UH gets ready for Year 2000 Wednesday, November 18, 1998 "The future is now" was the message as faculty, staff and students were urged to start work to ensure the University of Houston is prepared to handle potential year 2000 computer problems. "Its coming, theres no way to put it off," said Charles Shomper, UH vice president for Information Technology in opening remarks at a UH Year 2000 Awareness Seminar Nov. 17 at the University Hilton. "The damage to the reputation of the university could be great if we had a major problem with year 2000. If we couldnt register students, if we couldnt do grade reports, if we couldnt do payroll it would be a serious problem." Shomper emphasized that state funding and the ability to receive grants and contracts could also be affected if it appears UH doesnt take proper steps to be year 2000 compliant. Dave Finn, a year 2000 risk management consultant with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, said a major challenge posed by year 2000 is understanding the scope and depth of the problem, since it will reach beyond mainframe computer systems. "The real issue could be embedded systems  devices that include microprocessors which help control everything from elevators to security systems to medical equipment," Finn said. "Its not just a problem for information technology operations, since individual departments may have been buying systems that may or may not be year 2000 compliant." Finn cited a Gartner Group study, which estimates that 66 percent of educational institutions will experience at least one mission critical failure due to year 2000 problems. Jim Bradley, a member of the UH Year 2000 Project Leadership Team, said that while the university began working on the year 2000 problem in the late 1980s, the push has now moved down to the department level. "Year 2000 coordinators have been appointed to conduct an inventory and get a count of potential equipment or systems that could be affected." Bradley said. "An assessment must also be done to gauge the risk of equipment failures and the importance of that component to an operation." The universitys year 2000 project office has set a deadline of Jan. 15, 1998 for year 2000 department coordinators to submit an inventory and assessment so remediation and testing efforts can move ahead. Another major effort is being made for departments to check that vendors who provide critical supplies to UH have equipment and operations that wont fail due to year 2000 problems and affect university operations. Just as important is for each department to have a detailed contingency plan if the millennium bug strikes. "Prepare triage teams," Bradley said. "If, despite all the planning efforts, you experience a failure on January 1, 2000 you need to have people ready to come in to deal with that. Say youre a researcher whos running an experiment. You need to know exactly who you can call immediately if it breaks." Software tool options to check that individual computers are year 2000 ready should be available shortly from the Year 2000 Project Office. Because of the potential impact of year 2000, anyone interested in learning more about the problem is encouraged to visit the UH Year 2000 Web site at http://www/uh.edu/year2000. An electronic mailing list has also been set up to deliver updates on the universitys year 2000 efforts. You can subscribe online at: http://www.uh.edu/year2000/uhy2k.html. You can also contact the Year 2000 Project Office at 713-743-1407.