Wellesley Guest WiFi Network and Eduroam Unavailable for the 20-21 Academic Year

As you have heard from President Johnson many times during the past few weeks, public health is the primary focus this fall. One of the major concerns has been to protect students living on campus and faculty and staff who have been authorized to come to the campus. We have decided that restricting WiFi access is one of the methods we can use to discourage unauthorized individuals from coming to campus. Others who may come to campus to use WiFi are unlikely to be benefiting from the kind of rigorous COVID testing that our on-campus students, faculty, and staff have access to. In addition, we have no way to monitor whether they practice physical distancing and mask wearing the same way we require when they are off campus, and so they may pose a risk in terms of campus health and safety. We believe that disabling access to WiFi is a good deterrent. 

Therefore, starting from 5 PM today, Wednesday, 9/2/2020, LTS will be disabling Wellesley Guest WiFi and restricting the use of Wellesley Secure to only the on-campus students. All faculty and staff will continue to have access to Wellesley Secure. Please note that the faculty and staff who are not authorized to be on campus regularly during the fall need to obtain special permission to access the campus.

If you are an on-campus student, faculty, or staff member who is unable to connect to the Wellesley Secure network after this change, please contact the LTS Help Desk immediately.

  1. We will be disabling Wellesley Guest.

What does this mean?

Many users have chosen to use Wellesley Guest as a default WiFi network on their computers, phones, or mobile devices. While this has been convenient, this network has been unsecured and public. Wellesley Guest will be unavailable for the 20-21 academic year, and so any devices that were using Guest will need to be pointed to Wellesley Secure.

What should I do?

In your device WiFi settings, please choose Wellesley Secure. The first time you do this, you will need to accept/trust a security certificate. If you have any questions or problems joining Wellesley Secure, please contact the Help Desk. We are answering calls 6:45 AM-10 PM on Mondays to Thursdays, and 6:45 AM-7 PM on Fridays.

  1. We will be disabling Eduroam.

What does this mean?

Eduroam is a global educational wireless network available to members of participating campuses. Wellesley College is a member of eduroam. Users from other eduroam member institutions can connect to this network using their institutional credentials. Eduroam will be unavailable for the 20-21 academic year.

What should I do?

This should not affect you unless you had previously connected one of your own devices to our eduroam network. In this case, you will need to connect your device to Wellesley Secure instead.

  1. We will be limiting access to Wellesley Secure to Faculty, Staff, and On-Campus Students.

What does this mean?

Remote students, even if they are living close to campus, will not be able to make use of Wellesley’s wireless connection during the 20-21 academic year. Access will be updated for T3/T4 based on on-campus/remote status.

To: Students, Faculty, and Staff
From: Lori Parmet, LTS, lparmet@wellesley.edu
More info: Computing Help Desk, LTS, helpdesk@wellesley.edu or 781-283-3333 (fac/staff); 781-283-7777 (students)

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