Excellence in Networking 2000 Award Winners

Wake Forest University

As a liberal arts institution trying to find the right role for computing in the lives of faculty and students, Wake Forest’s goal in implementing its five-year-old Undergraduate Plan was to enable faculty and students to spend less time gathering information and more time working together, analyzing and discussing its implications. The university has taken an impressive strategic approach to providing ubiquitous, networked technology to enrich the education experience for its 3,850 undergraduates, with major technology investments for infrastructure, support and training, hardware, and software. All first-year students are issued notebook computers, exchanged for new models every two years. An exemplary blend of standardization, decentralized control and support, and allowance for customized computing needs has established an environment of low-cost ownership and exceptional acceptance of technology throughout academic departments.

The Wake Information Network (WIN) enterprise portal enables easy interaction between students, faculty, and staff on many fronts. The University has been a leading contributor to the development of WinstonNet, a partnership in Winston-Salem that creates a model for technology transfer in a community and, among many other functions, serves as a foundation for developing an educated, skilled work force for local business. In-house surveys and statistics designed to track the impact of Wake Forest’s groundbreaking efforts show significant improvement in computer use, student retention, teaching effectiveness, and assessment of intellectual climate.