Summer is the season many colleges and universities schedule construction and renovation projects on their campuses because it is when such activity is least disruptive for faculty, administrators, and students.

This past summer, the sight of workers pulling wires and cables through buildings, and installing computer terminals and connection ports in walls was a common one on campuses that designated these months to build and upgrade their computer and telecommunications networks.

At a number of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), administrators took advantage of the relatively slower pace on their campuses to have campus networks built or upgraded.

"We had a busy summer with information technology improvements," says Ronald Forsythe, director of technology planning at the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore.

Schools, including Livingstone College, Norfolk State University, University of Maryland-Eastern Shore, Winston Salem State University, St. Paul's College, and Florida A&M University, report considerable activity this past summer with computer network development. Technology companies have beefed up marketing efforts to win the business of HBCUs as they build and upgrade campus efforts. Knowledgeable sources say the HBCU information technology market will range between $40 and $50 million annually for the next few years.

Small, but Not Inexpensive

Students returning to Livingstone College this fall will find their dormitory rooms outfitted with connection ports into which they can plug personal and laptop computers, and link to the campus network with Internet access. Starting this past June, work crews have been building an entirely new information technology infrastructure that integrates telephone, video, and computer data transmission into a comprehensive network.

At the foundation of the new infrastructure will be a fiber-optic backbone network, which provides the capacity for institutions to handle the flow of complex data, video, and voice communications across their campus. A new telephone system, a high-speed computer network, and a campus video broadcast system are being made possible in the new infrastructure.

"It's really a leap forward for us, and allows us to be on the competitive edge as far as the higher education market is concerned," says State Alexander, a spokesman for Livingstone College.

For a small liberal arts college, such as Livingstone, the commitment to develop a sophisticated network is not an inexpensive one. This summer's technology infrastructure work at Livingstone, which enrolls nearly 700 students a year, is costing the school roughly $1 million, according to Warren Williams, president of WANLink Communications, an Atlanta-based information technology networking company specializing in the HBCU market. That figure puts development costs for the institution at about $1,500 per student.

The campus upgrades are considered necessary to "enhance learning by providing our students better technology resources and by providing our faculty the tools to produce better curriculums," according to the college's president, Dr. Burnett Joiner.

Network development at the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore took a significant leap this summer with the installation of an ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) network replacing a lower capacity ethernet network, according to UMES officials. Forsythe says the ATM networking technology enables the campus to deploy high quality videoconferencing and multimedia applications in classrooms and offices with a high degree of reliability. The new ATM network also will boost the school's ability to develop distance learning courses.

"The ATM gives you the bandwidth for heavy duty applications," Forsythe says.

UMES also had 140 new computers installed on the desks of faculty members. Forsythe says more than a third of UMES faculty will have the new computers on their desks this fall.

Forsythe estimates that campus network development and computer installations over the past summer amount to more than $1.5 million. He says being a smaller school in the University of Maryland system affords his campus some cost savings that larger schools, such as the University of Maryland-College Park, miss out on.

Forsythe adds that he believes the UMES information technology infrastructure is more advanced than any other in the University of Maryland system. For the past three years, UMES dormitory rooms have had computer port connections that allow students to plug in their laptops and desktop computers.

Start Uprading To Meet Student Demands

Over the summer, Norfolk State University completed upgrades of its two campus computer labs that saw 160 of the 486 desktop computers replaced with new Pentium II desktop computers. Four of the campus' six residence halls had computer labs constructed in them and nearly eighty desktop computers were installed in the new residence labs. In addition, the school established computer labs at several academic departments and extended the campus network to all of its campus residence halls.

Judy Marchand, executive director of the Office of Information Technology at NSU, says the summer work at NSU represents the beginning stage of a partnership between the school and COLLEGIS, a Florida-based information technology company specializing in the higher education market. COLLEGIS, in an agreement announced last March, is planning, organizing, implementing, and managing the school's information technology resources.

Marchand, who heads the COLLEGIS effort on the NSU campus, says the company manages the responsibility of what used to be shared by NSU's Office of Computer Services and its Center for Instructional Technology. COLLEGIS also manages computing and computing facilities at Virginia State University.

"We're strongly dedicated to working With the HBCUs," Marchand says.

A significant factor driving the information technology push on campuses is that students are demanding their schools accommodate them when they bring personal computers to campus. That holds true for students at HBCUs, according to HBCU officials.

Dr. Joyce Williams-Green, vice-president for academic affairs at Winston Salem State University, says there is an expectation among students and parents that the school will provide exposure to and training in information technology.

"The students are driving this process, too" she says.

By the end of the year, for example, all dormitories at WSSU will have computer port connections installed for laptops and personal computers. Wiring of the dormitories largely began over the past summer, according to Williams-Green.

Nonetheless, when compared to students at predominantly White campuses, students at HBCUs are believed to not have as high a rate of computer ownership. At predominantly White colleges and universities considered to have a highly developed information technology infrastructure, it's not uncommon that more than 90 percent of students come to school with their own PCs.

Williams-Green says she believes that at WSSU where less than fifty percent of students are bringing their computers to campus, having computer port connections in dormitories, classrooms and libraries will motivate students and their families to invest in the technology.

Some HBCU officials say they intend to develop means to help students finance purchases of their own computers so that all of their students will own and use them in their coursework.

"I would hope that [Livingstone College] will be in a position to do that," says Livingstone's Alexander. "It's imperative, especially for those students in business and information system programs."