This broad-reaching program put leading-edge technology into the
hands of students and faculty alike. All incoming freshmen and
full-time faculty received a laptop computer. Campus-wide wireless
access to the Internet and Intranet made dependence on computer
laboratories a thing of the past. And with the launch of St. John’s
Central, the University’s secure web portal, students and faculty
instantly had access, from anywhere in the world, to a universe of
online resources: instant messaging, calendars, “headline news,”
message boards, campus announcements, class schedules, grades and
library resources; maximizing the educational capabilities of the
Internet.
The ACI caught the attention of some of the biggest names in the
high-tech industry by receiving national recognition for its
revolutionary technological progress. In January, St. John’s earned
a nomination to the Computerworld Honors Program – Search for New
Heroes – permanent archive. Established in 1988, the program is
dedicated to identifying leaders in the global information
technology revolution and recording the impact of their
achievements on society. Program administrators seek to partner
influential high-tech firms with top academic institutions to
document “a revolution in progress.”
The University also broke into the top 10 of Intel’s Top 100
Most Unwired Colleges survey, which ranks the top 100 schools for
wireless computing access. St. John’s was the only New York-area
University to make the top 10, along with such other schools as
Purdue University, the University of Texas at Austin, Dartmouth
College, Carnegie Mellon University and American University.
View more about the Academic Computing
Initiative program.