[Acocoops] Fw: Moving away from physical phones and Skype - need feedback by Friday August 8th

[Bill Baer]

Hello,

As per email from Anindya, since Faculty of Arts leadership are looking for cost savings.

Some may desire to keep Skype for external facing access, however Skype is no longer supported October 2025 and the university (IST) is looking for an alternative, hopefully within current solutions.

Sincerely, Bill


William R Baer, BASc (Systems Design)

Director IT - Arts Computing Office (ACO)

Bill.Baer @ uwaterloo.ca

Cell: 905-320-0483

Bill.Baer @ gmail.com


The University of Waterloo acknowledges that much of our work takes place on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. Our main campus is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land granted to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. Our active work toward reconciliation takes place across our campuses through research, learning, teaching, and community building, and is centralized within our _ Indigenous Initiatives Office_<https://uwaterloo.ca/human-rights-equity-inclusion/indigenousinitiatives>.

________________________________
From: Anindya Sen <asen at uwaterloo.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2025 10:00
To: chairs at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca <chairs at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca>; deptadminmanagers at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca <deptadminmanagers at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca>
Cc: Alexie Tcheuyap <atcheuyap at uwaterloo.ca>; Kathryn MacDonald <kathryn.macdonald at uwaterloo.ca>; Andrea Charette <andrea.charette at uwaterloo.ca>; Xing Liao <xingliao at uwaterloo.ca>; Bill Baer <bill.baer at uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: Moving away from physical phones and Skype - need feedback by Friday August 8th

Dear Colleagues:



I hope the summer has been treating you well. ACO and the Dean's Office (Bill and Xing) has been working together to identify costs savings with respect to communications resources.



First, we will be unsubscribing from Skype and have begun discussions with IST. This is because we already have Teams and Zoom.

Second, we are conducting a complete audit of all our existing phone lines. For example, there are some instances where departments have multiple phone lines for a single administrative service. Also, there are cases where we are unsure how a phone line is being used, or is associated with a faculty/staff member who is no longer with Arts.

Third, in this respect, we will also be removing most remaining physical phone lines. This is consistent with actions taken by other faculties. Of course, individuals who have external facing stakeholders, will continue to have their physical lines.


Departmental administrative managers, could you please send me a list by Monday August 11th detailing which physical phone lines your department would like to retain, along with an explanation? Nothing long, just a few sentences should be sufficient.


Xing or Bill will be reaching out to you with questions. I would appreciate if you could respond quickly to their queries. The costs from these inefficiencies might be seem small but I assure you that they are significant.



Thanks very much for your help.

Anindya

Anindya Sen
Associate Dean of Arts, Co-operative Education and Planning
Professor of Economics
University of Waterloo
Fellow-in-Residence & Inaugural Scholar in AI and Digital Policy
C.D. Howe Institute of Canada
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