Hello all, Im an Information Systems major at the University of California, Riverside.
The labs in which we do most of our work have always used linux to get a remote desktop connection with windoze. Students CAN use linux, although most of the tutorials for the beginners are given on windoze. To my delight, after recently checking the syllabus for this quarter of a c++ class I had just finished last quarter, I discovered that the first lab was to familiarize students with using linux, in particular emacs, g++, and other commandline tools. When I took the class, I was given the crutch of working in windoze, but was frustrated by the numerous problems we had with our computers restarting while connected to the server. Because of this unreliability, the CS dept. has moved completely over to linux. With this step, i wonder if they may not need the windows server at all anymore. Hopefully, given time, they will switch over completely. Now I have friends in CS classes asking me "What exactly is Linux?" ... "Can you burn me a copy?" "Can you help me install?" Certainly
On top of that, an on campus computer club, ACM, which i am a part of, supports Linux by having Linux install fests once in awhile. Just thought I'd share good news

That's great, glad to hear you (and your school) are helping out with the spread.