2008 Woodie Awards
Internet access denied. Again.
Issue date: 10/1/07 Section: Op-Ed
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If you called it annoying, you'd be right. If you called it disruptive, you'd be right. If you called it typical, you'd be right. But what it is, above all else, is absolutely unacceptable.
We were planning on writing an editorial this week about how intermittent Internet access is in WCU's residence halls. On Wednesday, we began receiving e-mails from students telling us that their high-speed Internet connections would morph into what seemed like a slow dial-up connection. Pages wouldn't load, simple graphics and images would take minutes, and AIM connections would be dropped. The complaints only came from two buildings, Sanderson and Goshen, so we wanted to find out if this was a widespread issue or if the problem was contained within the two buildings.
We sent out an e-mail to about 170 first-year students that live in residence halls. We, unfortunately, were not surprised by the response. Students representing every residence hall except Wayne responded:
"When you need to get work done the most, the internet can't hang!" -Sanderson Hall, 3rd floor
"I have a very slow Internet connection most of the time." -Ramsey Hall, 6th floor
"At one point some people could not get the Internet to work at all. -McCarthy Hall
These responses-and almost two dozen others-came in, prompting us to inquire further with the University's IT department. While we received no official comment from them, they did offer to meet with us on October 1 or 2. It is unknown how many more responses our e-mail would have yielded, because sometime on Saturday morning, every North Campus resident was shut out, shut down, shunned. No Internet; not even slow Internet, none.
The multitude of reasons why this is unacceptable should be obvious and for some students, old. All one must do is look around. This line is used quite a lot in our editorials, but again, is appropriate to use: This is a college campus.
We were planning on writing an editorial this week about how intermittent Internet access is in WCU's residence halls. On Wednesday, we began receiving e-mails from students telling us that their high-speed Internet connections would morph into what seemed like a slow dial-up connection. Pages wouldn't load, simple graphics and images would take minutes, and AIM connections would be dropped. The complaints only came from two buildings, Sanderson and Goshen, so we wanted to find out if this was a widespread issue or if the problem was contained within the two buildings.
We sent out an e-mail to about 170 first-year students that live in residence halls. We, unfortunately, were not surprised by the response. Students representing every residence hall except Wayne responded:
"When you need to get work done the most, the internet can't hang!" -Sanderson Hall, 3rd floor
"I have a very slow Internet connection most of the time." -Ramsey Hall, 6th floor
"At one point some people could not get the Internet to work at all. -McCarthy Hall
These responses-and almost two dozen others-came in, prompting us to inquire further with the University's IT department. While we received no official comment from them, they did offer to meet with us on October 1 or 2. It is unknown how many more responses our e-mail would have yielded, because sometime on Saturday morning, every North Campus resident was shut out, shut down, shunned. No Internet; not even slow Internet, none.
The multitude of reasons why this is unacceptable should be obvious and for some students, old. All one must do is look around. This line is used quite a lot in our editorials, but again, is appropriate to use: This is a college campus.
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Steph
posted 10/14/07 @ 2:01 AM EST
It's happening on South Campus too. I can't believe we pay for this.
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