University of Michigan. University Committee on Computer Policy and Utilization.

The University Committee on Computer Policy and Utilization (UCCPU) was established in 1965. The UCCPU was founded on the recommendation of the Ad Hoc Computing Advisory Committee. The Ad Hoc Committee was set up to advise the vice president for research on the use of computers at the University of Michigan and was operational during 1964. Donald Katz was chairman of the committee and in turn became chairman of UCCPU. The UCCPU was composed of faculty members appointed from many units of the university for varying terms. The charge to UCCPU was to create policies for the university to adopt in matters relating to the selection, use, management, and potential use of computers in university programs of instruction and research. Although the committee was responsible for the three University of Michigan campuses, the majority of activity centered on computing at the Ann Arbor campus. The most important work of the committee was overseeing the change from a monolithic central computing center to a distributed network system of computing.

The first concern of UCCPU was to address the recommendations found in the Ad Hoc Committee's 1964 "Report on Machine Computation at the University." They included enlarging the central computing facility and acquiring a computer with online capabilities. UCCPU reviewed the bids received at the end of 1964 for a new computer. Its recommendation was to lease an International Business Machines (IBM) system 360 model 66m to be operational by 1967. This new system provided greatly expanded memory and online capabilities. At the same time the Michigan Terminal System (MTS) was created by the University's Computing Center to function as the operating system on the new IBM.

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