Lakehead University changes stance on campus WiFi

Under new administration, Thunder Bay’s Lakehead University will install WiFi Internet access on campus following almost a decade without it. Lakehead’s previous president, Frederick Gilbert, whose term ended in August, had originally decided to ban WiFi on campus in the early 2000s because of the potential health affects associated with the technology. “The evidence was starting to mount at that time that there were potential biological effects of exposure to the electromagnetic radiation emanating from wireless systems,” Gilbert said in an interview. “So we just said that, at this point in time, we would take the precautionary principle and not put it in place until we were either certain that there was not a problem with it biologically or there were ways to mitigate it.” But Brian Stevenson, the university’s new president, decided to revisit the issue when he took office this year. Stevenson put Michael Pawlowski, Lakehead’s vice-president of administration and finance, in charge of informal consultations to measure the interest in installing WiFi technology across the university’s campus. In a poll this year of 8,505 university stakeholders, primarily students, 94 per cent of respondents said they would like to have wireless technology installed at Lakehead. “Everyone on campus knew that the sentiment was to put in wireless,” Gilbert said. “The referendum was really a matter of validating action that the president intended to take anyway.” Gilbert said he was “disappointed but not surprised” by the outcome of the survey and the decision to install wireless technology on campus. “Our new president at Lakehead is not a scientist,” Gilbert said. “He has a Bluetooth in his ear and uses a cellphone all the time. I didn’t expect any other response to the policy than what has occurred.” He said that new research, such as studies from Sweden, have shown certain types of cancer are four times more likely with cellphone use. This has convinced him that he made the right decision to ban WiFi on campus. WiFi in schools has drummed up some controversy lately. Last month, parents at St. Vincent Euphrasia elementary school in Meaford, Ont., voted to ban WiFi transmitters in the school following concerns about the health of their children. Research on the health effects associated with electromagnetic fields has often come up with mixed results. Earlier this year, the largest study yet on the potential link between cellphone use and brain cancer, the Interphone Study, suggested an increased risk of cancer for the most active cellphone users, but remained inconclusive as to whether it is caused by cellphone radiation. “An increased risk of brain cancer is not established from the data from Interphone,” Christopher Wild, director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), said in a release in May. “However, observations at the highest level of cumulative call time and the changing patterns of mobile phone use since the period studied by Interphone, particularly in young people, mean that further investigation of mobile phone use and brain cancer risk is merited.” Critics of the Interphone Study say much of the funding was provided by the wireless industry, influencing the results. Mike Snoddon, president of Lakehead’s student union, said in an interview that Lakehead’s position as Ontario’s only university without campus WiFi hurt the institution. “It hurts our enrollment numbers but it also hurts the quality of education that we receive,” Snoddon said. But Gilbert said having WiFi on campus does not significantly contribute to a student’s education. “It’s an attitude that, in effect, this is a convenience that has become essential in the minds of young people, but in reality has little to do with education when you have a campus that is as wired and you have access to data sources that you need through the fibre optic connections that are there,” Gilbert said. Snoddon said the university plans to install the wireless technology on campus sometime during the next academic term, beginning in January. “We applaud Dr. Gilbert for looking into that , however our education is a little bit more important than if the jury is out on this issue,” Snoddon said. Gilbert said he hopes the decision does not end up being a mistake. jmigneault@thewirereport.ca

Lakehead University changes stance on campus WiFi

News | November 17, 2010

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