Brown, a 19-year-old junior from Cincinnati majoring in political science and media production, said he was blessed to have a new laptop going into his freshman year at Capital University. Not everyone, he said, has been so lucky.
He has classmates who slog around clunky old laptops across campus. He's seen people without their own laptop frantically run to the library the night before a big project to find an open computer. And he has friends who've typed up 12-page papers on the tiny keys of their smartphones.
Technology, Brown said, can level the playing field between students who have resources and those who do not. It's one of the reasons he's so excited that Capital plans to give every member of its campus community their very own iPad this summer.
Realizing not all students own personal computers
Project Indigo, Capital's new digital initiative, will provide an iPad to all of the university's 2,600 students, staff members and faculty members.
The iPads will be distributed to everyone over several days in July. Professors and some student leaders, such as Brown, have already received their iPads, though, to get used to the new technology and incorporate them into classes and freshman orientation sessions.
"When I heard that we were all getting iPads, I thought they were kidding," Brown said.
But now, with his new iPad in hand, Brown is already helping create a new student e-book called "Cap101" for incoming students.
The initiative is more than simply supplying technology to students, said Jody Fournier, Capital's provost and vice president of learning. It's about enhancing student success, campus connections, education and equity.
"We make assumptions that all students have smartphones and laptops," Fournier said. "But if they can't afford food, how can they afford a laptop?"
Fournier said Project Indigo is the final piece of a much larger puzzle that's been put together at Capital for more than a decade.
Access to technology an issue of education equity
A longstanding philosophy in higher education had been that if you wanted more successful students at your school, then you simply needed to recruit students who were more successful, he said.
The strategy however, ignored school's responsibility to help students, especially first-generation college students, succeed in and out of the classroom.
Capital University was one of those schools, Fournier said.
"Around 2009, there was this mindset of, 'Look to your left and right, one of you will not be there come next year,'" Fournier said. "The prevailing idea was that prepping students to be successful in college happened somewhere else, and maybe everyone isn't cut out for college."
But that strategy didn't yield great results, especially among first-generation college students, Fournier said.
In 2009, the retention rates for first-to-second-year students was just 71 percent, a number Fournier called "just terrible."
Capital was missing an opportunity to bolster student success and engagement, said Fournier, who was himself a first-generation college student. So the university embarked on a mission to rethink how it could better help students succeed.
With the help of the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education, a North Carolina-based nonprofit group that works with schools to improves teaching, learning and retention outcomes, Capital discovered dozens of changes it could make.
It merged its offices of student affairs and academic affairs to create a one-stop-shop for students. It stopped suspending students for falling behind in classes and created wrap-around services to get students back on track, among other things.
Then in 2017, Capital created several systems that allowed students to get university information virtually. But it doesn't help students without computers and other digital technology, Fournier said.
Project Indigo would be the answer to that problem.
Donations, federal pandemic aid funding Capital's Project Indigo
Where some schools provide devices to students for a semester or two and then expect they be returned, Project Indigo is different. Fournier said everyone at Capital — from freshmen to graduate students and tenured professors to groundskeepers — would receive their very own iPad. These devices would eliminate any divides caused by a lack of access to technology.
Capital started fundraising when COVID-19 pandemic hit, which highlighted just how crucial it is to for everyone to have equal access technology. Fournier said the effort costs roughly $3.5 million, funded by donations, investment returns and federal pandemic aid to universities. Students can buy their iPads from the university when they graduate for $1.
Fournier said he wants Project Indigo to take Capital to the next level in terms of student success.
It's not just about using iPads in a few classes, he said. It's about students not having to buy expensive technology just to go to college. It's about connecting students across campus to their peers and professors. It's about leveling the playing field and making sure every Capital student has the ability to succeed.
"The mission really comes to life in these devices," Fournier said. "It's more than these students' lives being transformed, but also their families and their communities."
Brown said he expects that some people may scoff at the idea of giving everyone iPads to increase student success. But why would anyone discount a university doing everything it could to help its students succeed? he asked.
"If our school decides to better the education and enhances every student's chance at success, what's the problem?" he said. "Is that the goal of a campus: to get the best four-year experience for their students? I think so."
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