SAMANTHA BLONS
Assistant News Editor
Students moving back to Pepperdine may not notice the improvements in their Internet service. But the I.T. department has been working for the past several months to improve on-campus Internet access, while making plans to install wireless capabilities in all Seaver dorms and video conferencing in some classrooms.
Just in time for fall semester, Pepperdine joined Cenic, a nonprofit organization that runs an online network of educational and research institutions. Membership will provide the university with higher quality and faster Internet service.
“We doubled the amount of Internet capacity from 45 megabits to 95 megabits,” said Dr. Timothy Chester, chief information officer for I.T. “It’s about providing our faculty and students with higher quality, higher speed Internet at all of our campuses.”
Chester left Texas A&M University for Malibu in the spring, and quickly made it a priority to link Pepperdine with a more reliable online network. He and his staff reallocated assets within the existing I.T. budget to cover the $150,000 annual cost of the upgraded service, he said.
Next on the agenda for I.T. is installing wireless Internet access in the lower campus dorms. Drescher Honors Apartments already have wireless, but residents of the standard dorms, Rockwell Towers and Lovernich Apartments rely on ethernet connections. Currently, the department is seeking price quotes from vendors, and Chester expects to begin the installation process in about six months.
Junior Britney Maloney, who lives in the Lovernich apartments on main campus, thinks having wireless in the dorms would be a “huge” advancement for the Seaver dorms.
“It’s so frustrating when you’re in your dorm and you have to haul ethernet cable,” Maloney said. “It’d just be so convenient [to have wireless in the dorms.] It’s everywhere else on campus, so I don’t know why it shouldn’t be in the dorms.”
The department is also planning on installing video conferencing in Elkins Auditorium and some surrounding classrooms when they are renovated next summer.
08-27-2007