Virtual desktops aid UVU student athletes

OREM — When Lacee Koelliker played volleyball for Utah Valley University, the student-athlete computer lab was 100 square feet and had just seven computers.

Then it grew to 30 computers, but only five of them worked.

On Tuesday, UVU's athletic department celebrated 30 new virtual desktops donated by Vucci Technology Solutions.

"I played here and graduated here, so to see this is amazing," said Koelliker, who graduated two years ago and is now the assistant volleyball coach. "It's nice that they have good technology and good computers to work with. It will help them academically. It will be huge for them. Academics is why they are here."

A lot of the student athletes do not have their own computers, said Maureen Marshall, director of compliance and student services. So going from a few working computers to 30 is a big improvement, she said.

The desktops are housed in the Wolverine Service Center building and are for the use of UVU's 300 student athletes.

From the fall to spring semesters, the average grade-point average for UVU's athletes went from 3.04 to 3.25, said UVU Athletic Director Mike Jacobsen.

Having academically successful athletes is important to UVU, and the addition of the new desktops tells the student athletes the university cares about them academically, said Cory Duckworth, UVU's vice president of student affairs.

"It shows the students their education is the primary focus of why they are here," Duckworth said. "We are here to help them be successful on the field and in the classroom."

Jacobsen said there is a new attitude and atmosphere that came with the new computers. The old computers were no longer functional and used about five times as much space, he said. There were wires and towers all over.

With virtual desktops, however, the scene is much different.

"The kids feel like they have died and gone to heaven," Jacobsen said.

Instead of having a separate tower for each monitor, the monitors are run remotely by three servers located on the third floor of the library — several buildings away. If a program needs to be updated, it can be installed on the mainframe desktop rather than on each computer.

"The maintenance is nothing compared to regular computers," said Darel Hawkins, UVU student computing director.

Hawkins said the university plans to replace more of its computers with virtual desktops.

Mike Morrey, former development officer at UVU, was the one who asked Vucci Chief Executive Officer and President Dave Affleck about getting new computers for the lab. Affleck quickly offered to donate the virtual desktops, Morrey said.

"There is some huge future to this," Morray said. "This is the tip of the iceberg to develop educational opportunities (for) students."

E-MAIL: slenz@desnews.com