Rowdy Sanford
Assistant Professor,
University of Idaho
Redesign, Not Replace: Sustainably Refreshing a Technology Lab without Starting Over
Wednesday, September 30, 2026 | 10:45AM–11:30AM MT
Session Type:
Breakout Session
Delivery Format:
Presentation
The lab hardware still works, support has run out, but the budget hasn’t grown. Now, technical departments face a difficult question: What do I have to give up to move forward? This session tells the story of how the University of Idaho handled this situation in its computer engineering lab when the previous desktop environment reached end of life and the existing machines couldn’t support the next OS upgrade. Rather than replace the lab outright the university redesigned around Ubuntu, an open source operating system, to extend the life of existing hardware while maintaining security, support, and compatibility with instructional needs. Rowdy Sanford, the Computer Engineering professor who helped lead the change, will co-present with Canonical to explain how the university evaluated academic, operational, and financial requirements without raising student fees or compromising educational quality. This session will include live demonstrations in a small lab built from repurposed university hardware to show the practical side of managing an Ubuntu lab in higher education. Attendees will see examples of centralized administration, security maintenance, and Active Directory integration. The goal is to give participants insight into how a similar approach could reduce refresh costs, preserve student access, and support a more sustainable academic lab environment.
