Colby Magazine: From the Hill

	The Erstwhile Elm City Colby and Waterville Face Changes Together

	Most Wired, Most Prepared Y2K challenges at Colby

	CBB Consortium Opens Study Abroad Centers

	Grounds for Approbation

	Do Change that Dial

	Boyle Will Edit Colby

"Y2K Bugs To Be Remedied Late," proclaimed the headline on an Associated Press story in September. "No country in the world will get all of the systems fixed by January 1," the story said.

Details implied that one should think twice before boarding commuter flights in Bulgaria on New Year’s Eve and that trusting traffic lights in Angola could be dicey once the date rolls. In the U.S. the health care industry–"because doctors, hospitals and payment systems are so decentralized"–was running behind.

"Y2K readiness is of greatest concern in developed countries such as the United States because they are most dependent on information technology," the AP reported. And a college on the Yahoo! Internet Life most-wired-colleges list is among the most dependent entities and, thus, may have the most cause for concern.

Colby has taken the threat seriously. A contingency planning task force is chaired by Raymond Phillips, director of information technology services.

"Work has been underway since the early 1990s to prepare the College's IT systems for the year 2000 date change," Phillips reported. By May, all campus systems were rated "fully compliant" with two exceptions–a few devices that are part of Johnson Controls environmental control systems, which passed tests this summer, and a few older Windows microcomputers, which were fixed or replaced.

Questions raised about the relative preparedness of outside vendors and government agencies proved more problematic. The starting date for this year's Jan Plan term was pushed back a day (to January 4) to help cope with the extraordinary travel volume that's anticipated and to delay travel until transportation systems check out.

Phillips and department heads have contingency plans for the electrical supply, food delivery, water supply, propane deliveries, and banking services. A test of the College's phone switching hardware was planned for the fall break.

Unlike Hunter Thompson, who wrote in Rolling Stone, "I am hoarding bullets, many thousands of them. . . . After the year 2000, the only people who'll be safe to have as friends will be dead people," Colby planners are not panicky. But they do have a sobering reference from which to work: "The ice storm of January 1998 pointed out both the responsiveness of the people of Maine to disasters and some weaknesses in the emergency response capabilities," the task force's report stated. So, in addition to its advance preparations, Colby will have five evaluation teams mobilized before midnight January 1 to see if there are any surprises, and they won't relax until Jan Plan is underway.

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