Three years ago, if a student needed help with fixing a problem on their computer, they would have to trek to Dolan Commons, where they would have found Fairfield’s Informational Technological Services office. Fast forward two years later, and this same student would have been able to access technological support at the ITS office found at a more centralized location, the Dimenna-Nyselius Library Media Center.
During the Fall 2015 semester and this past winter break, ITS moved its office space once more. This time, however, ITS’s move involved them relocating to a bigger office space right next door to their former one in the library.
According to Jason Victor, the Help Desk manager for ITS, the decision was made to expand their office space due to the increased student demand for their services after their relocation to the library.
“People loved it so much that we got a lot of traffic. It became a very small space, and we realized that we needed to have a bigger space to accommodate the increased traffic,” Victor said.
According to Help Desk Coordinator for ITS John Paul Benedetti, around March 2015, ITS began to formulate the idea of expanding their office space, and they decided to “start a dialogue to make something change.” As a whole, the renovation process lasted from August to December, as Benedetti noted that the process was finished during finals of the Fall 2015 semester.
The chairs and tables found in ITS’s old office were remodeled to fit the look of the new office space, but according to Victor and Benedetti, ITS tried to reuse as much furniture from their old office space as possible.
Victor foresees that the enlarged ITS office space will “create more efficiency in terms of organization and being able to help people better and faster.”
“By having a larger space, it affords us greater opportunity to provide better services for our customers,” Victor added.
ITS employee Carlos Mesquita ‘17 feels that the enlarged office will ameliorate ITS’s ability to assist students with their technological needs. “It gives us more space to engage with our customers and provide training on the issues that they stop by needing assistance with, rather than just fixing their issue and sending them on their way,” said Mesquita.
Mesquita added that this “gives our team a better opportunity to share their technical knowledge with our customers, which will then help them become more comfortable with the technology that is so integrated into the work everyone does at Fairfield.”
Junior Fallon McKeon was excited to hear that ITS has expanded its office space. “I’ve been to ITS before and they are very helpful, so now that they have a bigger space where they can help more students I think it’d be a great improvement,” McKeon said.
While ITS is a service Emma Waters ‘18 has yet to use, she is “glad to hear that they have expanded their office. It always seemed a bit too cramped with the smaller room.”
Prior to the expansion of the ITS office, students waiting to receive help were assisted outside the office at the library desks for student use.
As the Spring 2016 semester has only just begun, Victor and Benedetti have yet to see any noticeable increase in the number of students utilizing ITS since their relocation. However, Victor predicts that once the word gets out about the new office space, more students will take advantage of ITS’s enlarged office.
Victor mentioned that ITS is grateful to the library for providing their new office space for them. The space had previously been used as the curriculum room, and this room was relocated to the basement of the library. The room that ITS formerly occupied has now been transformed into a reference area for the library.
While ITS now has an enlarged office space, Victor and Benedetti still encourage students to utilize the other forms of support that ITS provides that don’t require leaving your dorm room.
“Having the Help Desk here in the library is great because we are more centrally located, but it’s really part of an overall push to get greater involvement by people who need the help, so not only do we have the Help Desk, but people can also send emails, we have a website where they can put in requests or submit issues, we’re on Facebook and Twitter, so we see this as sort of a multi-pronged approach to engage our community to provide the best assistance possible,” Victor said.
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