Empowering Community Connections
Local Student Tanner Alger ’25 Maps a Path Toward Digital Access Focused on Mahaska, Poweshiek, and Tama Counties
As part of the interview process for this article, Tanner Alger ’25, a 2021 graduate of ϳԹ High School and current ϳԹ student, connected to our web meeting with his laptop from a table outside the Humanities and Social Science Center (HSSC) in the heart of campus, a testament to the ease at which we are able to connect to the internet on the College campus. The beautiful day which found him outside also came with some wind, which made the Wi-Fi connection impossible to maintain and caused the meeting to end prematurely.
In a follow up email, Alger pointed out how our struggle with a poor connection underscored the need for his work mapping rural internet connectivity. For many across the state, unstable or absent internet is a day-to-day reality. “We're not as connected as we think we are,” he said.
Alger is currently working with the College’s inaugural Social Innovator in Residence, Monica Sanders and members of the greater ϳԹ Community on a project that seeks to better map digital access disparities in some of the rural areas surrounding ϳԹ. As the Rural Internet Infrastructure Mapping Data Fellow for the Residence Rural Internet Access Enhancement Project, Alger is helping peers and local high school students map out gaps in broadband connectivity, technical work that is also personal in nature for someone who grew up in the area and experienced the shortfalls of connectivity.
Mapping to Empower Communities
Raised in ϳԹ from the age of five, Alger has strong ties to the ϳԹ community and will graduate in May with a degree in biology and a concentration in environmental studies. After stepping back from his leadership role in Pedal ϳԹ, the campus bike share program he helped launch, Alger was searching Handshake, the platform that has advertised student employment options on campus, when he came across position connected to the project. This local initiative was designed to be a companion to one that is part of a larger 10-state initiative led by Sanders and .
“I started looking into the project and it had an environmental justice aspect to it, which I appreciate and is kind of related to my degree,” he said. “I've spent more time on the technical and conservation side of things and not so much the social side of things, so I thought this would be a great opportunity.”
What sold him on the