new technology at lee

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Harrison Keely, News Editor

The Lee Clarion

February 14, 2007

New Technology on Lee’s Horizon

Director of information services and technology, Craig Gray, spoke with the LeeClarion about the $2 million technology component of the “Press Toward the Mark”campaign. According to Gray, a wireless campus really is coming, Microsoft Vista is wellon its way to Lee’s labs, video conferencing remains in the air, and requiring laptops forstudents is not that far off.

According to President Paul Conn, goals of the “Press Toward the Mark” campaigninclude more computerized classrooms, heightened bandwidth, and a fully wirelesscampus.

iNTERNET ADVANCEMENT

Bandwidth

Lee students can blame themselves for slow Internet last semester and for fasterInternet this semester. Gray said that the dorm networks max out until about three in the

morning. Perhaps large, media-heavy sites like Facebook, YouTube, and MySpaceonce bogged down the 12MB/s bandwidth of Lee University’s ResNet, but thanks to anupdate to the system between the fall and spring semester, bandwidth on campus hasincreased to 20MB/s and, according to Gray, could now more than double to awhopping 45MB/s speed in the future.

Sometimes, like in the case of raising bandwidth, technology initiatives begin longbefore a specific campaign, Gray said. “It costs the university approximately $45,000 ayear to keep the Internet going,” he said, adding that the equipment itself cost about

$90,000.

Wireless Internet

“We want all public spaces to be wireless,” Gray said. At this time the last publicspace without full wireless is the library and that will be fully wireless within eight weeks.Gray explained that among the first buildings on campus to receive wireless internet



were the dorms without access at all. Public space was the next priority. “Eventuallywe’ll work on wired dorms,” he said,” however, it really is a separate project.”

Server Technology

The computers that run everything on campus, the university’s servers, areundergoing a major overhaul. Gray said that, as a result, Lee’s financial system will beupdated, as well as the student information system and electronic advising. Also,registration will “completely change.”

“Every conceivable space of university life will be tied together in this function,” hesaid. He explained that in the past adding a new system (like digital registration) wouldrequire adding a server, but that is unnecessary with new virtual technology. “It is themost cutting-edge server technology today,” Gray said. “We call them ‘Superservers.’”Each new server includes multiple components, capable of operating 20 servers at atime.

TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCED CLASSROOMS

Classrooms in the DeVos Center for the Humanities are examples of howtechnology-oriented all classrooms on campus will be, according to President Conn. Atthe present time 70 percent of all Lee classrooms are configured with industry-standardtechnology. However, “not all classrooms on campus are designed for technology,”

Gray is careful to add.

Although, on average, five new classrooms are updated a year, Gray expectsapproximately 85 percent of classrooms to have technology solutions by the completionof the “Press Toward the Mark” campaign.

Digital projectors, DVD players and flat-screen computers are not all that’s in mindfor future classrooms. Gray said that the addition of smart boards and interactiveelectronic devices is being discussed.

“Three years ago we were nowhere near where others were with technology[saturation],” Gray said. According to him, now 100 percent of Lee students have Angelaccounts and the majority of professors use it in a “hybrid way.” There are currently noplans for changes in the Angel system.

VIDEO-CONFERENCING



“There are no sold plans for video chatting,” Gray said, referring to the complexdilemma of permitting students to use web cams to communicate with home. Increasednumbers of new computers ship with web cams built-in, enabling users to communicatevia video with loved ones anywhere. However, Lee’s network currently disables the

ability for students to video chat.

“[Video chats] are not huge bandwidth users, but they run over ports that let inviruses to our systems, causing security problems. We’re tossing around plans; weknow there are students far away from home (places like California, Michigan, Africa),we just don’t have a good answer for [the problem].”

REQUIRING LAPTOPS FOR STUDENTS

Gray said that there had in fact been discussion of integrating a required laptopcomputer program into Lee University’s curriculum. However, there are no official plans.“At a place like Lee, if you require a laptop, it’s one more cost -- one more hurdle forpeople to engage in higher education,” he said.

Despite the fact that there is currently an 80 percent computer ownership rateamong students at Lee, Gray said the school has more open-use computers per capita(the number of students on campus) than any other school in the CCCU (Council forChristian Colleges and Universities). He said that many universities are choosing to gothe opposite route and remove computer labs.

“It is inevitable that Lee will eventually require students to have laptops,” he said.“Our reliance on computers is not going to go away.”

INTRODUCING VISTA

“We’re already planning workstation distribution for next year,” Gray said. Plans fornew and improved workstations at computer labs include the installment of Microsoft’snewest operating system, Windows Vista, on some of them. The latest release will showup in some computer labs as early as next fall, however, the complete segue from theolder XP will take up to two years.

“We’ve beta tested Vista and the new Office in IS&T labs. The new security levelis very positive,” Gray said, although he acknowledged two difficulties with Vista. Thefirst was that the IS&T department would have to train staff to know how to work on it.Secondly, “we have to have machines capable of running it without making it a painful



experience.” Gray added that most machines on campus now cannot carry the heavyload of Vista. He concluded, “we have to move forward. It’s going to be huge.”

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