Two students with a knack for technology and a desire to do good are making small but substantial improvements to campus life. But these changes likely go unnoticed by most people most of the time. Despite the lack of fanfare or even attention they attract, Chris Kan ’13 and Matt Glatt ’14 say they continue to enjoy dreaming up ways to increase the quality of life here.

Kan, a biology and anthropology major, and Glatt, a computer science and economics major, are co-chairs of the IT Advisory Council, which since the fall of 2010 has been meeting weekly with Bowdoin CIO Mitch Davis to act as a liaison between students and the college’s technology department. Glatt and Kan regularly pepper Davis with suggestions on tweaking existing systems or adding new programs.

Matt Glatt '14 and Chris Kan '13 in front of a shuttle now outfitted with trackable GPS

“The IT department is flexible enough where you can create change fairly rapidly,” Kan says. “It’s been a really rewarding experience in that we can really help everyone on campus.”

The list of accomplishments Kan and Glatt have spearheaded in the last couple of years is long and continues to grow. Following the jump is a partial summary of the initiatives they’ve completed or are still working on. While some are small undertakings, a few are much larger, such as expanding wireless service – yet the cost to the college to implement the majority of them has been negligible, according to Davis. “They’re low-cost, high-win solutions,” he said.

Tracking shuttles: The Bowdoin shuttles, which transport students to locations within one-mile of the campus, have been outfitted with GPS on iPads. Students ordering a ride with one of the shuttles can chart the shuttle’s location on a website to know when they should leave their dorm to catch their ride.

Blackboard maintenance: Blackboard, the college’s online classroom system, now goes down for maintenance every Sunday at 3 a.m. – a much appreciated change for late-night students. The previous maintenance time, before the ITAC reevaluated it, was between 12 a.m. and 2 a.m. every morning, when many students are just beginning to hunker down and study.

Wireless speed and coverage: The campus responded to student demands for better Internet service by expanding wireless coverage to increase speed and efficiency. Because this is a work in progress, any slow areas should be reported to IT here.

Remote help-desk assistance: Students working at the help desk can now access students’ computers remotely, saving those having computer trouble the inconvenience of lugging their laptops, or worse desktops, to Coles Tower for service.

Verizon tower addition: Within the year, Verizon will add equipment to expand its wireless service on campus. At the moment, the service for Verizon is spotty, forcing many students to switch over to AT&T or put up with lousy cell phone connectivity.

Package-arrival email alerts: With new scanning technology in Bowdoin’s mail room, the postal crew may soon be able to automatically send students email alerts when their packages have arrived.

Equalizing printing allowances: Students with professors asking for a lot of reading material are now able to request an extra printing allowance from the Bowdoin Student Government. The student quota for printing is $60 a year, designed to discourage excessive printing of paper. A single-sided paper costs 5 cents and double-sided paper costs 8 cents a page.

Classroom phone number directory: Every classroom phone number is now listed. Prior to this directory, IT help-desk workers had no way of calling a professor who might be in the middle of an IT classroom emergency.

Adding “Remember me” across sites: Kan and Glatt asked the IT department to add a “˜Remember me’ prompt across the Bowdoin website so that students using their personal computers didn’t have to keep reentering their passwords.

Updates on campus computers: Public terminal computers no longer ask students to update software, which students can’t do anyway. A minor annoyance, but still an irritant that’s been cleared up.

Lion for students: ITAC worked with Apple to make Lion, Apple’s latest version of Mac OS, available to Bowdoin students. Students can upgrade by going to bowdoin.edu\agreements and selecting Lion.

Microsoft Office 365 for students: Kan and Glatt would like Bowdoin to invest in Microsoft’s cloud-based solution to give students much more email storage and allow them to keep their bowdoin.edu email address after they leave school. Twenty students will pilot the program this semester.