Some students’ names and personal details have been changed to protect the identity of those interviewed.
By Sam Miller
It is no secret that our campus has a few issues that raise concern among students, faculty, and staff, but the main issue of concern is that of campus WiFi.
Whether in a dorm room, Alumni Hall, or even an academic building like Marian Hall, it is not an unusual occurrence for students and staff to run into issues with their Wifi. Even if they are connected to MU-Secure, just trying to use Canvas, the issues still remain. In knowing that campus WiFi has had a questionable run, the concern of how it would withstand significantly heavier traffic, as many students are working remotely from their dorm room or campus apartment, has come to the forefront.
For students like Jane Smith, a sophomore business major, having a strong WiFi connection is incredibly important. For Smith, all of her classes this semester are either remote or hybrid, so without a strong connection, she struggles to stay focused and engaged in her classes. She said, “If I spend half of my class with my internet going out, or having a weak connection, I can’t focus on what my professor is saying because they’re cutting out.” Smith has found that her professors are pretty understanding about her WiFI issues because they have also experienced similar issues this semester. Smith, a resident of Clare Hall, says she has had issues with her WiFi for the duration of her college career, even before the pandemic ever started.
“It’s just frustrating to me to pay all this money to live on campus and have barely functioning WiFi. I can’t even tell you how much I’ve spent on data over the last two years,” stated Smith. Smith is not alone in her frustration, another student, Kyle Noah, has experienced similar issues.
Noah, a senior sociology major, says his WiFi has been an issue for him since his freshman year in 2017. “I remember living in Doyle Hall and having consistent issues with my WiFi and the only place I could go where I wouldn’t have issues is the library. I shouldn’t have had to go there just to be able to do homework.” Noah lives off campus this semester, but he is on campus twice a week for an in-person class. “The WiFi is better than it was my freshman year, but it is still not great,” he stated.
Renovating campus WiFi has been a project in the works for the last few years, as described by Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Ray Stanley. Stanley stated that one of their priorities was to make sure that campus WiFi was equipped to handle so many students using it at once for online classes. As a result, the bandwidth was greatly increased. Presently, only about 50 percent of the possible bandwidth is being occupied at one time. The only time it gets this high is during what Stanley described as “high-traffic hours” which are generally on Sunday nights since many professors make assignment due dates 11:59 p.m. on Sunday night. Stanley also described a recently approved project that will make WiFi in the residence halls significantly better.
“We just got approved for the final stage of campus WiFi reconstruction. We entered a three year, almost four-year, project to increase the WiFi bandwidth and the way WiFi is handled throughout the campus, and we’ve focused on the classrooms and those buildings first,” he stated. As part of the plan, this summer, all residence halls will be rewired and recabled, and a separate access point will be in each room. Stanley hopes that through this final step of the reconstruction process, students will see much stronger and more reliable WiFI in their residence halls without any issues.
Hopefully through the final stage of this project, students will have a much easier and less chaotic time using their electronic devices in their residence halls. After this summer, students should see this improvement, and if they do not or in the meantime run into issues, feel free to submit a ticket to the IT Helpdesk, and this can be done here: http://helpdesk.marian.edu.
