2008 Woodie Awards
Alone on the forefront: Pearson is the lone weekend voice of ISU
Joshua Mayes
Issue date: 9/12/07 Section: Life
- Page 1 of 1
In the basement of the Business Administration building sits an ISU student staring at four computer monitors. His name is Jeff Pearson, a sophomore majoring in creative writing working for the Information Technology Services Center. Providing technical support for students and faculty, setting up ISU student computer accounts, and wireless support are his main duties.
Pearson is also in charge of monitoring the safe functionality of critical programs to the students and faculty of ISU including Web CT, webmail, and CWIS-a program encompassing all of the student accounts and shared hard drives on campus.
Pearson watches a website that shows the status of the various computer operations and looks for messages that pop up when there are problems. Getting phone calls about computer malfunctions and completing the work orders he gets by e-mail are other situations in which Pearson's skills benefit ISU.
Not all of Pearson's incoming calls are easy. "The worst call is when myISU goes down. It usually takes a long time to fix."
On the weekdays when school is in full swing he describes his day as "traveling around campus fixing computers. I like being able to meet all the staff and make things work for them, help out, and solve problems. I like that."
Another task Pearson engages in is monitoring a program called HP1 that staff and faculty use to process all of their students' personal information, grades, assignments, etc. With a rough count of 1,000 new wireless account set-ups for this semester, Pearson said that the new accounts were a result of "a lot of students buying laptops this year."
On the weekends Pearson is locked in the BA building alone.
"It is really lonely, because there is no lab down there anymore, and the building is locked."
The phone takes on a different role on the weekend where Pearson acts as the unknown operator for the University, "if someone calls the campus on the weekend they talk to the help desk and you have to tell them that everything is closed."
With all of the problem-solving accompanying his job, Pearson still finds time to pursue his passion of self-publishing a fanzine, or more commonly referred to as a zine, full of poetry, short stories, and artwork of ISU students. The free time to work on the zine, titled Leg Over Leg, comes on the weekends when he is often the only person in the entire BA building. Pearson spends "a lot of time waiting for problems to happen."
Zines are "cut-and-paste …self-published magazines reproduced at Kinko's, or on the sly at work, and distributed through mail order and word of mouth. They touch on sex, music, politics, television, movies, work, food, whatever."
There is a pay-copy machine in the basement of the BA building Pearson uses to print off the issues of Leg Over Leg.
ISU students interested in submitting to Pearson's zine are encouraged to send their work to legoverleg@gmail.com. Leg Over Leg is available for purchase at The College Market for $1.25 an issue.
Pearson is also in charge of monitoring the safe functionality of critical programs to the students and faculty of ISU including Web CT, webmail, and CWIS-a program encompassing all of the student accounts and shared hard drives on campus.
Pearson watches a website that shows the status of the various computer operations and looks for messages that pop up when there are problems. Getting phone calls about computer malfunctions and completing the work orders he gets by e-mail are other situations in which Pearson's skills benefit ISU.
Not all of Pearson's incoming calls are easy. "The worst call is when myISU goes down. It usually takes a long time to fix."
On the weekdays when school is in full swing he describes his day as "traveling around campus fixing computers. I like being able to meet all the staff and make things work for them, help out, and solve problems. I like that."
Another task Pearson engages in is monitoring a program called HP1 that staff and faculty use to process all of their students' personal information, grades, assignments, etc. With a rough count of 1,000 new wireless account set-ups for this semester, Pearson said that the new accounts were a result of "a lot of students buying laptops this year."
On the weekends Pearson is locked in the BA building alone.
"It is really lonely, because there is no lab down there anymore, and the building is locked."
The phone takes on a different role on the weekend where Pearson acts as the unknown operator for the University, "if someone calls the campus on the weekend they talk to the help desk and you have to tell them that everything is closed."
With all of the problem-solving accompanying his job, Pearson still finds time to pursue his passion of self-publishing a fanzine, or more commonly referred to as a zine, full of poetry, short stories, and artwork of ISU students. The free time to work on the zine, titled Leg Over Leg, comes on the weekends when he is often the only person in the entire BA building. Pearson spends "a lot of time waiting for problems to happen."
Zines are "cut-and-paste …self-published magazines reproduced at Kinko's, or on the sly at work, and distributed through mail order and word of mouth. They touch on sex, music, politics, television, movies, work, food, whatever."
There is a pay-copy machine in the basement of the BA building Pearson uses to print off the issues of Leg Over Leg.
ISU students interested in submitting to Pearson's zine are encouraged to send their work to legoverleg@gmail.com. Leg Over Leg is available for purchase at The College Market for $1.25 an issue.
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