Longwood U. Puts Students' Tech Savvy to Work

By STEVEN BUSHONG

In 1998, Longwood University began requiring every student to bring a laptop to campus.

Foreseeing the inevitable — a barrage of buggy computers — the Virginia university hired a squad of undergraduates and trained them to deal with malfunctions. From morning to night, the students still respond to dormitory rooms where laptops are flashing perplexing messages or stubbornly avoiding the Internet.

The 17 students are called resident technology assistants,