outcome, but there’s a lot more that we want to do,” Amana said.
SITES.TUFTS.EDU/TECHCONNECT
TechConnect, launched in December by Tufts University Information Technology (UIT), aims to make information technology (IT) support more accessible to members of the Tufts community.
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McGraw said that the route to the ballroom this year would be shorter than last year’s, which led all the way to the fourth floor. “This venue is a little bit more conducive for a little bit shorter route into the event than last year [when it was on the fourth floor],” McGraw said. “We want to make everything as streamlined as possible and get people in as quickly as possible.” This year’s coatroom will work like last year’s, with three thousand hooks for students to hang their own jackets. “We hope to run it very similar to how we ran it last year when we took home about a half a dozen coats, people who just left them or forgot them, as opposed to a couple years ago when we ended up with about 200 coats in our office,” Golia said. “It obviously changed to make it a lot better.” McGraw said he recommends students bring coats they don’t care too much about because the room won’t have security. When the Sheraton Boston Hotel hosted the first offcampus Winter Bash in 2010, students cited a poorly organized coat-check system as an event mishap. Event organizers have had a couple of years to figure out logistical problems since then, and McGraw said he expects the event to run smoothly. “We’re just trying to work with their security so that everyone stays safe and everyone has a good time,”
McGraw said. Three thousand tickets will be made available and can be purchased at TuftsTickets.com from noon on Jan. 30 through noon on Feb. 3, the day of the event. After purchasing a $10 ticket, students will need to print their ticket rather than pick it up from the Mayer Campus Center, as was the process in past years, according to Greenberg. Programming Board and OCL first used online ticketing for last semester’s Fall Ball event. All 2,500 Fall Ball tickets were sold out in just over 12 hours, and some tickets were later put on sale at TuftsLife.com. “Some people have been having trouble acclimating with the ticketing system, which can be a bit finicky at times,” Greenberg said. “But hopefully people are starting to get used to it, so we won’t have very many problems.” Other aspects of the event, such as the DJ, GrooveBoston, and the buses leaving from Aidekman Arts Center, will remain the same as last year, Greenberg said. Buses will depart from campus every half-hour between 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., with students boarding depending on the ticket purchased. Since the event has become a staple of the start to the spring semester, organizers tried to limit the number of changes, McGraw said. “We want to keep it true to what Winter Bash has been in the past, so we don’t see the need for any drastic change,” he said. “We feel that we have a good recipe down.”