Case Study: Sweet Briar College achieves secure, campus-wide Wi‑Fi in under three months with Cisco Meraki

Sweet Briar installs secure wireless network in under three months

Sweet Briar College, a 3,000‑acre liberal arts campus with about 600 on‑campus students, was struggling with an aging, hard‑to‑manage, and spotty Wi‑Fi environment plagued by student rogue access points. Director of Network Services Aaron Mahler needed a secure, centrally managed, high‑performance wireless solution that could be deployed by a two‑person IT team during a 75‑day summer window, and selected Cisco Meraki (Wireless LAN MR) to meet those requirements and budget constraints.

Cisco Meraki supplied 130 plug‑and‑play MR 802.11n access points, powered by PoE and managed via the Meraki Cloud Controller and dashboard, enabling self‑configuring APs, self‑healing mesh and easy SSID/RADIUS setup; two staff completed the rollout in the 75‑day target. The deployment delivered campus‑wide coverage at lower cost, simplified troubleshooting and visibility, and now supports 1,000+ unique clients per week and roughly 9 TB of monthly traffic, meeting student demand for fast, reliable Wi‑Fi.

Sweet Briar College

Aaron Mahler

Director of Network Services & Chief & Chief Technology Officer