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Strategic Technology Planning >> Critical Thinking

8/29/2006

By Matt Villano

From improving service to the campus community, to enhancing server capacity for critical operations, schools learn that the best way to tackle mission-critical objectives is to do it via intelligent tech implementations.

The plain truth is that this very issue of Campus Technology magazine would not exist, were it not for the recognized criticality of technology to the academic environment. Why is it then that new tools and technologies are still being implemented in a vacuum at some colleges and universities, with little to no regard for the impact on the institution as a whole—even the connection to the institution’s professed or declared mission? True excellence in technology implementation emerges when IT, administrative, and academic leaders link IT to mission-critical institutional objectives, investing in hardware and software to serve an explicit purpose and a distinct population of users. Across the country, at public institutions of higher education in New Hampshire as well as at schools like the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Fordham University (NY), and Cornell University (NY), this is precisely the case.

The benefits of these projects are many, from improved efficiency to increased cost savings across the board. At one institution, an investment in electronic documents even managed to get users excited about reading reports. Still, linking IT to missioncritical objectives is not without its challenges. Any time a system is revamped, it takes time and energy to convince users that the change is worthwhile. Joan Tambling, director of human resources for the University System of New Hampshire, says that the very best approaches to tying IT to mission-critical applications incorporate innovation with a respect for the status quo, never pushing users too far too fast.

“Projects like these take patience on both sides,” she says. “Done correctly, the results can be incredible.”

Innovating for HR

If any academic technologist knows how to link IT with mission-critical institutional objectives, it’s Tambling. Earlier this year, she received the Fred C. Ford Award from the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, for spearheading an innovative and costeffective solution for the delivery of services to university system retirees. The solution helps meet the institutional mission of better serving the university community by using a web interface to offer retiree benefits to former employees of the University of New Hampshire, Plymouth State University (NH), Keene State College (NH), and Granite State College (NH). Tambling built it to be part of the university system’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP).

Originally, the initiative stemmed from a human resources effort to offer retiree benefits on a much more selfservice basis. For years, the New Hampshire system had handled most retiree inquiries over the phone. Then, over the course of the 2002-2003 school year, Tambling set out to quantify just how much time her staff members were spending on the phone with retirees. This investigation discovered that the benefits staff of 5.5 people—many of whom had other responsibilities elsewhere in the department—was spending upwards of 800 hours per year helping retirees. To make matters worse, the study revealed that of 1,200 retirees in the system, HR staffers never managed to serve more than 20 percent.