Excellence in Networking 1999 Award Winner

Seton Hall University

Seton Hall sees information technology as a means for achieving its institutional mission: to prepare future leaders in a global society. Now in the fourth year of a five-year technology plan, this 5,500-student institution is making a $15-million investment in new network infrastructure and services to improve teaching, learning, and administration. One of the most visible aspects of the plan is the Mobile Computing Program under which all first-year students are issued a laptop computer (refreshed every two years) as part of their tuition and fees. All residence halls provide data connections for each student; one-third of the classrooms have data and power connections to each seat and built-in computer projection equipment.

The Division of Technology has doubled its professional staffing since 1995, and its faculty and curriculum development budget of $250,000 per year supports projects in seven departments. The underlying approach has been to adopt a common interface to online course material to simplify student navigation of the campus curriculum. The SHU Institute for Technology Assessment and Support, which provides a clearinghouse for best practices in planning, support, and assessment of IT in education, has received significant outside support. Administratively, a major reengineering project targeted Enrollment Services, which now offers many services on the Web. Special initiatives include SHU's partnership in the Essex County Training Center, providing technology training to elementary and secondary school teachers in a statewide effort to improve teaching. SHU also serves as one of two host sites for the Virtual Academic Library Environment (VALE), bringing online library resources to a consortium of 39 colleges and universities in New Jersey.

The technology vision of SHU is to establish a student-centered, network-centered, distributed learning environment whose core is a set of quality information services, especially academic services. This vision is being carried out through intelligent, focused, and creative planning as well as exemplary use of partnerships with commercial and other academic entities.