When Helen (Seume) Mayhew got married and moved to College Station (although she came back), Randy Ebeling personally called the director at A&M and told him she was hirable as a Natural Programmer. It took TAMU 2 months to get their job-posting changed because they had to petition for permission to hire someone who wasn’t a math or CIS major. Once at TAMU, it was clear how amazing the training had been at UT; Natural programmers elsewhere had to pick it up piecemeal as they went along, whereas UT trainees had already written a “whole system” because of the training program.

See also Education Managers over the years.

New ideas, late 80s, with John Camden: mentors, business cases, etc.

In 1996, Helen (Seume) Mayhew and Karen White were the first trainees to go through training for the web, because the world wasn’t entirely sure before that that the web was going to last. Their challenge analysts were sometimes as confused as they were, since this was new to everyone. Their names were on so many training documents (since they had to write some of the training after they were trained) that trainees years afterwards would say, “Oh, we always thought y’all were some kind of geniuses, because your names were on all the web templates.”

See the full list at Training Program Graduates

Robbie Simpson brought the IBM test with him on arrival at UT. It is, as of 2015, still hand-graded.

The Bullpen, in the early 80's, referred to the open central area on the 13th floor, which had six stations for trainees. The Education Coordinator office in 1302 (facing south), the rest of the offices housed two Programmers apiece, except for 1306, facing East, which was the conference room. The center room without windows maybe housed one Programmer. There were six 3270 terminals on the floor: three in the elevator lobby, and three in other open spaces. The trainees in the center room didn't have cubicles, just separators between them, and bookshelves. There was a sign-up sheet for terminal time, although usually one was open. “Programmers” meant those out of training who had not yet been promoted to Systems Analyst and moved upstairs to join either the Academic group team on the 14th floor (led by Terry Dolan) or the Fiscal team, on the 15th floor, (lead by Ben Harrison).

From the 70's into the early 80's, most university phones were not directly dialable from outside. The Data Processing Division had one phone number, which rang for the 26th floor receptionist during working hours, and in the machine room in the evening and night hours. They would forward calls to the phones in various locations, with one in the elevator lobby and one in each office space. In 1982, Data Processing got direct dial phones. Numbers in the 1300's were assigned, per room number, to the offices on the 13th floor, one the 14th, 15th and 26th floors likewise. Numbers on the ground floor were assigned in the 0000's, beginning with the machine room, 0007. The Systems Staff offices were 0011 thru 0015. In the mid-80's, with more direct dial phones added, the university exceeded the numbers available within 471-, and was assigned the 475- exchange. Then it became necessary to dial the 1 before the room number, or 5. It was much later (early 2000's?) when UT used up the 475- blocked, and got 232, dialable with the 2 prefix.

Robby Simpson was always notoriously cheap. Even after there were phones per person rather than per office, an individual changed offices got the phone which was there, rather than pay Utilities to redirect the phones. The exceptions were only for management. Bill Wagner had been on the Systems Staff, with phone 1-0011, when he was promoted the Assistant Director and moved upstairs. Randy Ebeling took his phone, 1-0012 to the 26th floor. When Bill Wagner left UT and I (Chuck) succeeded him as Assistant Director, I inherited his phone number, 10011, binary 19. When I moved to the Development Office, they paid for me to take it with me.

Prior to installation of BACS (Building Access Control) the 13th floor elevator doors opened onto a locked door, complete with doorknob. Authorized people could use a physical key to unlock the door and and enter before the elevator doors closed. This was not well-designed for the claustrophobic in our ranks. There was a legend that James Shalkam, who had been the education coordinator in the late 70's, got himself locked between the wooden door and the elevator door.

The current elevators date to around 1978, when the PCL was opened, the Main Library moved out of the Tower, and the Tower converted to office space. The entrance to the Main Library stacks was thru what is now the Life Sciences Library on the Second Floor. Undergraduates selected books from the catalog and turned in request slips. Library staff went up into the stacks to find the books, and send them down in the dumb waiter which today runs past 1302, 1402, 1502. Graduate students were allowed up the stack stairs to browse. The small elevator in the center of the tower – truly not for the claustrophic – was used by staff.

Data Processing had previously occupied the 26th and 23rd floors. They gave up the 23rd and took the 13th, 14th and 15th.

There used to be signs in the elevators which said “No one has ever been injured in an elevator accident at The University of Texas at Austin.” Those signs were removed after students in Jester Center riding on top of the elevator cab encountered misfortune. Those students were immediately expelled from university housing.

Some large pieces of furniture and equipment have been delivered upstairs on top of the elevator cab. The large white board in the 14th floor conference went up via the stairs, passed hand to hand straight up.