Delaware State University: One University—One Telecom Infrastructure

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Delaware State University: One University—One Telecom Infrastructure

11/1/2002

By Charles D. Fletcher

A university's commitment to students and education can be seen in its commitment to providing the technology necessary to fulfill its mission. Like many universities' mission statements, Delaware State University (DSU) aims to provide an education that emphasizes both the liberal and professional aspects of higher education. But unlike many universities, DSU has made the commitment to providing the necessary technology for its students, faculty and staff to succeed.

Driven by the vision of a voice and data converged campus, the University's Department of Information Technology has set its own mission to raise "the level of technology to its highest standard," reads the IT Department's mission statement. "It is our vision, that the future of communications at DSU empower the institution's thrust forward."

Without a focus on profitability, few universities operate with the cost-effectiveness of a business enterprise. More often than not, academic departments are left to their own devices in terms of operations. With their own budgets, for example, the biology department really has little incentive to link or share their technology solutions with the physics department. But at DSU a new vision of convergence and IT centralization has taken hold.

The DSU vision began to materialize in 1999, aimed at streamlining operations, fostering interdepartmental communications, enhancing learning opportunities for students, and gaining economies of scale when purchasing technology. In that year DSU was able to obtain Y2K funding from the state of Delaware, as well as Title III federal funding under a mandated program to support historically black colleges and universities.

For the first time in its more than 100-year history, DSU was able to develop a campuswide IT strategy. It set out to bring order from chaos, eliminating islands of technology and cost effectively leveraging technology as a universitywide resource. With this newfound dedication to providing advanced technology for students, faculty, and staff, DSU began work on its floundering telecommunications network.

Small as DSU was, it still had 16 different private branch exchange (PBX) systems operating independently that essentially could not communicate with each other. Some buildings had four-digit dialing to call the state capital building downtown, yet others could not use this feature to call someone in the next building on campus.

Having so many different systems contributed to a duplication of services that was both costly and inefficient. The problem was addressed in the Y2K planning period. DSU officials hoped to purchase a campuswide PBX and replace all small Centrex-based PBX systems. DSU wanted to provide a unified face to its existing IT infrastructure as well as improve the level of service it offered to faculty, staff and students. But as a public-assisted university, the solution had to be cost-effective, as well as efficient.