Equipment, travel, and operating funds are very limited. In recent years, the University has provided about ten thousand dollars for equipment. These packages are funded in part through a competitive grant process, and so can be seen to vary from year to year. We have full internet access, and have partnered with five other midwestern states to form the GreatPlains network, funded by the NSF and installed at the DS3 level. The university is a charter member of Internet2, and has access to the National Science Foundation vBNS network.
All faculty have access to the campus ethernet backbone from their offices.
We have around seventy M.S. students and twenty-five Ph.D. students. Each research-oriented faculty member has a laboratory in addition to an office. The department has an Industrial Advisory Council consisting of representatives from companies in the upper midwest who support the department.