The NetMath building on campus at 912 S. Fifth St. has been an eyesore for years. 

Although the need for roofing and shingle repairs is obvious to passersby, budget cuts by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which owns the building, have prevented any significant renovations. 

However, inside the building, university budget cuts have created other issues. The program, which offers self-paced mathematics courses, is grappling with controversial class restructurings and faculty turnover.

At the start of the fall 2022 semester, former NetMath director Randy McCarthy issued a statement about the impact University budget cuts would have on the NetMath department.

“An unfortunate consequence of this change is that CAS-ILE courses are no longer affordable due to their personnel costs,” McCarthy said in the statement. “As much as we wish to continue to deliver the novel computer-assisted active learning programs that have defined NetMath since 1989, we no longer have the instructional staff to do so.”

Since its start, the NetMath department has only used the Computer Algebra System Interactive Learning Environment (CAS-ILE). After many classes were discontinued, it is continuing to rebuild five new programs and its website to support its offerings.

“It has taken decades to build the tools we use in CAS-ILE today, and it will take considerable effort to rebuild those courses using new software and designs that reflect modern trends while incorporating the important pedagogical core ideas learned from experience,” McCarthy said.

Frequent staffing changes for executive-level positions have also contributed to a difficult restructuring process for the NetMath department. 

Since 2022, the NetMath department has seen three directors. 

McCarthy filled NetMath’s director position at the beginning of the fall 2022 semester, Lee Deville took his place in the spring 2024 semester and, less than seven months later, Partha Dey assumed the position and is the current director.

With this rapid rebuilding also came a reduction in course offerings. In the fall 2022 semester, NetMath offered college students 24 courses. Now, according to its college courses tab, the department is down to 17 offerings.

In the midst of these coursework changes, which extended past the proposed deadline of the summer 2024 semester into the fall 2024 semester, university students have flocked to social media to speak on their negative experiences with the program updates.

Some said on a Reddit post that the switch to alternative course platforms like PrairieLearn, used by the NetMath department in place of CAS-ILE, has left them feeling more isolated in their learning, on top of the distanced learning model already in place. 

Along with technological changes, social media users on the forum about the University have also expressed concern about the lack of renovations at the NetMath department’s main building. The latest construction project, finished on Nov. 20, focused solely on underground issues.

According to the university’s Facilities and Services Communications Manager Steven Breitwieser, “crews were performing directional boring for a water line replacement project” when ground was broken at the NetMath building.

Breitwieser said that Champaign Signal and Lighting was contracted to perform the work after a leak was found in the area. The cost for the water line replacement was $3,000, and no cosmetic renovations were made.

The last renovation visible to passersby took place over a decade ago with a roofing maintenance project.

According to the maintenance contract, Advanced Wayne Cain & Sons Roofing & Sheet Metal, Inc. completed the roof project on Feb. 3, 2012. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Facilities & Services department contracted their services for “the workmanship of the roofing and sheet metal installation” with a five-year guarantee. 

That guarantee has now been expired for almost eight years. 

“The building receives consistent preventive maintenance and service work, but no additional active project is associated with the facility presently,” Breitweiser said.

Additionally, some social media posts referenced their distaste for the department’s use ProctorU on exams, citing data privacy concerns. ProctorU is an online exam service that monitors student screens and environments as a cheating prevention measure.

According to the company, the service gives their proctors permission to “remotely connect to your computer in order to monitor your computer screen and premises and to ensure no prohibited applications or settings are activated during your examination or test session.” 

With remote access, proctors from ProctorU are given the ability to control a student’s mouse and can open any application loaded onto the device. The service also stores recordings of each student session. 

Matthew McCarthy, a current senior in systems engineering, created a petition on Feb. 14, 2022, calling for the discontinuation of ProctorU for online exams at the University. The petition has 107 signatures today, but the University has not taken action on the matter.

“They [ProctorU] say that data will never be sold or shared to a third party, but their privacy policy has exceptions listed for the sharing of information to a third party. This lack of transparency, consistency, and the lack of care for this company to handle such sensitive information is very alarming.”