A common critique of higher ed over the years has been the tendency of institutions to seek to endlessly outdo one another on all fronts, especially when it comes to facilities. It’s a sort of hyper status anxiety impulse driving outsized institutional planning.
And as a result, major schools carry millions — sometimes billions — in debt burdens from construction and projects binges, then hike up tuition, and blame the state or feds whenever possible for keeping a lid on appropriations and aid.
It’s all very creative. The latest example comes from Penn State:
Beaver Stadium has room for improvement from the amenity standpoint and changes are on the way, a Penn State athletic official said.
“There are plans to make Beaver Stadium the largest collegiate venue to be wireless accessible,” said Greg Myford, associate athletic director for communications. Fans will be able to download apps about football, view replays and access trivia. …
For the first time in several years, the Nittany Lion Club late last year surveyed more than 21,000 members to obtain feedback about the athletic department and about 9,500 or 45 percent provided responded, Myford said.
A primary area that needs work, based on the responses, is communications, Myford said.
Fans say they want better communications, and the response is to . . . install WiFi? They’re taking that advice a bit literally. Notice, critically, the grand arms-race-style phrasing used to couch the news. It’s wireless Internet at “the largest collegiate venue”!
And wait: If I have a phone that can download apps — like the kind they’re installing the WiFi for — wouldn’t I already have Internet through my carrier?
This is the arms race in a nut shell: long on plans, short on purpose.
Communications is a more important issue than you may think. State College becomes the fourth-largest city in PA on football weekends. Seven to eight times a year, the normal wireless and cell tower structure designed to serve maybe 100,000 people in a suburban and rural area total has to accomodate 2-3 times that many wireless sources. Crash time. PSU can move a lot of the stadium area wireless traffic onto fiber via a set of dedicated towers and routers, which puts the connection over a fiber pipe instead over radio links. This should free up a lot of bandwidth for cell phone conections.
BTW, it IS the largest collegiate venue to be accessible this way - because it's the largest one without an urban network to rely on. The other collegiate stadiums in this seating class are in places like Ann Arbor, Lansing area, and Columbus - none of which can be described as farm country.
This is paid for out of Nittany Lion Club dues, ticket prices, and some concession fees, and not out of University general funds. This is actually a reasonable purpose, and a longer-range plan. Now if some would explain why they needed an 18K seat venue for basketball, of all things ...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThey did a booster club survey, and only 45% responded? This only shows that Penn State is losing the "arms race". Here in Georia, or in any southern state, the response rate would be 100%, except that you wouldn't even have to do a survey -- the fans won't be shy about telling you what you should do.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFeed the beast. When I saw the movie Surrogates the first time, I thought it was alright. I've watched it several times since. Everytime it just feels like the reality we're heading toward. Here's one more peanut for the monkey that is on-demand entertainment.
How active will the crowd be for the game itself? Will they be watching the game on their phones or tablets? I don't fault them for doing this, helping fill seats by provided a service. My rant has more to do with society overall. Satisfaction over substance...I believe that is the title Mr. Shakely is looking for.
Electricity, what happens when you don't have it.
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