Back Bay College Partners with NWN for Infrastructure Overhaul and AI Curriculum

A Back Bay college is making a $2.5 million infrastructure upgrade to provide faster internet, bolster its esports team and develop a class for students and faculty to introduce them to the use of artificial intelligence.
 
Fisher College partnered with Boston-based IT consultancy firm NWN to upgrade its internet infrastructure, providing high-speed internet to students across its 15 buildings in the Back Bay. 
 
NWN will be adding a new 10G backbone, replacing legacy switches and wireless access points, and integrating its EMP managed services platform to support day-to-day IT operations and strategic planning. 
 
The college has an AI committee whose mission to stay on top of the many ways the technology is being used in industry and academia. Through the new partnership, the school and NWN will develop an AI curriculum to help students and faculty learn how to use the technology. 
 
“It’s an ever-changing animal that we don’t fully understand how it’s going to be rolled out, or how it’s going to affect students,” said Steven Rich, president of Fisher College. “However, we know that it’s going to be a tool that they have to know how to use.”
 

The AI 101 class will focus on developing basic prompting and AI skills for ethical AI usage, as well as engaging with AI to explore new approaches to subjects, such as esports and basic coding.  

The class will be offered online, and will be mandatory for both faculty and staff. It will be taught by Fisher faculty and will be optional for most students at Fisher, but may be required for individual students depending on their majors.

“This isn’t like a cookie-cutter curriculum,” said Andrew Gilman, chief marketing officer at NWN. “We want to make sure it’s localized to the needs of the students in the school, as we build it out and kick it off in the spring workshop.”

How infrastructure upgrades will help Fisher’s esports team

The upgrades from NWN will not only serve the full-time students living and taking classes on campus, but will support the college’s nationally ranked esports team. 

“Esports, which is one of the strengths of the college, creates a higher need and a higher expectation of connectivity and infrastructure,” said Rich.

The college esports team has 300 members, consisting of 100 full-time students and 200 part-time students. Rich says the program has been a big draw for students during a time when higher education enrollment has been low across the board. 

The college has been developing the program for five years. During that time, it has established an esports program featuring over 80 high-end gaming stations, a broadcast studio, and hands-on training in production, team management, and digital storytelling. 

As the college continues to invest in the program, Rich anticipates that its esports program will remain a draw for students to attend Fisher in the years to come. The infrastructure upgrade is currently ongoing. NWN and Fisher did not provide an estimate of when the project will be completed. 

“We’re in partnership with so that we can maximize the benefits for the students and faculty community specifically,” said Gillman.

https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/inno/stories/news/2025/10/23/fisher-college-invests-esports-internet-ai.html

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