MCLA, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams, MA. -

"Coming out of the History Department at MCLA, and also having spent three years working on the Student Government Association (SGA), I had hoped to continue to pursue my interests and get a job working in government. I had been to the State House a few times for Student Lobby days, and had been in touch with my local representatives all throughout school, so after graduation, this was certainly to my advantage, as I now work on Beacon Hill."

Danielle Barboza ’06
Survivor Benefits Analyst – State Retirement Board, Commonwealth of Massachusetts

MCLA's Laptop Initiative Mass Advantage Logo

MCLA is requiring that all freshmen come to campus with a laptop computer. The benefits are immense. Your laptop will provide you with more freedom to work on assignments and access the Internet from various buildings and even open spaces on MCLA's campus.

Increasingly our faculty is providing class materials on-line and the campus now offers end to end wireless access for your convenience as a student. In addition, when you go home for breaks you can easily take your laptop with you.

MCLA, along with a consortium of other state colleges, has negotiated an exceptional deal on a hardware/software package from Dell. For more details on the software and repair arrangements, see the Student Laptop FAQ.

There will be a new package announced shortly! Among the most significant changes, it increases the hard drive size and lengthens the all-inclusive warranty to 4 years. Ordering should begin in early May and a link to ths order site appear on this page.

There will be a special MCLA-Dell Web site where you can configure and order laptops as well as learn about Dell financing options. The MCLA bundle will not be available through their regular Web site.

More information will appear here as it comes available. Additional information about student computing can be found at our Help Desk site.

Program Laptop Specifications for Fall 2008
Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz Processor
14.1" Wide Screen WXGA LCD
2.0GB RAM
80GB Hard Drive
25x CD-RW/DVD Drive
Video Processor w/ 128 MBytes memory
Intel 3945 WLAN (802.11a/g) miniPCI Card
10/100/1000 Gigabit4 Ethernet NIC
56K v9.24 Internal Modem
Windows XP Professional ®
Warranty & Services
4 Year warranty for NBD on-site parts/labor
4 Year CompleteCare® Accidental Damage Service
4 Year theft tracking software (ComputracePro)
Additional Items
25' CAT5 Network Cable
MCLA Software Package
(MS Office 2007, Sophos Anti-Virus)

Go to the MCLA-Dell order site.

MCLA Student Laptop Guidelines

	Minimum Specifications	Recommended Specifications
Processor	800 MHz or better	2.0 GHz or better
Memory	256 MB or better	2 GB or better
Wired Network Card	10/100 baseT Ethernet	10/100 baseT Ethernet
Wireless Network Adapter	802.11b/g	Integrated 802.11a/b/g
Removable Storage	3.5 inch floppy and CD-ROM	Writable CD/DVD player
Hard Drive	10 GB hard drive space	60 GB hard drive space or larger