News > August 24, 2006

By Mike Savitz

Opinion editor

Assistant Vice President and CIO Jay Dominick recalled that the ThinkPad project began to germinate in 1994.  His boss at the time, then Vice president for Administration and Planning John Anderson, asked what it would take to get every student at Wake Forest a laptop. 

At the time, the campus had only a handful of old Macintosh computers available for use. 

In 1994, Apple and IBM were the only two viable options on the market with sufficient capacity to undertake the supply of the university.  Wake Forest invited both corporations to participate, but Apple declined due to financial struggles.

The most vocal opposition to the ThinkPad project arose among those habituated to the Macintosh interface.  However, objections arose from amongst the faculty as well, some of whom felt that the technology was superfluous to a traditional liberal arts education. 

Ultimately, the student voice swayed the consensus.  “The students, as they came on campus, began to demand that kind of interaction”, explained Dominick. The university signed a 10-year contract with IBM in 1995. Four years later, every student had a laptop. 

The same year, Yahoo! Internet Life ranked Wake Forest third among “America’s 100 Most Wired Colleges.”

The advent of the ThinkPad has undoubtedly contributed to a burgeoning national reputation.

Administrators intended for the technology to complement the heart of the university mission. 

The class of 2000 received ThinkPad 365XDs as the first class to benefit from four full years of the program. 

“The idea behind the undergraduate plan is to reinforce our commitment to the student, to increase our attention on the individual student,” explained Dean Paul Escott. 

This commitment eventually included the ThinkPad exchange at the commencement of junior year, a practice designed to match the rapid pace of technological change. 

It also included an Information Services division, now staffed by over 100 employees, handling distribution, maintenance, support and refurbishing. 

When students exchange their laptops at the commencement of junior year, IS cleans and redistributes them.

A percentage of them go to graduate students and to staff departments, but the university sells the bulk of the laptops to local schools. Today, technological progress continues with alacrity.  On Aug. 16, the university was honored by CIO Magazine, which recognizes “operational and strategic excellence in information technology.”

Specifically, they laud the best new projects in information technology undertaken by colleges across the country.