tl20010226-000 "0 11 1 Fer Light Monday www.thetowerlight.com Published twice-weekly by students of Towson University 2/26/01 OT creating joint program 3 More music coming to VIP's 7 Towson falls to third at MSU 13 Tigers comeback falls short at UVa 14 Departments ?lows 3 Campus briefs 4 Nation 5 A&E. 7 Backstage Pass 8 Sound Bites 9 Sports ....... Fast Break 13 Athlete of the Week...15 Op/Ed. 18 Dial 704 for phone problems Faculty, staff still reporting problems with phones after over a month of use Timothy Dunn The Towerlight Despite having been in place since before the start of the semester, the new phone system is still causing problems, University officials said. Harry Hughes, assistant director of facilities manage-ment, said the complaints being reported deal with practically every feature of the new phone system. ""The complaints regarding the new telephone system have ranged from folks not being able to access their voice mail, for-ward their phone calls, having no phone, volume problems and 'all circuit busy' messages,"" Hughes said. Bill Leimbach, associate vice president of Computing and Network Services, said many problems with the new system also stemmed from the change from the 830 to the 704 exchange. ""When the old number was fully disconnected, calls to the old number received a message that instructed the caller that the University has a new telephone exchange of 704,"" Leimbach said. He went on to say the caller is asked to call again using the 704. exchange along with the last four numbers of the number that the caller had previously called. Leimbach also said that many of the difficulties being experi-enced were a result of the facul-ty not fully understanding the new technology involved. ""The new campus telephone system means new technology for individuals and offices,"" Leimbach said. ""Learning the new features and functions of Let it snow, and let school be closed Gary Barnhart/The Towerlight The snowstorm that hit the East Coast Thursday dropped almost five inches of snow on Towson's campus, sending students home early Thursday and forcing the University to delay opening Friday. the new digital telephones takes time."" While the new system is creat-ing many problems on a day-to-day basis for individual faculty and staff members, CANS expe-rienced a scare that could have affected the whole campus. Leimbach said the CANS Help Center experienced a seri-ous but short-lived problem with their telephone system, a problem that could have pre-vented them from taking calls from students seeking aid. ""There was a problem with the Automated Call Distribution System when the Help Center opened on the morning of Feb. 19,"" Leimbach said. ""The prob-lem was corrected on Monday morning so that the Help Center could, once more, take calls from students."" Leimbach added that while the problem didn't last long, the message indicating a problem was sent much more quickly than the message that the situa-tion was resolved. ""The problem was corrected just after the original message was sent to all students,"" he said. ""Unfortunately, an e-mail message was not sent to all stu-dents to indicate that the Help Center was now receiving calls for all students."" While the problems seem to pile up, Hughes said many of the problems were anticipated and will be resolved quickly. Hughes said the few prob-lems not anticipated would be fixed quickly due to the com-bined efforts of all parties involved. ""We have been working with the manufacturer, the vendor, the installer, the local and long distance carriers and engineer-ing groups from each to resolve these issues as quickly as possi- See 704, page 5 Today High 48 Low 27 Tuesday High 55 Low 30 Wednesday High 47 Low 27 Thursday High 46 Low 27 "
