Residential Life made the decision for the 2016-2017 school year to offer on-campus students Comcast XFINITY on-demand services. Javier Gutierrez, the Director of Residential Life, said that this decision was a product of student feedback and the desire to improve on-campus features.

“Hamline is the first college/university in Minnesota to offer this on-demand service,” Anthony Schroeder, the Director of Infrastructure Systems and Services, said.

Residential Life takes quality of life surveys of their students. Gutierrez explained that the staff’s work, student living arrangements and services provided are all addressed in these surveys.

According to Gutierrez, Schroeder handled the technical aspects of the project. Schroeder took the responses of the students in these surveys and figured out a way to address one of the biggest concerns.

“About four years ago we included a question about providing high definition cable TV in residential halls in the Residential Life survey,” Schroeder said. “Most students responded positively to the idea.”

He explained that the old system was often in need of repairs, and provided standard definition content.

“A few also mentioned that they would like to watch TV via [platforms like] their mobile device and computer rather than via a television set,” Schroeder said. “Based on this information, we submitted a project call to upgrade the residential halls to add a few high definition channels.”

The new cable package for on-campus students automatically includes channels like A&E, ESPN, ABC Family and FX, but students can also personalize their subscriptions. Gutierrez explained that any specific package from Comcast can be added or cancelled by student choice, but the streaming channels are always available.

“They want more options [for cable],” Gutierrez said. “With streaming options widely available, cable has to compete with that.”

Ultimately, Gutierrez said that it was all a decision about giving students a better quality of living.

“This isn’t just for dormitory students,” Gutierrez added, “but for all students in on-campus housing.”

He said that these kinds of ideas are ideal, because they work well at improving quality of life without affecting the actual housing facilities, over which Gutierrez has no control.

Gutierrez’s office budget already paid for the cable across Hamline’s campus, he said. He added that he liked to keep all of the residential accounts together—for example, the houses and dormitories do not have separate budgets.

“The money has always been there,” Gutierrez said. “It was a matter of providing more options [and] a better service.”

Schroeder also commented that “when we talked to Comcast, they responded with a proposal that was very beneficial for Hamline.”

He went on to describe that, in addition to offering a less expensive high definition service, Comcast technicians also worked with Hamline University to help with changing equipment.

“What was really compelling from a technology perspective,” Schroeder said, “is, via this deal, we could displace all the satellite TV equipment with just a couple of pieces that Comcast would manage.”

“The contract process was pretty easy,” he added.  “We leveraged a contract review service provided by Hamline’s insurance provider [and then] we entered into a five year contract with Comcast. A key consideration was their investment of a lot of time and resources in recabling our facilities and converting us over to the new service, which saved Hamline money overall.”

According to Gutierrez, this kind of thing had been done in other states, but Hamline is doing something new.

“If I can provide a service or amenity without changing costs, I will,” Gutierrez said. “In that case, I can make that administrative decision.”

He added that he welcomes suggestions for ways he can make a difference for residential life.

“We’re always looking for ideas to improve the quality of living on campus,” Gutierrez said. “We can’t make decisions about the facilities themselves [because that’s not our department], but we want to provide any services or amenities that we can.”

Schroeder also said that he was “excited to see the results from the Residential Life survey that is to go out this fall.”

They both agreed that student input is valuable, and will continue to guide their decisions.