With the autumn wind gracefully sailing through the air and the sun shining down, Allison Bombard, a sophomore at Sacred Heart University, sits under a sycamore tree with her laptop wirelessly checking e-mail and instant messaging friends.
One of those friends happens to be Amanda Herbst, a junior at Fairfield University. Constrained by the ethernet cord on her laptop, Herbst often glances outside her townhouse window wishing she could also bask in the sun’s rays. Unfortunately, the lack of wireless access around campus restricts her from doing so.
Many schools, such as Sacred Heart, now offer total wireless Internet access. But Fairfield does not anticipate expanding to an all-wireless campus for at least several years.
“We won’t be completely wireless until 2007 at the earliest,” said Donald Adams, assistant vice president of Computing and Network Services. “There’s no real strong, compelling academic reason to do it. It’s not the right thing to say, but that’s it in a nutshell.”
Bombard, who brings her laptop to some of her classes, believes it does help aid the academic experience in classrooms.
“My teachers put their class lecture online and people simply follow the notes during class right on their own computer,” said Bombard. “It would help teachers because they wouldn’t have to wait for students to write everything down.”
For Qin Zhang, a communications professor at Fairfield, the addition of wireless Internet access in the classroom could allow more flexibility in how she can teach the class, although it would not necessarily change her style of teaching.
“I don’t think I would teach any differently,” said Zhang. “I would get to show students how to do database research, but I don’t think I would want them having laptops.”
Many of Fairfield’s classrooms are already equipped with inputs, which allow access to the Internet, albeit sometimes requiring a converter to work with modern day Ethernet-based computers.
Similar to Zhang, some of Bombard’s instructors at Sacred Heart refuse to allow student laptops in the classroom, as they can be distractions.
“I know in one of my classes that I have to bring my laptop to, people start to instant message me or I end up surfing the internet and forget about what I was doing,” said Bombard.
Not only can professors get annoyed with students using laptops in the classrooms, but other students may find it a nuisance as well.
“One of my students once brought his laptop to class and he never handwrote anything,” said Zhang. “But sometimes, students weren’t too happy with that, because the keyboard clattering noise distracted them and my lecture too.”
With Bombard, her grades did not fluctuate when she jumped from a non-wireless environment to a wireless one.
“When I was at Northeastern, I did perfectly fine with my grades and they didn’t have wireless there,” said Bombard. “And at Sacred Heart, my grades are the same in both laptop and non-laptop classes.”
Intel Corporation recently announced Sacred Heart University as the 11th “Most Unwired College Campus” out of 50 top U.S. schools, with the term “unwired” indicating more wireless capabilities. Sacred Heart was the only school from Connecticut on Intel’s list.
According to Adams, there are roughly 75 wireless access points around Fairfield’s campus. Each access point can cover approximately 300 square feet, which is about three times stronger than consumer grade equipment.
Many of these access points can be found in the multimedia enhanced “Smart Classrooms,” such as Canisius 305 or Bannow 22.
Students feel the utility value of having wireless Internet access can extend beyond the classroom and into the student’s own living space.
“Not everyone wants to do work in their room, and it’s also extremely convenient,” said Herbst. “Having wireless access would give you more flexibility on where you can do your work or where you can use the Internet.”
Adding wireless access to the residence halls is on Computing ‘ Network Services’ to-do list, but it may take some time.
“It won’t be within the next six months,” said Adams. “Especially since a lot of the dorms are concrete block, [the wall thickness] might be a problem. But if it’s drywall, there shouldn’t be a problem.”
In the network usage contract, there is a clause which prohibits the private operation of wireless equipment, as it may disrupt Fairfield’s computing services and lead to a network outage.
“Random devices installed by students would not have the same settings as our equipment,” said Adams. “The tracking of rogue devices that are causing troubles takes up valuable staff time…we would invoke the judicial process within the Student Services division.”
Dean of Students Mark Reed said “students may not even be aware that they were doing something wrong or causing problems for other users. If a problem persisted or was more serious and even criminal, then the student conduct process would be applied.”
Some students do not know about or have ignored the warning.
“I know some people who have wireless set-up in their townhouse,” said Herbst. “It makes me jealous because they get to chat on AIM [America Online Instant Messegner], check their e-mail and go on [the] Facebook anywhere in their house.”
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