2003-2005 - Graduate School - The University of Alabama

44 The University of AlabamaCENTER FOR MATERIALS FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGYThe Center for Materials for Information Technology (MINT) at The University ofAl a bama is a multidisciplinary research program, located in the Bevill Building, that involves23 faculty members, 13 postdoctoral fellows, and 42 graduate stu dents from sixdepartments. Research fo cus es on materials used in fl ex i ble mag net ic media and headsand optical stor age. MINT is supported by the University, by industrial sponsors, andby federal grants and was designated a Materials Research Science and EngineeringCenter by the Na tion al Science Foundation. The MINT’s director is Dr. William Butler,professor of physics, who has more than 30 years’ experience in materials research.Dr. Butler may be reached at the following e-mail ad dress: wbutler@mint.ua.edu.OFFICE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGYThe Offi ce of Information Technology (OIT) is re spon si ble for delivering state-of-theartcomputer, network, tele com mu ni ca tion, and consulting services to the University ofAl a bama com mu ni ty. Faculty, staff, and students can turn to the OIT for ac cess to andassistance with e-mail, Web sites, voice mail, and much more.E-mail AccountsUpon registration, accounts are automatically created for all students on the centralacademic computer, bama.ua.edu. These accounts are primarily used as the students’offi cial University e-mail ad dress es, but they can also be used to publish personalWeb sites or for direct login to a Sun Solaris system with programming lan guag es andother tools.Telephone ServiceStudents living on campus receive their telephone service from Telecommunications,a department of OIT. Basic service in cludes unlimited local calls, a long distance callingcard, voice mail, caller ID, call waiting, three-way calling, and local last number re di al.For more information, see the Telecommunications Web site at http://telecom.ua.edu.Internet AccessAnother service for on-cam pus living is ResNet, a high-speed In ter net con nec tionavailable in many of the large res i dence halls. For information about which halls areconnected to ResNet and how to sub scribe, go online to http://ResNet.ua.edu. Stu dentsliving in non-ResNet halls or off campus may be able to get a high-speed In ter net connection through the local ca ble com pa ny; DSL con nec tions are not avail able on cam pusbut are available in much of the Tuscaloosa area. All stu dents may opt to use a dialupIn ter net service. The Uni ver si ty offers free limited ser vice, but many students con tractfor ser vice from an outside company. More in for ma tion about In ter net con nec tion optionsis avail able online at http://helpdesk.ua.edu/internet.Computer LabsStudents who do not own their own com put ers should be able to com plete their courseworkin the many com put er labs on cam pus. Some de part ments have special labs withthe soft ware need ed by their students, and there are also many gen er al-purpose labsthat are open to any University student. For details, see http://pclabs.ua.edu.