After ten years of assisting students in the basement of Hill House, the Information Technology Services (ITS) Annex, a place where students could go for quick help with their devices, closed on Monday, October 9. This change was instituted because of better technology, the re-structuring of campus, and the change in schedule.
At the time of its opening in 2007, many students had desktop computers in their rooms and wireless internet was not as widely used. Devices broke easily, and it was crucial to have a space where the community could get technology support. Since students spent most of their day near the Library, Humanities, or the Dining Hall, the distance from this main campus area to Brownell discouraged them from going and getting help. For nearly a decade, the Annex provided a convenient resource for both students and faculty who needed technological support.
However, after the creation of the iPad program and the completion of the Lanphier Center, the number of visitors to the Annex dropped dramatically, causing the ITS Department to reconsider the importance of the Annex. Mr. Andrew Speyer, the Director of the ITS Department, said, “Over the last five years, I would say, we’ve transitioned into a mobile iPad community with wireless all over the place and the number of customers who come visit us in the Annex has dropped dramatically.” He continued, “We have not had a huge need for supporting iPads of students. When you’re getting your iPad replaced or fixed, it has to be done in Brownell because there is not enough storage space in the Annex. Our operations in Brownell can support iPad repairs and problems a lot better than the Annex.”
Yuting Wang ’20 agreed, “When I actually have a tech problem, I would rather go to Brownell to get it fixed.” She added, “I guess the ITS Annex would be more convenient for small, quick problems. However, I wouldn’t recommend it to people who need actual help.”
Another reason for closing the Annex is the opening of the Lanphier Center, which has caused more students to be on lower campus more frequently, closer to Brownell. Mr. Speyer said, “The population shifted a little bit as all students have math class. More students are on this side of the campus so we don’t really need a remote spot open every day.”
Other reasons for shutting down the Annex include the new ticket system and the new schedule. The new ticket system makes it easier for students and faculty members to access help by simply sending emails to helpdesk@choate.edu. This ticket system allows for more efficient technological assistance. The new schedule has shorter and much more crowded lunch hours than the old schedule used to have. Thus, it is more difficult and will be more crowded for the Choate community to come get help from the ITS Annex during lunch hours.
The biggest struggle, however, has been the staffing that the ITS Annex requires. Being open five days a week for three hours per day — until last year when the department decided not to open on Wednesdays — the department needed to staff the ITS Annex with four or five people a week, preventing them from participating in other important duties. Mr. Speyer explained, “There are four people who have to man that space if they do one person a day, and it pulls them away from all the things they have to do and stretches us way too thin. It’s too hard to have that space open. We did some evaluations this year and we realized that four or five people within that three hour span is not worth the time and it’s not a good allocation of our resources.”
Despite the department’s decision to close the Annex, the Annex will still be used during some peak times. “We’re still going to open after peak periods — after the opening of school, after winter break, and during Parents’ Weekend — but we’re not going to have a regular presence there,” Mr. Speyer commented. Because it’s not a place of very high demand, the ITS department will not be giving up the space — it will still be used for meetings on that side of the campus, or for storage.
Before the ITS Annex opened in 2007, the space below the dining hall was used as a barber shop. According to Ms. Judy Donald, the school archivist, the last barber, Mr. Robert (Bob) Lien, worked at Choate in this small space for 41 years and finally retired in 2005. Mr. James Davidson, a longtime faculty member and HPRSS teacher, taught at Choate when the barber shop was still here. He remarked, “I would use the barber shop occasionally in the 1980’s. Many students liked it, and Bob cut both boys’ and girls’ hair.”
Although Ms. Donald was not positive when the barber shop opened, she guessed it was soon after the construction of West Wing in 1914. She said, “I can’t say for sure if the barber shop was there from the building’s construction, but it was there early on. There were barbers before Bob, meaning the barber shop had been open for longer than 41 years.”
After Mr. Lien’s retirement, the school took some time to figure out how to most effectively use that space. After two years of discussion and planning, the school decided to open an ITS annex in its space.
