It is now 5 years after this issue was initially brought up and surprise surprise... the issue has still not been solved or even publicly addressed. Students are getting sick of the administrations charade of caring. This complaint has far more votes than there are students in the mining department, and even still, the administration does not give a s***. I have heard students criticized for only bitterly complaining and not actually constructively communicating their issues to the schools administration. Its no wonder to me that, after 5 years of being ignored, students are bitter and have given up appeals to solve their issues. After I graduate, the school will doubtless come begging for my loyalty and financial support as an alumni. Though I wish I could feel, about my alma mater, the way some do, I have seen the way this school disrespects the donations of its alumni, and I will likely feel no more loyalty to the institution of mines than one feels after leaving a disappointing restaurant with bad service. Unfortunate.

This has become an issue again this semester. It has gotten to the point where the past two weeks, multiple classes have not been able to get the knowledge/material needed to do assignments. The people using our labs do not need the software that is specifically on those computers, yet they are given priority over Mining Engineering students. PLEASE fix this issue, as my tuition is going towards classes where the main objective is to learn how to utilize Mining software that is very valuable in the industry.

since when do classrooms belong solely to one department? i have been all over campus in my years here, and even in the same classroom for multiple subjects. don't they all belong to the university as a whole? it is not like my technology fee is just for my department and yours is just for yours....we all chip in together for the good of everyone. sounds like the real problem is that there needs to be more computers with the software we need which should be easily solvable by IT people. who cares what room it is in?

What is the point of USG having this site if they don't address key issues like this?

I like how it has been 3 months and no one has said a word about this in USG. The least they could do is bring back the software for the CTLM computer labs or at the very least put a few copies of the mining software on the library computers.

This lab was a mining only lab that was refurbished largely with mining department alumni money. It is the only lab that has most mining specific software available. We minimize our class scheduling in this lab to lab sections that need the software for instruction in order to maximize its availability. Scheduling it for classes that do not need our software denies an entire department the ability to work on assignments. This situation is completely unacceptable.

Furthermore, the hijacking of specialized mining resources for general use is a slap in the face to our alumni who helped fund the remodeling and interferes with further fundraising efforts.

I want my technology fee back also

I agree, even though we're a small department we deserve the same access to resources that other departments enjoy. Mining seems to get overlooked (best case) or deliberately undermined (this seems the most likely case) by the higher-ups at this school.

Just another case of tyranny of the majority, it is easy to fall back on the claim that since there are few mining classes, they cannot be considered as a priority for the lab in this Instance. A number of other departments have private labs (several in brown itself), but apparently the mining department was snubbed from being able to arrange even a priority use agreement, much less exclusive rights.

I hope that this may be self recognized by the "people in charge" that our ability to use software required for our degrees is paramount, but I remain doubtful given past politics. At the very least I hope they read this and acknowledge the issue, so that future students may have a chance at being treated with the same consideration granted to the rest of the school.

The amount of votes this is getting as compared to the size of the mining department should prove that this is a clear problem for students in the mining department. I hope something happens but it probably will not happen until after I graduate.