Emerging Technology Interview Series: City College of San Francisco

In 2001, San Francisco voters approved $195 million in general obligation bonds to support facility expansion and infrastructure improvements at City College of San Francisco (CCSF), which provided more than 4,700 courses per semester to more than 106,000 students last year. In 2005, an additional $246.3 million in bonds were approved for further CCSF expansion and improvements.With funding in hand, CCSF Chancellor Philip R. Day Jr. then outlined a strategic vision for the college: Prioritize improvements in the collegeâ��s communications technology infrastructure as strategic assets in order to advance the institutionâ��s abilities to efficiently deliver educational value to the community. At the time, however, the college was experiencing reductions in educational funding, resulting in pressure to reduce operating costs. In this podcast we interview CCSF Network Manager and Institute for Convergence of Optical and Network Systems (ICONS) NSF CoPI  Tim Ryan and Pierre Thiry, CCSF faculty and ICONS PI. Tim and Pierre discuss how CCSF has upgraded infrastructure and provided new learning opportunity for their students.  The interview follows the February 2007 Communications News cover story titled Strategic Assets: Communications infrastructure advances the City College of San Franciscoâ��s ability to efficiently deliver educational value to the community.Links:ICONS Home page: http://www.ccsf.edu/Resources/ICONS/Communications News Cover Story: http://www.comnews.com/stories/articles/0207/0207coverstory.htm