Texas A&M Health Science Center Adopts Banner Administrative Management

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 12/12/08

The Texas A&M Health Science Center has selected the Banner Unified Digital Campus (UDC) from Sungard Higher Education to help unify its geographically-dispersed community and to enhance and expand services and communications to its growing student enrollment. The institution joins eight other Texas A&M institutions that have selected the Banner UDC and are in the process of implementing it. Banner UDC consists of administrative applications for managing students, financial aid, human resources, and fundraising.

The Health Science Center has experienced tremendous growth, adding a college of pharmacy, a college of nursing, and expanded campus locations across the state, and is expecting to double its enrollment in the next five to 10 years.

"Our goals are to make sure that all our students and faculty, regardless of their location, have access to the very best services we have to offer and to build a sense of community among our widespread population," said Linda S. Brannon, associate VP for student services at the Health Science Center. "This in turn will help enhance our reputation and our recruiting efforts to continue to attract high-caliber students and faculty."

"The Banner UDC presents us with an opportunity to become more effective and efficient in our services, communications, and collaborations. It also helps to build a sense of community and unity among our many locations," added David Cantrell, VP for IT and CIO at the institution. "Students, staff, and faculty will be able to access the same familiar services and resources from any location, and the institution will have a single, unified way to communicate and collaborate with all our constituents. We also hope to provide new services and functionality in response to our faculty, staff and students' needs."

Through the use of Banner UDC, the institution hopes to gain the ability to share information and resources across all eight campuses; reduce IT time and resources needed to support current homegrown systems; provide collaborative capabilities for faculty and students in courses, programs, and student activities; automate manual processes and gain efficiencies in administrative processes; provide single sign-on, personalized access for all constituents to one-stop resources; and use integrated business analytics to drive better decision-making and strategic analysis.