University May Bring Laptop Plan Online

Chapman University may give next year’s incoming freshmen more than dorm keys, course catalogs and the campus telephone book.

Odds are good that next year the university will hand them a laptop computer loaded with software.

Chapman may join a growing number of colleges and universities nationwide--and one of the few in the West--that regard computers as so important they provide them to incoming students.

Chapman started a pilot program this year with about 70 students in three sections of the required freshman seminar, an interdisciplinary class that studies human rights, the global economy and the environment. If all goes well, all 600 of next year’s freshman class will receive Dell Latitude computers.

For sure, computers on campus are nothing new. Many students lug laptops, even desktops, from home. And nearly every university has a computer lab where students can surf the Internet, write papers or--don’t tell their professors--play games. But as university classrooms are increasingly wired for the Internet, when every student has a laptop, professors can use the Web in class, give tests online and set up chat rooms where students can continue discussions.

Freshman Aaron Deist said his professor had the class download a controversial video by the rock group Rage Against the Machine to stimulate a discussion.

Karl Reitz, who teaches a freshman seminar, said that instead of passing out photocopied material, he puts the texts on the Web, along with links students can check.

Maureen Furniss has encouraged her students to take notes on their computers. “I made the inevitable announcement,” she said, “No e-mail or games in class.”

Chapman’s way is just one of many solutions universities have taken to encourage students to purchase computers, from offering discounts if they buy them through the campus store to requiring students to own one and providing the necessary specifications, such as the amount of memory or the size of the hard drive.

About 30% of universities require students to have a computer, said Heather Stewart, director of the Institute of Technology Development at New Jersey’s Seton Hall University, which in 1998 became one of the first schools to provide all freshman with computers.

Seton Hall’s Ubiquitous Computing Conference, where much of the discussion is about providing students with computers, has grown from 15 colleges that participated four years ago to 150 last January.

One survey showed that about 200 colleges are starting some form of pilot program to provide students with laptops, said Stephen Landry, Seton Hall’s chief information officer. Claremont McKenna College in Claremont is considering starting a test program next fall.

“Most schools view it as part of the transformation of using technology as part of the learning process,” said Mike King, solutions executive for IBM’s Global Education Industry.

Giving students a fully loaded computer, sometimes with specially developed software, means everyone in class can perform the same tasks, said Michael Fahy, Chapman’s director of academic computing.

It also means the professor can use the computer as a teaching tool in class. “In some of my other classes, other kids have laptops,” Garrett said. “But the curriculum can’t be designed around the laptop because not everyone has one.”

The world of computers, though, is not a perfect one, as Furniss has discovered. She has experienced the same problems using the Internet in class that everyone else does: slow connections and inability to access a Web site. But instead of waiting impatiently at her desk, she is standing in front of a class.

“I’ve had to adjust my lectures to this unpredictable Internet thing,” she said.

The Chapman computers are not free. Students pay $500 a semester to lease them. After two years, they will be able to turn them in for an upgraded model or to buy them at market value, about $400.

The computers each cost the university about $1,100 a year, not including software, Fahy said.

At Seton Hall, the computers are replaced after two years, and if students graduates on time, they get to keep them.

But what about students who already have computers?

Fahy and others say that not many students have laptops, which, because of their obvious portability, can be brought to class or the library. When they were in high school, most students used the family computer, Fahy said. And if they are considering a place like Chapman, they know a computer will be available when they arrive on campus, same as a dorm room.

“We often get a question from the parents of students, should we get them a computer,” said Seton Hall’s Landry. “We say ‘Get them a printer or nice peripherals.’ ”