Case Study: Eastern University achieves reliable dorm Wi‑Fi and 90% fewer help desk tickets with Cisco Meraki

Simplifying dorm network management and the student Wi-Fi experience

Eastern University, a 1,400‑student residential liberal arts college near Philadelphia, faced chronic dorm network problems from a ten‑year‑old system that frustrated students and overloaded a very lean IT team. CIO Eric McCloy evaluated and then deployed Cisco Meraki hardware and cloud management — MR30H access points in rooms, MR42s in shared spaces, Meraki switches, and the Meraki dashboard — to give students dependable wired and wireless connectivity while keeping deployment and management simple on a limited budget.

Using Cisco Meraki, Eastern University rolled out APs and switches across seven dorms and eight buildings, and leveraged the Meraki location analytics API with Degree Analytics to measure class attendance and facility usage for 97% of students (3,700 classes measured with 93% accuracy, over 2.6 billion rows analyzed). The result was a 90% drop in first‑week helpdesk tickets (from 80 to 8), predictable peak utilization (~60% capacity) without broad traffic shaping, faster troubleshooting via the Meraki dashboard, and higher student satisfaction — freeing IT to focus on other priorities and supporting targeted retention efforts.

Eastern University

Eric McCloy

Chief Information Officer