Most students have experienced professors not responding to an e-mail or Moodle locking them out of class registration. But students in the ’60s had to wait in line to use a computer and enter a punch card to schedule classes.
Technology has been a major factor in the University’s evolution through the last half century, both in national prestige and improving students’ lives, according to Assistant University Archivist Barry Cowan.
Cowan said the push toward technological advancement came as a result of efforts from the 1950s to 1970s to give the University a greater focus on research. This resulted in various departments receiving large grants, allowing them to purchase cutting-edge technology.
In 1967, the biology department obtained a grant for a scanning electron microscope. The University system now maintains at least three electron microscopes at various campuses.
Soon after, the Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices was established, following a grant from the state for the purchase of a synchrotron particle accelerator, which is rare and found in only a handful of institutions across the country.
According to Thomas F. Ruffin, author of “Under Stately Oaks: A Pictorial History of LSU,” the acquisition of the synchrotron was important in establishing the University as a top research institution. To this day, only six universities in the country boast a facility comparable to CAMD.
Cowan also said the University’s adoption of computers was important in making the lives of students more convenient.
In 1986, LOLA, or Library Online Access, was introduced as a computer system that allowed students to search the University libraries’ catalogs. The computers did not have access to the Internet, but were instead dedicated terminals that each contained the entire catalog, according to Cowan.
Before modern technology wired campus, students stood in line at the old Student Assembly Center, which is now the PMAC, to register for classes. In the late 1950s, students could use IBM terminal computers to register for classes, punching a card that corresponded to each class.
According to Cowan, a registration system called REGGIE was introduced in the 1980s. REGGIE used touch-tone phone technology that allowed students to punch in course numbers from their own home.
“REGGIE was a godsend,” said Cowan, who was a University student when REGGIE was in use.
REGGIE was in place until the late 1990s, when an online framework for class registration was established, according to Sheri Thompson, IT communications and planning officer.
Along with online class registration came other online tools for students, Thompson said. The University first started offering e-mail addresses for students and faculty in the early 2000s, but Tigermail was not created until 2005.
Moodle was established as the University’s sole course management system in 2007 after the Flagship IT Strategy committee ruled there should be only one system. Before the ruling, professors could choose to use either Blackboard or Semester Book, two similar systems.
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Contact Gordon Brillon at [email protected]