Whereas California Community Colleges already spend nearly one hundred million dollars a year in data processing services, and
Whereas changing technologies and increasing information demands make it more and more difficult for colleges to provide satisfactory data processing services, and
Whereas colleges have traditionally tried to develop (or in some cases purchase) appropriate software on an individual basis, and
Whereas this procedure is prohibitively costly (a modern first class comprehensive software system costs several million dollars and needs to be frequently upgraded) and forces colleges to spend large sums of money for inferior systems, and
Whereas some colleges are currently trying to pool resources to develop and/or purchase comprehensive state-of-the-art information systems and are encountering a great deal of inertia and difficulties, and
Whereas such cooperative efforts could result in tremendous savings, that could be used for educational purposes, and enormous improvement in the ability of these information systems to serve the educational mission of the colleges and to facilitate faculty participation in governance,
Resolved that the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges urge local colleges and the Chancellor's Office to cooperate in every possible way in developing and/or purchasing high quality comprehensive information system software for California Community Colleges and that this system software be adopted in consultation with all involved local senates.