{"id":323,"date":"2026-04-30T08:34:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T01:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mdenisevich.com\/?page_id=323"},"modified":"2026-05-08T04:49:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T21:49:54","slug":"uic-the-next-niu-no-internet-university","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mdenisevich.com\/index.php\/uic-the-next-niu-no-internet-university\/","title":{"rendered":"UIC The Next NIU \u2014 No Internet University?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Behind the scenes of the frustrating technology problems students and faculty face at the
University of Illinois, Chicago<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Picture of the academic and residential complex (ARC) at the University of Illinois, Chicago<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHelping students manage technological issues is honestly a much larger part of my job than I expected when I started teaching.\u201d For Sigrid Luhr, a sociology professor at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), her teaching priorities are often interrupted when students ask for tech support.. Since she started teaching at UIC in 2020, dealing with these technological problems\u2014on top of the constant technology shifts\u2014has become a draining part of her day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Luhr is stuck troubleshooting university systems that just don\u2019t work right. Oftentimes, students need to clear their cookies for sites to work, and these issues can become much more complicated. An example Luhr gives is that Blackboard, the learning management system used by UIC, often glitches unless students go into their Blackboard settings and disable certain settings. When students can\u2019t figure that out, they can\u2019t open the readings or videos they need for class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luhr is worried that because these fixes rely on each student knowing how to handle their own computer, the tech issues at UIC are making it harder for some students to keep up than others. She has noticed that dealing with these technical issues makes her feel more burnt out than other teaching tasks, such as designing assignments or meeting with students. She often wishes she could spend less time thinking about tech problems and more time on the parts of teaching she actually loves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technological issues aren\u2019t just exclusive to Luhr\u2019s classroom; they can affect the whole campus. On March 20, 2026, a massive failure in the university\u2019s authentication system left thousands of students unable to access major UIC resources for days. Zayd Syed, a junior at UIC, felt the impact even though it happened during spring break. \u201cI was trying to plan out my schedule for the Fall 2026 semester,\u201d Syed says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t even get into MyUIC to see what classes were open or what my degree audit looked like.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The frustration really kicks in when students look at nearby universities. Andrew Ashorian, a sophomore at Loyola University Chicago, doesn\u2019t have to deal with the same dead zones that are all over UIC. While Loyola, a private university, has a much more seamless connection, public schools like Northern Illinois University (NIU) have dealt with similar problems. At UIC, issues are usually in high-traffic areas like the Richard J. Daley Library, where Wi-Fi can get incredibly slow depending on how many students are trying to connect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While students and faculty are facing a frustrating, unreliable system, what\u2019s actually happening is a messy byproduct of a massive overhaul. These problems occur because the university is currently replacing years-old, end-of-life equipment: equipment that no longer receives security and firmware updates. There is a light at the end of the tunnel though. Officials from the Technology Solutions department expect the aging network to be modernized within the next two years, if not sooner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jelene Crehan, UIC\u2019s Director of Network Engineering and Infrastructure, says there\u2019s a literal science to dead zones. Her team walks around with Wi-Fi analyzers to see how signals struggle to get through cement walls or glass that has metal inside. \u201cI hope it doesn\u2019t go unnoticed that we\u2019re trying to bring the best of the best to UIC\u2019s campus,\u201d Crehan says. One of the biggest problems is that the equipment is old. That means switches and access points are stuck with software that no longer receives updates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, the university got specific funding through the \u201cForward Initiative\u201d to start replacing this end-of-life networking gear. Crehan\u2019s team is currently swapping out some of its old hardware for more modern systems from a new provider, Aruba. This has been a learning curve for her small team because they not only have to learn new systems, but also interface them with their previous setup. Troubleshooting the network, compared to the old Cisco systems they used for years, will also be a bit of a learning curve: they are troubleshooting a system made up of networking gear from two separate manufacturers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work is also very slow because the team doesn\u2019t want to disrupt student learning. They can\u2019t shut down the internet during the day, so they wait for breaks or late nights, sometimes starting at 11 p.m. to do the heavy lifting. They are currently working on a massive project to upgrade the network, bringing connectivity from 1 gigabit up to 10 gigabits in many buildings. In some areas, data center routing is being pushed to hit speeds up to 400 gigabits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because Crehan\u2019s team is so small, they have to be intentional about how they spend their time and the funding they were given. They are working to keep everything running\u2014from the UIC Police Department\u2019s life safety systems to a high-level research network that connects to places like Argonne\u2014while simultaneously replacing the underlying architecture. It\u2019s a huge job that most people on campus don\u2019t even realize is happening until something stops working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The university is also putting in work where students live. Last year, Crehan\u2019s team finished upgrading all wired and wireless connections in three full dorm buildings, and they have two more on the docket for this summer. They coordinate very closely with housing to get into these spaces when they aren\u2019t occupied, like during roof replacements, so they don\u2019t interrupt students\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, a campus as big as UIC is probably always going to have some tech hiccups. But the current frustration from people like Luhr and Syed is meeting an equally intense effort from Crehan\u2019s department. They are dealing with a massive amount of deferred maintenance while trying to keep the daily operations of the school running. While the current technical challenges are real, the groundwork is being laid to make sure that in two years, the only thing students have to worry about in the library is their actual coursework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solution isn\u2019t just better Wi-Fi; it\u2019s a better understanding of what it takes to keep a university of 35,000 people connected. As Crehan says, her team is \u201cbracing\u201d for a tougher climate, but they are focused on making the most impactful decisions possible with the money they have. Still, for the average student, a disconnect remains. It is difficult to walk past the massive, state-of-the-art construction projects like the new engineering innovation building or the academic and residential complex (ARC) and then struggle to load a simple PDF in the library. While the university appears to have plenty of money for shiny new buildings and campus improvements, that investment doesn’t always feel like it has reached the Wi-Fi routers. This creates a frustrating gap between what students see being built and the basic digital tools they actually need to graduate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Behind the scenes of the frustrating technology problems students and faculty face at theUniversity of Illinois, Chicago \u201cHelping students manage technological issues is honestly a much larger part of my\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-323","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdenisevich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdenisevich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdenisevich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdenisevich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdenisevich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mdenisevich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":343,"href":"https:\/\/mdenisevich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/323\/revisions\/343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdenisevich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}