525,000 Square Foot Zachry Center Transformed to Support College’s 25,000 Engineering Students by 2025 Initiative
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company (NYSE: HPE), today announced
that Texas A&M University (TAMU) College of Engineering has completed a
full-scale expansion and modernization of its Zachry Engineering
Education Complex using Aruba wired, wireless, security and location
services solutions, to create an innovative, high-tech learning
environment for undergraduate engineering education. The unique complex,
which is the largest on campus, is part of TAMU College of Engineering’s
25 by 25 initiative to support 25,000 engineering students by 2025 in
response to the country’s need for more engineers.
According to Ed Pierson, CIO and Director of IT for Texas A&M’s College
of Engineering, the scale of the new Zachry Building sets it apart from
other projects that the University has undertaken.
“Different classroom designs and technologies have been used at Texas
A&M for many years, but outfitting a 525,000 square foot building with
30 classrooms required us to think long and hard about the technology we
needed to support the size and scale of the project. We also needed to
make sure we had the best technology partners to not only deliver these
solutions, but ensure they were implemented correctly and would work the
way we’d envisioned,” Pierson said.
Creating a Vision for the Future of Engineering Education
The TAMU College of Engineering IT team conducted formal Proof of
Concept tests, but Pierson noted that much of the technology they needed
to implement at the opening of the complex in late August wasn’t
available two or three years ago when they began the planning process.
Although the IT team built several prototype rooms on campus, a key
factor in their decision to partner with Aruba was a shared vision for
what the technology should look like, how it should perform and most
importantly, how it could adapt over time.
The College of Engineering used Aruba’s location-ready 300
Series Access Points with built-in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
beacons for indoor and outdoor access and location services across the
Zachry Building and Engineering Quad – or E-Quad – an outdoor area that
provides space for students to meet, relax, eat and study. They also
deployed Aruba
3810 Switches with SmartRate, ClearPass
for policy management and AirWave
for network management.
Incorporating Distinctive Design Elements to Deliver a New Style
of Teaching and Learning
The new Aruba network was crucial for delivering the kind of reliable,
high speed connectivity and flexibility that Pierson and his team needed
for the Zachry Building’s distinctive design and operation. Unlike
traditional cinder block academic buildings, the architectural design is
based on light and glass, and the old row-by-row classrooms have been
transformed into a hub and spoke design to enable a more interactive and
collaborative learning style. For example, the new design allows
instructors to pull content from students’ monitors to project and share
with the rest of the class, allowing for more dialogue and creative
problem-solving.
Ensuring Easy, Secure Connections for a Wide Range of Mobile and
IoT Devices
The Aruba network provides simple and secure connectivity for all
engineering students at Texas A&M College of Engineering’s main campus,
as well as remote locations where much of the student growth is
occurring. Using ClearPass, the IT team can manage the growing number
and types of devices that students are bringing onto the network. In
addition, because Texas A&M has one of the world’s leading engineering
programs, their lab environment is also using a variety of IoT devices,
many of which need to connect, but must be segmented securely, so they
don’t affect the rest of the network.
“Tools like ClearPass are very important to us for segmenting the
delivery of our services and ensuring the quality of those services to
our users,” Pierson noted. “With ClearPass, we can begin to match and
shape the experiences to the actual needs of the users and their
particular devices.”
Leveraging Built-in BLE Beacons and Mobile Apps to Address Current
and Future Student Needs
Having Wi-Fi access points that are location-ready was also a critical
feature for the College of Engineering’s IT team. The built-in beacon
capability allowed them to leverage the placement of the APs for mobile
engagement, and ensure that they can easily augment coverage with
standalone beacons as they move forward. Today, the beacons are used in
conjunction with an updated mobile app called “EngiNEARME” that delivers
a mapping system to help students, faculty and visitors navigate within
the Zachry Building, and Pierson is excited about the potential for
adding new capabilities.
“We’ve really just scratched the surface for what we can do with these
built-in beacons,” he said. “We’re working with our students to enable
more functionality, such as delivering push notifications, to provide
students with important information and resources customized to their
major focus.”
Although the center officially opened just a few weeks ago, the Texas
A&M College of Engineering is already seeing positive and enthusiastic
reactions from both students and faculty who recognize that the unique
combination of architecture, artwork and technology can truly change the
engineering education experience.
Noted Pierson, “Even some of the folks that we thought would be more
traditional in their approach have become the biggest fans of our new
environment and the possibilities it opens up for teaching and learning.
The Aruba infrastructure has been a key component in enabling this
environment.”
Partnering to Usher in the Next Generation of Engineers
An important showcase for the new Zachry Building will be the Aggies
Invent event on September 29th. Although the College of
Engineering hosts multiple events each year, this year’s event titled
“Smart Campus Experiment’ and sponsored by Aruba, will be the first in
the newly renovated facility. Event participants will use the BLE
technology in the building to invent and prototype an engaging indoor
mobile experience. Participants can create apps that are not just
limited to the college campus, but could be designed for a corporate
campus, hospital, museum or other public venue.
Said Pierson, “The Aggies Invent event is a good example of why we chose
Aruba for the Zachry Engineering Center modernization project. It’s
really symbolic of the partnership that Texas A&M and Aruba have, which
goes well beyond a vendor-customer relationship.”
About Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, is a leading provider of
next-generation networking solutions for enterprises of all sizes
worldwide. The company delivers IT solutions that empower organizations
to serve the latest generation of mobile-savvy users who rely on
cloud-based business apps for every aspect of their work and personal
lives.
To learn more, visit Aruba at
http://www.arubanetworks.com
.
For real-time news updates follow Aruba on Twitter and Facebook,
and for the latest technical discussions on mobility and Aruba products
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http://community.arubanetworks.com
.
Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
Pavel Radda, +1-408-419-0294
pavel.radda@hpe.com
or
Lori Hultin, +1-818-879-4651
lori.hultin@hpe.com