As a junior, Jay Haas, a business major from Clifton Park, had the option of living off campus this year. Instead, he chose to return to Ryckman Hall, a low-rise building in the University at Albany’s Dutch Quadrangle complex. One of the big reasons, he says, is the University’s Residential Network, or “ResNet” for short, which provides a high-speed connection from students’ personal computers to the World Wide Web and the Internet.

The key phrase here is high-speed.

“ResNet is all about speed,” explains Haas, who owns a Pentium PC with 32 megabytes of memory. “I can be checking my e-mail, doing research, reading today’s newspaper and weather, and playing a video game on line—all at the same time. It’s a way of life. Actually, it’s probably something of an addiction at this point.”

Haas is not the only undergraduate with the ResNet habit. On any given weekday afternoon or evening, an abundance of students in any residence hall can be found at their personal computers doing everything from reviewing answers to a recent quiz to e-mailing friends and relatives or playing on-screen games with opponents halfway around the world. Since ResNet became available five years ago, usage has grown steadily. Today, nearly 4,000 of the 6,000 students living on campus—or about 60 percent—have hooked up their own desktop or laptop computers to the Internet via ResNet.

It is probably one of the biggest reasons that the University enjoys a nearly 100 percent housing occupancy rate, says Laurie Garafola, UAlbany’s director of residential life. ResNet has also transformed the way in which students learn and socialize.

“It’s a quality-of-life issue,” Garafola says. “Programs like ResNet, individual phone service and cable TV hookups have helped us increase the numbers of juniors and seniors on campus.” While freshmen and sophomores are required to live on campus, she explained, juniors and seniors have the option of moving off campus. Increasingly, however, upperclassmen are opting to remain in the residence halls.

“I know living off campus is cheaper,” says the 20-year-old Haas, who will return to Dutch Quad next year as a resident assistant. “But having that Internet connection and being on campus in the midst of everything is enough of an attraction to keep me on campus.”

Haas’s friend, sophomore Stacey Kingsley, 19, of Saratoga Springs, feels the same way. “Most of the time, when people walk into my room, I’m on my computer. I leave it on 24 hours a day. You’re just more connected,” said Kingsley, a Presidential Scholar.

ResNet is also an academic tool. Kingsley’s organic chemistry professor, Rabi Musah, posts her lecture notes on her course web page, as well as practice exams and review sessions for students. “Professor Musah also puts her slides up, so we’re not trying to spend time copying when we should be listening,” said Kingsley, who recently used ResNet to access the web site of the New York State Education Department for information on the courses she will need to become certified as a high school science teacher.

Martin Manjak, who as director of the Residential Network has shepherded its growth, describes ResNet as “an essential part of residential life.”

“It’s as important as the telephone. E-mail, chat and things like Instant Messenger are the most popular tools. It’s the easiest way to communicate with friends and relatives,” Manjak said. Surveys show students use ResNet for social and recreational purposes at least as much as they do for academic reasons. Manjak said plans are in the works to upgrade ResNet to a “switched” network, rather than a “shared” network, thus allowing for more bandwidth—along with faster performance and capacity to handle more multi-media traffic, like streaming video and audio. The University is also exploring the possibility of providing the same level of high-speed Internet access to students and faculty off campus by tapping into Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL) offered by local phone companies, Manjak said. Students who do not have their own PCs can access the Internet at four public user rooms with over 250 workstations across campus.

Manjak has trained 45 ResNet coordinators, or RNCs, to troubleshoot problems encountered by students. RNC Matt Brooks, a sophomore from Fultonville who lives in Ten Eyck Hall, helped more than 40 students at Dutch and Indian quads get their new computers up and running at the beginning of the fall semester. “Most of the time, it’s pretty simple. For most freshmen, it’s ‘How do I get AOL to work?’ Or they might need help installing their Ethernet card,” which provides the link from student PCs to the University’s data network, the World Wide Web and the Internet. Brooks, who is also a Presidential Scholar, is on call to handle network questions in Indian Quad for two hours each week as well as by e-mail.

Many faculty members are taking advantage of their students’ access to the Internet and the World Wide Web via ResNet by using the web to complement their traditional instructional methods. Over 150 faculty have produced web pages for nearly 700 course sections.

“It’s opening up wonderful new possibilities in the ways that our faculty teach, as well as a vast array of new information,” said Kathy Turek, associate director of UAlbany’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, which provides technical support. Faculty, Turek said, can deliver course materials, provide “links” to relevant Internet resources, generate on-line class discussions, post grades, and even make reserved reading material electronically available to their students via Albany’s new Electronic Reserve, or “ERes,” system.

Through ERes, University librarians can digitally scan reserve material for faculty and post it on course web sites. “The feedback I’m getting is that students love the 24-7 access,” said Brenda Hazard, director of the Media, Microforms, Periodicals and Reserves Department in the University Libraries. Hazard said that since the system’s implementation last fall, faculty have placed materials for 86 courses on electronic reserve, and ERes has generated 25,000 “hits” from students and others. “Its use has been exploding,” said Hazard.

Contemplating all of this technology was a little overwhelming for George Taylor, B.S.’68, when he helped his son, Keith, move into Ryckman Hall last fall. Taylor, now an accountant with the state controller’s office, was among the first 200 undergraduates to occupy Dutch Quad when it opened in 1964. “We used to have one phone per suite, with five or six people sharing it, and that was it. The only televisions we had were in the lounge areas, and the desks where we studied now have PCs on them,” he reminisced. But after seeing his son’s suite, with its individual Internet and telephone hookups, Taylor said, “I was ready to quit my job and move back in.”

ResNet is just one of the reasons for the renewed popularity of on-campus living, says Laurie Garafola, director of residential life at UAlbany. The University is carrying out a long-term plan to rehabilitate all of its residence halls.

One of the biggest projects was Sayles Hall, which underwent a basement-to-roof restoration last summer that brought it back to much of its original glory. The $1.8 million rehabilitation included restoration of molded plaster and wood parquet and marble floors; safety, security and communications upgrades; and new roofing, plumbing, electrical systems, and lighting fixtures. Sayles Hall, which opened as a men’s residence hall in 1941 is the second-oldest dormitory on Alumni Quadrangle near the University’s downtown campus. The oldest, Pierce Hall, which opened as a 100-bed women’s residence hall in 1935, was renovated during the summer of 1998.

On the uptown campus, where buildings in the quadrangles are 35 years old, the University is renovating two a year, adding fitness centers and recreation rooms with pool tables and big-screen TVs, and installing “loftable” furniture, which can be configured in a variety of ways to make the most of space. This year, Montauk Hall on Indian Quad was taken off line in May for renovations. It will be followed by Steinmetz Hall on State Quad in January of 2001. Alden and Waterbury halls will also undergo improvements in the next year.

The SUNY Learning Network To reach nontraditional students, UAlbany offers an array of on-line courses through the SUNY Learning Network. In addition to having one of the larger enrollments among the campuses, the University is currently the only one to offer a full degree on line—a Master of Science in curriculum development and instructional technology from the Department of Educational Theory and Practice. Other UAlbany schools offering on-line courses include the Schools of Business, Public Health and Social Welfare. The SUNY Learning Network may be accessed at http://www.sln.suny.edu/sln.