Students filled out small surveys before entering the café earlier this week in an effort to petition the administration for faster Internet on Biola’s campus. Spearheaded by Hope North Senator Eric Weaver, the effort achieved just under 600 petition surveys filled out by Biola students.
“The main goal was to show administration in a tangible way how the student body felt on this subject,” Weaver said.
Out of 501 of the petition slips, 88 percent of the student said they were disappointed with the current internet that Biola offers. The other 12 percent said they were satisfied with Biola’s internet, but it could definitely be faster.
The current Biola Internet runs at 384Kbps for students during the week, and 768 Kbps for students on Saturday and Sunday, according to the Information Technology (IT) web site.
Weaver said that they are hoping the petition will add a sense of urgency to the need for faster internet.
“We’d like the internet to be faster,” said Weaver. “We’re pretty confident the ball’s rolling and they’re going to change something; we just don’t know what.”
However, Weaver said that the goal is not to add more money to the amount that students already pay to attend Biola.
“We don’t want to raise student tuition,” said Weaver. “If the only way to do this was to increase the budget, it’s probably something we wouldn’t pursue.”
Weaver also emphasized that AS was trying to work alongside the administration with this project.
“We’re not against administration,” said Weaver. “We like how they listen to us and how they’ve been really willing to listen to us. I think this petition will help them as much as it will help us.”
The idea for the petition arose when several members of Hope North approached Weaver and brought up the need for faster Internet. Weaver then contacted AS President Jared Gibo about creating a petition.
“It was kind of cool, because I ended up getting almost a whole floor in my dorm to support this petition,” Weaver said.
The Corps, the third floor on the north side of Hope Hall, became very involved in helping Weaver petition for the faster internet. Some of the residents joined Weaver in sitting at the table outside of the café and asking people to fill out the petition surveys.
“It takes forever for stuff to load,” said sophomore Dustin Bynum, a resident of the Corps in Hope. “A lot of the people on my floor are computer guys, so they really don’t like how slow it is.”
The slow internet is also affecting how students do their homework. Bynum is taking a Management Information Systems class as a part of his business major, and part of that class includes downloading videos to watch as assignments. Those videos also take an inordinate amount of time to load.
“At home things download really fast,” said Bynum. “But here, it takes forever.”
