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Second Most Wired Campus In Nation Investing
$50 Million To Maintain Leadership In New Century

NJIT recently claimed $2.8 million from the state Commission on Higher Education, a welcome contribution to the university's $50 million plan to stay ahead of the curve in information technologies and serve as a national model for institutions of higher learning.

Already one of the nation's most computing-intensive universities, NJIT is rated the second-most wired campus in the country by Yahoo! Internet Life magazine. Dartmouth is first, and MIT is third. NJIT is the only university in New Jersey listed in Yahoo's top 50.

Now, NJIT is again leading the way with a five-year investment plan to enrich both the hardware and the software capabilities of its already robust program. The university has already invested an additional $2 million in its high-performance computing and technology infrastructure this year.

"The goal, ultimately, is to use technology to help students take more control over their own learning, to support creativity within the university community and to encourage the exchange of ideas," said NJIT President Saul K. Fenster.

Students, faculty and staff will have access to a virtual private network so powerful, and secure, it can support seamless collaboration and research at any time, from anywhere in the world. This network opens wider doors to a wealth of information previously available only on the Newark campus expanding access for the entire NJIT community to proprietary information and services e-mail, library journals and collaborative research projects.

Students already use the Internet to submit assignments, access course notes, research library journals, register for classes and converse with their advisor. Soon, they will be able to access the tools they need to design new buildings, develop complex solutions to engineering problems or compile detailed management analyses all by logging into the NJIT network.

The plan also calls for expanded training and support programs campus-wide including technical support personnel to assist students and faculty who are working together to experiment with, learn and apply new technologies.

The university plans to maintain this investment with increased annual spending in this area. "Technology infrastructure is just as fundamental to a technological research university as bricks and mortar," said David Ullman, director of Management Information Services at NJIT and chairman of the university's planning task force. But, on average, computers become obsolete after three years which is why NJIT is planning to increase its current annual investment in the system by $1.5 million as a result of internal budget reallocations and a new student fee raising annual spending to more than $9 million.

Fenster, chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Presidents Council and the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education, emphasized the importance of careful planning for this kind of critical spending.

"It's no longer enough to just provide computing," said Fenster. "Communication and access to information have become critical as information technologies transform the very foundation of our society and our economy. To excel in the Information Age, organizations and institutions must not only incorporate the new technologies, they must also evolve appropriate organizational and planning structures to use that technology effectively."

"Massive capabilities and fancy applications are well and good, but if they don't advance the underlying mission of the organization, they're a waste of time and money," said Ullman. "The initiatives in NJIT's plan provide a technology infrastructure that will advance the university's focus on teaching, learning and research."

Last year, Fenster instituted a campus-wide planning process to link technological enhancements to the specific needs of the various university constituencies creating a model of how technology can be used to further the fundamental mission of any organization. The plan, formed through months of careful research and planning, reflects a progression of investment in cutting-edge technology and provides a reliable template for a "virtual university."

"Yahoo said we were number two, and we thank them for their confidence," said Thomas Terry, executive director of Computing Services. "We're striving to continue to deserve high ranking. We plan to make NJIT the most technologically advanced computing intensive university in the country."

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