Kogod recently announced that it will be giving 300 free BlackBerries to students, faculty and administration in the graduate school. In addition to the hardware, it will be giving them six months of free service. This is being made possible by an agreement between administration and T-Mobile, distributor of BlackBerry 7100t.
While BlackBerries are the hot new technology, it's unclear just why Kogod graduate students need them so badly. Kogod said that it will help professors contact students who are unable to check their e-mail often enough. Realistically, though, are students really too busy to check their e-mail regularly? It's a bit condescending for Kogod to say that unlike other students, their students are so busy and so important that they need to be reacheable at all times. Really, it seems that Kogod is just doing this to get attention from the media and drum up interest in its programs.
Unfortunately for AU, this also draws attention to the fact that it is cutting phone service in residence halls while putting money toward these BlackBerries. It is passing the expense of the BlackBerries on to students who will now need to buy cell phones because of the loss of phone service. AU is showing that it's possible to work a deal with a cell phone company for students, while not actually doing it for the undergrads who relied on the campus phone lines. For a school with such a sense of fairness and justice, it just doesn't add up.
