Before cellphones, texting and email, the only way to reach a faculty member was through office phones. In one Ohio University department, however, once-active phone lines now answer as disconnected.
As office phones have been replaced by other means of communication, one OU department has completely removed phones in its faculty offices to save costs, according to Sean O’Malley, OU’s Information Technology communications manager.
“Each department has a budget of their own and they have to decide how they want to spend that,” O’Malley said. “Phone service is an example of something that the department can choose to have or not.”
Although OU does not mandate service in its departments, most still opt to have it, according to documents provided by OIT.
The only department that has cut a majority of faculty phone lines is the economics department, O’Malley said, and Political Science and Chemistry have cut some.
He added that it is difficult to say how many phone lines other departments have cut, as OIT is not informed when the line is cut — the bill just goes down.
It costs $19.10 a month to have an analog phone, and a digital phone with caller ID and other features is $33.35 a month, O’Malley said.
Combined, all university entities that use OIT’s phone service pay the office $145,934.95 a month. University Advancement is the office that pays the most, $3,703.92 a month, according to OIT documents.
Economics, at $184.95 a month, pays substantially less than departments of a similar size.
Departments looking for cheaper phone services cannot, as OIT is the only entity that has the infrastructure to provide phone service already installed in on-campus buildings, O’Malley said.
The lack of a phone, however, hasn’t hindered the ability of some professors to stay in touch with students.
“My students contact me primarily via email and office hours,” said Charlene Kalenkoski, professor of economics. “That was true, however, even when I had an office phone.”
Julia Paxton, another professor of economics, stays in touch with her students through email, but she misses her phone for other reasons.
“Students usually prefer using email, but I do miss my phone, particularly for professional contacts,” Paxton said. “I feel that it is not appropriate to be handing out my personal cellphone number to students or to professional contacts.”
dd195710@ohiou.edu
