Colleges Hope to Update Computers

Calling the district’s classroom computer equipment “embarrassing,” Chancellor Philip Westin has persuaded trustees to speed up plans to launch the county’s three community colleges into the 21st century.

The first step, said Westin at a Tuesday meeting of the Ventura County Community College District, is to develop a plan. To that end, the board agreed to spend $39,000 to extend a contract with an outside computer consulting group to begin selecting a new administrative computer system and to devise a plan to update technology used in the college’s classrooms.

Likening the district’s administrative computer system to a comatose patient, Westin told the board: “The patient is breathing. Some might ask how much and how well, but no one seems to doubt that the patient will die. Some want to pull the plug now.”

The current computer system, which tracks student registration and records, is so outdated that software can no longer be bought for it, Westin said. The manufacturer went bankrupt years ago, he said.

As for classroom technology, Westin, a self-proclaimed computer nerd, told the board that the colleges’ instructional computers are “woefully” out of date. But bringing the district’s technology up to date could cost $3 million to $6 million over the next four years, he said.

Trustees agreed that the district needs to move forward with a technical plan, but said they simply don’t have the money. But trustee Timothy Hirschberg said the district must at least take the first step.

“We have been going round and round about this for years,” he said. “Right now we are in the fog. . . . Let’s get started now with this project with these consultants so we can get started and stop talking ourselves into indecision.”