MOTLOW STATE T-Mobile

During the Fall of 2021, after developing a relationship with T-Mobile for over a year, Motlow State Community College and T-Mobile for Education partnered on a groundbreaking effort to “Power Student Success” using 5G.

Over the course of the spring and summer of 2021, executives, staff, faculty, and others worked furiously on the content, context, and communication tools needed for success with T-Mobile. We didn’t just want to launch another 1 to 1 program, we wanted to impact student success in measurable ways. Samsung donated 2,100 (equal to 30% of the 2019 Fall population) A32 phones that were AR enabled and T-Mobile provided the 5G network access for a truly unique unlimited and free text, talk, 5G hotspot, and WIFI package for Motlow students. Ours was not a gimmick to attract students to Motlow because we were offering these tools for student success, but for those who had made the commitment to attend. Literally, students thought the initial messaging was a “hoax”, “too good to be true”, and a “scam” and it was not.

Motlow State’s libraries, hallways, and throughways provided a space for the “Week of Welcome” where students were introduced to the opportunity to begin the semester with a tool/device crafted and customized for their wholistic success. Apps were thoughtfully considered, and we placed mental health and wellness, academic, food insecurity, student support, and the learning management system within a click away on the front face of all phones. The week would not have been as outstanding without our T-Mobile colleagues flying in from all over the country to welcome our students and to assist in handing out phones, tees, and bags full of useful resources. This was not only unique, but a first of its kind initiative to support returning “back to campus” students as well as mailing items to students who were 100% online and unable to return to campus for various reasons. Please see the important results and narrative of Powering Student Success.

The impact of information communication technology (ICT) on the scalability of teaching, innovation, learning, and training (TILT) seems obvious. Where can we go without our tools? Where do we go without our devices? Motlow State joined with T-Mobile to support its TILT phenomena. TILT, on TMobiles 5G network indeed represents and meets the broad immediate needs of learners and trainees when paralleled with/via emerging and current technological platforms like ENGAGE, VR and its evolutionary XR metascapes. The constraints of a pandemic and social ideological interests decouple our sense of togetherness. Indeed, the primal use of engagement has contextually been face to face and eye to eye, but that too had evolved to online and blended modalities. In the interest of health, safety, and wellness, we have societally accelerated our need for tools and platforms that encourage belongingness.

Motlow State Community College does not seek to devolve backwards from the importance of human connection, but to be consciously considerate of a more connected, social, and technological continuum.

Immersive platforms are and have been a normative phenomenon for many globally; this is irrespective of how we transition back to brickand-mortar locations to satiate our desire for socio-physical contact. The global pandemic activated Alternative Work Schedules (AWS). However, as we return, active work is no longer simply creeping into organizational mission statements, organizations are remeasuring the direct value of optimally serviceable and functional workplaces. Our futures are parallel as we will function face to face and virtually forever. This is not new, but we are in need of broadening true understanding of the ROI for employee and student development. Motlow State Community College and T-Mobile agreed on this vision and shared in seeding through fruition.