A Brief History of the Information Technology Liaison at William & Mary, as retold by Mike Blum

I began liaising in August 2001, so my knowledge of the ancient history of the species is murky at best, therefore I'll reserve my comments to my own experiences and interactions.

Since I was hired on an hourly contract before I was actually a full-time liaison, my interview process was less arduous than other interviews. However, I did interview with Gene and Rob, and one of the things I remember about the interviews is that the focus was on my academic interests and how those interests meshed with my IT qualifications. Both Gene and Rob were happy to let me talk about my abilities, and there wasn't too much stress on what I didn't know. However, I understood that I had a lot of work to do to get up to speed on the technology I'd eventually need to know for the job, and I spent many evenings and weekends at the beginning just catching up with the technology. I was first given Modern Languages, with Pablo as a mentor as he transitioned out of that department, and without that early tutelage, it would have taken me much longer to figure things out. I know Will didn't get that sort of apprenticeship (I think it was a few weeks), and I wonder if he thinks it might have been beneficial to have it. When I first began as a liaison, the job was largely troubleshooting problems, but whether that was a function of my very new relationship with the department or a function of the job back then, I have no way to judge. I think it was a little of both. Once I was comfortable with handling Modern Languages, I was given the Reves Center and Religion to free Rob and Mark up for other duties, and I remember having a similar role in both of those departments. I was basically the techie, and I fixed printers, updated software, scrounged for equipment, etc.

Every chance I got, I would chat with faculty members in all three departments about the work they were doing and about my own teaching and academic research, and I remember how surprised many of them were to find out that I was NOT a techie, but an academic who was good at technology. I spent extra time teaching them how and why they could use the technology they had at their disposal, and as tindividual faculty members began to see me as an educator and as someone with a broad humanities background, the more they trusted me with pedagogical issues. During my first six months at IT, I was always referred to as "the tech guy" by the vast majority of the faculty. In the past six months, I have noticed that I am referred to more and more as the "department's technology expert," which may not seem very different at first blush, but the difference is, I think, an important philosophical distinction. I spend much more time these days developing resources than I do troubleshooting problems, and again, that may be more a function of my own development than a commentary on the evolution of the job.
 

This is one of Fred Forest's earliest works of communication art. A parasitical space of interactive communication, it was published in LE MONDE in 1972 

Here is a caption 

Look there, friend Sancho Panza, where 30 or more monstrous giants rise up, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes. For this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth."

"Look, your worship,'' said Sancho. "What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turned by the wind make the millstone go."

It has been four centuries since Cervantes penned Don Quixote and finally, life is imitating art. The seemingly absurd plot device of one of Western literature's most acclaimed works -- the idea that windmills could be seen as monstrous giants -- has been reincarnated, in very literal ways, in the friendly, touristy, distinctly un-Spanish climes of Cape Cod, Mass.

The present-day controversy over windmills is as spirited and surprising as the one Cervantes conjured between Panzo and Quixote: One side sees windmills as a pragmatic way to provide the world with cheap, pollution-free electricity and help curb global warming. The other sees them as ugly beasts that can slay birds and sully pristine vistas. And then, of course, there are the people in between -- those who advocate wind power and the larger renewable energy movement, but caution that windmills can pose serious economic and environmental setbacks to the communities where they are located. Yet even these in-betweeners speak of windmills as threatening industrial machines -- a far cry from the eco-friendly, flower-power image most often associated with clean energy.

The great wind controversy has been churning ever since the 1980s, when a massive, 7,000-turbine wind farm in Altamont, Calif., was found to be a killing field for migrating birds. But now the controversy is reaching a crescendo, as energy company Cape Wind Associates LLC seeks to erect a phalanx of 170 40-story (400-foot-tall) wind turbines on Horseshoe Shoal, a shallow portion of Nantucket Sound, off the coast of Massachusetts.