Students working, reading and hanging out with friends in the dozens of blue and gold adirondack chairs that are scattered across campus: it’s a common sight on warmer days at the beginning and end of the school year. Now, those students have an added bonus: outdoor Wi-Fi.
Over the summer, the Information Technology team installed access points across campus in outdoor areas where students often congregate, as well as at the Robertson Athletic Complex.
The Allegheny Student Government provided the “bulk” of the funding for the project, according to Chief Information Officer Katrina Yeung.
ASG President Ella DeRose, ’27, said she is pleased to have participated in the project.
“Our prior administration knew that putting in this outdoor Wi-Fi would sort of help the students,” DeRose said. “Especially since we had had Wi-Fi troubles.”
At Robertson, most of the work involved rebuilding existing Wi-Fi infrastructure and installing new access points to expand connectivity, specifically near the tennis courts, according to Yeung. Additionally, some work was done within the stadium and locker rooms.
“I’m really happy with how it turned out, specifically around the tennis courts, because not only does it provide, you know, the connectivity on a court, but it also amplified kind of the security piece of it too,” Yeung said.
Reception can be spotty at Robertson, and Yeung said that prior to installing the new Wi-Fi, it was a concern that it would be difficult for people at Robertson to seek help if there were ever a security or safety issue.
Though Yeung was unsure when ASG agreed to fund the two projects, she said she was notified later in the spring 2024 semester.
The money was pulled from ASG’s Surplus Fund.
ASG’s General Fund is funded through the Student Activities Fee and supports standard club requests like event supplies and consistent expenses. At the end of the year, all unspent money from the General Fund is rolled over into the Surplus Fund.
Designed for one-time club investments like equipment and uniforms, the Surplus Fund peaked in the 2023-24 academic year at $530,000, according to Campus reporting. This, DeRose said, was due in large part to the build-up that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic when students were still paying their annual activity fee but the money was not being spent on events or gatherings.
“Our prior ASG administration was pretty heavily involved in that after ASG was told — or sort of encouraged — to use some of our surplus money,” DeRose said.
Last year, the college told ASG leadership that they had to spend at least $200,000 of the year’s roughly $530,000 Surplus Fund on major capital projects for student use. Otherwise, the money would be absorbed back into the college’s general fund, according to Campus reporting at the time.
In an effort to spend down the pool, ASG attempted to organize a series of presentations where senators could hear and vote on a range of ways to spend the money.
In February 2024, Yeung gave the first presentation, pitching the outdoor Wi-Fi and Robertson Wi-Fi projects to ASG and estimating that each would cost approximately $50,000. During the General Assembly, ASG did not vote on whether to approve funding for the projects.
After that GA, ASG did not hear any additional presentations during the semester, despite their initial stated goal of doing so.
DeRose does not remember voting to approve funding for the project as a senator, but remembers talking with other senators about weighing the projects’ costs and benefits.
Despite never publicly or formally voting on the matter, DeRose said that ASG made the decision to use the Surplus Fund for the Wi-Fi projects during the spring semester, before DeRose was voted in as director of finance during the GA on February 23.
“It was (former ASG President) Nicole (Recio Bremer, ’25) and (former ASG Vice President) Sam (Ault, ’26, who) were pretty heavily involved with planning that, but once I was in the finance role, I knew specifically, like, that was happening,” DeRose said.
Recio Bremer and Ault did not respond to requests for comment.
DeRose said it was also decided that the Surplus Fund will be used to build an outdoor classroom on the lawn between Pelletier Library and College Court. Physical Plant currently has the plans for the project, according to DeRose.
DeRose is unsure how much the outdoor classroom project will cost.
During an interview, DeRose was not sure how much ASG spent on the two Wi-Fi projects, but recalled that the outdoors Wi-Fi project estimate was $50,000 and the Robertson Wi-Fi project was $56,000.
“I think it was a bigger decision than us,” DeRose said. “Like, within finance and the chief executives and Nicole and Sam — that was kind of a decision that was made. I do believe it passed the finance vote, but I can’t confirm that, so maybe.”
In an email statement, Dean for Student Life and ASG Advisor Trae Yeckley said that they work with ASG to ensure proper guidelines are followed and to make sure that funds are spent in a timely manner.
“At the end of the Spring semester, I worked with the then President and Vice President to help pay for the wifi projects and for the outdoor classroom project,” Yeckley wrote. “These projects will both have enormous benefits to students. In terms of the rollover amount, it is normal practice for amounts that rollover to be capped at a certain level and for unspent funds to be returned to the overall College budget. This helps to ensure that current student activity fees are spent on current students, and not stored in surplus for future years.
DeRose is happy with the outcome.
“I think the people who were involved in decision-making did a good job with listening to the concerns of students knowing that Wi-Fi was an issue and we want to be outside and we want to have spaces to work together,” DeRose said. “So I really do support those decisions, and I think they’re going to be great, especially the outdoor classroom once it’s built.”
Cybersecurity
In addition to installing outdoor Wi-Fi, Yeung and her team have been busy improving the college’s cybersecurity.
Even though Allegheny has not recently had any “widespread, out-of-the-norm” cybersecurity breaches across the institution, Yeung said that cybersecurity constantly remains top of mind for her and her team, especially during October, which is National Cybersecurity Month.
“The bad guys get better every day and they only have to get lucky once, where we have to be perfect, right, or something bad happens,” Yeung said. “Cybersecurity definitely keeps me up at night.”
Building strong cybersecurity generally engages with two parallel efforts; the first is operational training in which users are taught how to identify and handle possible cybersecurity risks. Teaching this to students at the college will not only help protect sensitive data, Yeung said, but also impart upon students important best-practices that are imperative for future professional endeavors.
Given that 93% of cybersecurity breaches are perpetuated through a person clicking on something they shouldn’t in their email, Yeung would like to see cybersecurity training for students during their first-year training.
“We’re just trying to be more intentional about building advanced cybersecurity things into the network to protect students and employees and others across the institution,” Yeung said.
The second path to build strong cybersecurity is infrastructure-based, in which Yeung’s team strives to create a multi-layered security system that makes it as difficult as possible for attackers to break through.
One example of this is mandating two-factor authentication. Another is something that Yeung’s team implemented over the summer: limiting the use of flash drives on college-owned devices to mitigate the possibility of viruses being spread between computers.
Additionally, Yeung’s team re-launched the AC-Devices network in an effort to have more control over the types of devices, like gaming systems and TVs, that traditionally are less safe from a cybersecurity perspective.
Whereas on the standard network, it can be difficult for IT to identify which device belongs to who, AC-Devices requires students to register each of their devices. The benefit of this added step is that IT can more quickly identify which device belongs to who in the event of an attempted cybersecurity breach.
“It’s just in the best interest of everybody across the institution to keep cybersecurity kind of front of mind,” Yeung said. “I mean, if you watch the news at all, you can see that there are lots of instances of breaches with various systems and tools, just broadly, not even just higher-ed based.”
Other projects
Over the summer, Baldwin Hall saw upgrades to optimize students’ network connectivity.
The physical infrastructure of the building — namely the concrete walls with “chicken wire” in the walls — makes establishing good connectivity in rooms a challenge, according to Yeung.
To circumvent the issue, Yeung replaced the access points running down the hallways with smaller access points located inside students’ rooms.
Additionally, this year, Yeung’s team got funding from the college to begin installing new cabling, a project that will take place over the next several years.
“I’m really excited about (that) because I know from a student perspective, they’re like, ‘Oh, Wi-Fi, it’s great,’ but really it’s an illusion,” Yeung said. “And behind Wi-Fi is a lot of wiring and we have a lot of aged wiring across the campus.”
Yeung said she has been working with Chief Financial Officer Linda Wetzel to “bring more visibility around just the age of the infrastructure across the institution and trying to be proactive about spending money before it breaks.”
“The board was receptive to that, and they’re making the infrastructure priorities so we were able to get some funding,” Yeung said.
Reflecting on progress
The beginning of the 2024-25 school year marks a year since students returned to campus to spotty and sometimes non-existent Wi-Fi. Yeung, who was charged with solving the monumental problem as soon as possible, said that this fall has been a wonderful change of pace.
“I mean, for me, it’s night and day,” Yeung said. “Being only here for just over a year, I had no real concept of what normal looks like, so this has been — what I’m told — more normal, which has been fantastic. So for me, it’s less fire drills, more proactive.”