Forsyth Tech keeps focus on student success with an AI-driven campus network

“So much has changed since we first installed Wi-Fi,” says Chris Pearce, vice president and CIO at Forsyth Technical Community College. “Now every student has two or three devices and faculty infuse much more technology into the classroom.”

Students often had trouble connecting to the Wi-Fi network, especially if they didn’t own the latest mobile devices. Forsyth Tech’s IT team, already lean, was spending too much time troubleshooting wireless client connectivity issues, chipping away at resources for strategic work.

“As our bandwidth requirements continued to increase, the Wi-Fi became slower and user dissatisfaction grew,” says Pearce.

The pandemic further accelerated the college’s digital learning journey, placing greater demands on Forsyth Tech’s wired and wireless networks. 

The Juniper network supports student success at Forsyth Tech, which has more than 22,000 students and nearly 1600 employees. The college offers more than 200 degrees, certificates, and diplomas across eight campuses and centers.

Mobile devices, even older ones, connect without hassles. Teachers can more easily balance synchronous and asynchronous learning modalities. Flexible network access makes it simpler for students to log into class or work on a project from a quiet place on campus.

“The Juniper Wi-Fi solution helps faculty better engage and interact with students, whether they are in the classroom or remote, because they can all connect to the same platform at the same time,” says Pearce.

Network support is streamlined. On the first day of operation, student network-related trouble tickets dropped by half and continued to drop for months after. “The time to resolution has gone from days to minutes or hours,” says Pearce.