The Minnesota Private College Research Foundation (MPCRF) requests support from NSF for connection of St. John's University, College of St. Benedict, Concordia College, and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design to the Minnesota Regional Network (MRNet) which is the NSF mid-level network that serves Minnesota. A primary goal of the network is to facilitate collaborative projects and sharing of resources between instutuion, including those outside the state. MRNet will provide operations management and information services and it will give the four universities a connection to the NSFNET, a high speed (1.5 - 45 million bits per second) National Backbone network. The project will also support an upgrade of central site redundant and spare equipment. The universities need greater functionality and network speed to be able to access supercomputers, libraries, and make file transfers along with being able to implement a more reliable mail system. Students and faculty research will benefit from the link. This is also a unique opportunity for the schools to explore innovative educational resources.***
