By summer’s end, all five residence halls on the Haskell Indian Nations University campus will have in-room Internet access.

The ongoing project has required installing infrastructure in the residence halls and also upping the university’s bandwidth to accommodate plugging them in, Haskell Chief Information Officer Joshua Arce told the Haskell Board of Regents during his report Thursday.

“We’re talking about 2015, kids not having Internet in their dorm rooms,” Arce said. “It’s a really big deal.”

Two halls, Osceola-Keokuk and Winona, have had Internet access since 2002, Arce said.

Cables were installed last summer in the other three, he said. Pocahontas was activated over spring break, and Roe Cloud and Blalock will be activated this summer.

Arce said especially with more students bringing more devices to campus, bandwidth capacity has been an issue — so much so that Haskell blocks Netflix from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays.

For wireless access, the campus has a number of hotspots, though those don’t cover individual dorm rooms, Arce said.

Money for the project is coming from a U.S. Department of Education Title 3 grant. The five-year grant brings in roughly $1.3 million a year for IT improvements and about the same for academics, which can include student retention initiatives, Arce said.

Title 3 grant money also is funding $850,000 in improvements to residence hall furnishings — including replacing bathtubs in Blalock Hall that date to 1977.

“They were original with the building,” facilities manager Lee Pahcoddy said.

Within the next two weeks, all Blalock’s tub-showers should be replaced with new showers, Pahcoddy said.

Blalock’s 1977 beds were replaced earlier this school year, Pahcoddy said, and other “original” furniture will be replaced over the summer.

For furniture that is still usable, Haskell is considering giving it to local organizations, students with families living off-campus or tribes, Pahcoddy said.

Board of Regents member Gil Vigil said improving residence halls would help retention at Haskell.

“It does a lot for the kids,” he said. “The upgrades of these things, I think, are really critical.”