Microsoft Office info
If any of you have Office 2003 on your PC, you may need to install additional software to read files from the newest version of Office (2007). This is the link to Microsoft's site where you can download that software.
If you'd like to just upgrade, you can do that cheaply through the U. Go to the following address: http://www1.umn.edu/ucs/Microsoft/ms4students.php. From there, you can order Office 2007 for PC and either download it for free or pay less than $10 to get the DVD version (I'd recommend the latter in case your computer ever crashes or you get a new one).
For Mac users, there's no perfect solution, but this should work:
This will convert those files to RTF format, which you can read in Mac Office 2004 (or any other word processor). According to their website, the U will also have Office 2008 for Mac available in about 10 days with similar terms to the PC software.