Trinity Lutheran Seminary received updates to their Wi-Fi systems over the summer, with the main campus scheduled to receive updates next summer according to Steve Terry, the new director of technology for the university.
Before the university merged with Trinity’s campus, they had separate Wi-Fi systems. Now, the Wi-Fi spreads across the entirety of both campuses. Due to a limited amount of time, the technology department was unable to run the university’s normal network to the Trinity apartments. Instead, they set up individual access points in the apartments through Spectrum wireless to give the students housed there access to the internet.
These changes, as well as those happening to the main campus next summer, are why students are now paying a technology fee, something that has started this semester.
Although the plan for phase two of the campus-wide update has not yet been finalized, Terry says that the main objective of next summer’s updates will be the wireless in academic buildings and making sure they’re as up to date as possible. The technology department also hopes to eventually upgrade the bandwidth of the network in order to better support streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu.
Terry has only been technology director since July 1, but he hopes to make some changes to the technology on campus. Some of his ideas include using a program similar to Ohio State’s BuckeyeLink to keep information all in one place for students and faculty. This program would make it faster and easier for students to find the things they need and stay up-to-date on university news.
“We need to move to what I call an intranet,” said Terry, “so that we can share information that’s not readily available to the outside world.”
While we have a website, it’s more focused on recruiting new students to the university rather than being a tool for current students. Terry wants to create a private website that students and faculty can log onto to get information specific to the university. Examples of the information of the website are current events for students, sharing information between students, faculty and others associated with the university that is not class specific, and a university based index accessible to students.
Terry hopes this “student-based portal” can be implemented here to promote communication and the sharing of information between different parts of the university.
Terry also says he would like to see work done on the technology infrastructure throughout campus to make the wireless stronger. He also wants to continue to make sure classrooms are always outfitted for the success of students and professors by having the technology in classrooms regularly checked by the department and updated when necessary.
In the past, students have had a lot of trouble with technology on campus, specifically Wi-Fi, but Terry says the university has “state of the art equipment,” and that the issues should go away. If issues arise, students can always visit the IT help desk in the library to get advice on how to fix the problem.
