Merit Network Proud to be Among Partners Honored
The Quello Center’s Johannes M. Bauer and Keith Hampton will be recognized by Michigan State University on February 24 with the 2022 Distinguished Partnership Award for Community-Engaged Service. The award recognizes their efforts to increase understanding of the cost of digital inequalities to rural students, and to help overcome discrepancies in access to high-speed Internet connectivity.
Bauer is director of the Quello Center at MSU, and Hampton is the center’s director of academic research. Bauer and Hampton work closely with Merit on the Michigan Moonshot initiative, which seeks to bridge Michigan’s digital divide and see that all households in the state have access to high-speed broadband.
Community partners that have joined Bauer and Hampton’s work also will be recognized. That includes Merit Network President Joe Sawasky and Vice President for Community Engagement Charlotte Bewersdorff.
“It was a pleasure and honor to work with MSU’s expert Quello Center faculty researchers and K-12 partners on groundbreaking research that finally helped quantify the effects of the homework gap on Michigan students. No child should be left behind in the 21st century, and digital skills and infrastructure are societal imperatives regardless of the community in which they live,” said Sawasky.
Bewersdorff said the need for accurate and unbiased data on broadband availability has never been greater.
“We are closing in on the most significant infrastructure investment that we’ve seen, and data is fundamental to that expansion,” she said. “Merit’s collaboration with the Quello team set a critical foundation for broadband planning, and we continue to work with counties across Michigan to help residents and communities take steps to advance equitable broadband.”
The other community partners recognized are Eastern Upper Peninsula Intermediate School District (Jason F. Kronemeyer), Mecosta Osceola Intermediate School District (Fred Sharpsteen), St. Clair County Regional Educational Service Agency (Kevin D. Miller, Brenda Tenniswood), Washtenaw County Broadband Task Force (Ben Fineman) and the Southwest Michigan Planning Commission (K. John Egelhaaf).
“This collaboration began in 2017 as an effort to help overcome discrepancies in access to high-speed Internet connectivity. By 2017, an estimated 27% of Michigan households with school-aged children, many of them located in rural parts of the state, did not have access to broadband connectivity. With our partners, this project put the knowledge and expertise of university faculty and students to work to address real world problems faced by local communities,” said Hampton, who also is a professor in MSU’s Department of Media and Information.
The project led by Bauer and Hampton looked to understand the importance of broadband Internet access to rural communities, measure the disparities between those rural and urban communities, and provide a way for communities to close the gap. Merit was instrumental throughout the entire collaboration, as were Eastern Upper Peninsula ISD, Mecosta Osceola ISD and St. Clair County Regional Educational Service during the initial pilot project.
“After we completed the initial research on broadband and student learning outcomes, released in March 2020, we and our partners developed methodologies to measure discrepancies in community broadband access. A main innovation is the combination of Internet-based crowd sourcing with traditional survey methods to also obtain data on those who are not connected,” said Bauer, who also holds the role of Quello Chair in Media and Information Policy at MSU.
“Under the leadership of Merit Network, Inc., our approach has since been developed further and adapted by community partners to specific local conditions” including in Washtenaw, Berrien, Ottawa and Ingham counties, Bauer said. “The data allowed schools and counties to adopt remedial measures to expand broadband Internet access to households and areas that previously were not served.”
In 2021, the Eastern Upper Peninsula ISD received commitments of $37 million to close connectivity gaps that had made it harder for students to do their work. Commitments also have been made to bring broadband to all households in Washtenaw County. Of the approximately 9,000 unserved households in Washtenaw County, half will be connected through the Rural Digital Opportunity Development Fund and the other half by a $14.6 million investment from American Rescue Plan funds.
“So many people in our college are dedicated to community engaged service, as part of their teaching, professional associations and research-creative activities,” Hampton said. “For me, this work provided a natural opportunity to extend some of the research I have been doing on how local communities are changing and using technologies in innovative ways that can benefit the most disadvantaged.”
Bauer said he is grateful to be part of a culture at MSU that recognizes the value of working on practical problems.
“I feel lucky that MSU and our college value theoretical and applied research as well as outreach and engagement that can bring about real change,” Bauer said. “Although the encouragement to succeed in traditional academic pursuits is high and enjoys considerable prestige, impact and contribution to practical problems are also recognized. Our goal at the Quello Center is to do both, and to do both well.”
For access to reports, publications and policy briefs related to the project please visit https://quello.msu.edu/broadbandgap/.
For updates and additional information on work by Merit see https://www.merit.edu/community/moonshot/.