PORTSMOUTH — During Shawnee 15.0, SSU’s Art and Technology Game Conference today, Shawnee State University President Rick Kurtz announced that Shawnee State’s connection to the statewide fiber-optic network operated by the Ohio Academic Resources Network (OARnet), is now complete. This connection increases SSU’s broadband capacity tenfold, providing opportunities for the university, its programs and students, and industry partners.

“It’s an equation that our gamers here today will love and appreciate,” Dr. Kurtz told a crowd of game conference attendees gathered in the Vern Riffe Center for the Arts’ Eloise Covert Smith Theater. “Faster speed plus greater capacity equals innovation and discovery. We’re now connected to OARnet’s ultra high-speed 100 Gigabits per second broadband network, which has significantly increased our capacity. Increased it by ten times, in fact. That’s tremendous news for all of us, but especially for our faculty and students in our game and digital simulation programs.”

Assistant Deputy Chancellor of Educational Technology for the Department of Higher Education, Lynn Trinko, joined President Kurtz in the announcement.

“The opportunities for Shawnee State University are limitless,” Trinko said. “Work on this connection began following Ohio Governor John Kasich’s announcement in his 2012 State of the State address that Ohio would boost its broadband network backbone speeds to help advance research and job growth across the state. This was a big investment in Ohio and we’re thrilled that the final connection to Shawnee State University is complete.”