TECHNICALLY SPEAKING
Who needs people when you have a computer?
BY TARA H. ARDEN-SMITH
HARVARD U.
PHOTOS BY: EDWARD MARAVILLA,
CALIFORNIA STATE U., CHICO
FLINT WAINESS IS A BUSY GUY. As president of the student assembly, the senior represents the U.of Michigan's 40,000 students before university administrators and the world.
To do his job well, Wainess needs to spend a lot of time talking to a lot of people: campus leaders, random constituents, professional consultants working with the assembly on longterm projects. Wainess estimates he interacts with between 60 and 80 people a day.
He couldn't do it without the Internet.
Open 24 hours
Like many students on college campuses across the country, Wainess has found a new way to deal with the demands of his life. He sits before a screen, typing and talking. He messages assembly members about meetings and activist students about issues. From thousands of miles away, he arranged for a Colorado consulting firm to study the university and devise a viable universal healthcare plan for students.
Technically, or rather technologically, Wainess works even while he's sleeping — before he saws logs, he logs on and dashes off mail to university president James J. Duderstadt.
"He checks his e-mail every morning at 6 a.m. before he goes jogging, so if I need something from him, I've already dealt with him by the time I get up," Wainess says. "I could have an appointment with him, face to face, in his office, once a month, or I could do this."
Nowadays on campus, those who aren't connected are obsolete. Heather Lowman, who graduated from Michigan way back in '93, says classes after hers get a completely different college experience.
"In just one or two years, suddenly there was a whole different generation of students dealing with
Users have a certain glow about them.
October 1995 • U. Magazine 25