CIC Approves 44 ITS Recommendations

June 29, 2017

I’m pleased to let you know that the Consolidation Implementation Committee approved 44 recommendations from the Information Technology OWGs at yesterday’s CIC meeting. This is quite an achievement for our Division and the University. We’re making great progress as we move toward consolidation and all of your hard work is paying off in a visible and palpable way.

I’m very pleased with our pace as it relates to consolidation; this is a feeling that is reinforced by the great feedback that we’ve been getting from Dr. Hebert and other leaders who are a part of the CIC. Many of the recommendations that were approved are incredibly complex with discernible impact to our end users. Approaching yesterday’s meeting, I expected to get questions, comments, and feedback regarding our recommendations.

However, when the call for questions and comments was given, there were none. This was a gratifying moment because it indicates a few things about our recommendation process:

Our users trust us. 

At both institutions, technology has a huge impact on the daily routines of faculty, staff, and students. Things like email and cloud storage don’t seem complex to us in the IT world, but to our users, they can be make-or-break tools that affect their productivity and their ability to perform. Our users know that we have their best interests in the front of our minds as we make these decisions and they trust us to always “do right.”

We’ve been doing a great job of including the right people.

You’ve heard me say it before, but I can’t say it enough: Communication is the key to a great relationship with our end users. Throughout the recommendation process, our OWGs have made communicating with the end users impacted by their recommendations a priority. This investment has paid off–our recommendations are more thorough, more accurate, and more accommodating because of the feedback we’ve gotten from our users.

We’re on the right track.

Our current pace puts us on track to complete all of our recommendations by the end of July. There are currently two more CIC meetings scheduled, taking place on July 12th and July 26th. At this point, it is our target to have all of our recommendations submitted, reviewed, and approved by the end of that second meeting. I’m confident that we can reach this benchmark because I know how diligent and talented you all are. I also know that you’re looking forward to our next phase because that’s our culture in IT–we’re always looking for that next great thing.

If you’d like to view the 44 recommendations that were approved by the CIC, please click here to view them. As a reminder, you can view all of the approved recommendations for the University at GeorgiaSouthern.edu/Consolidation. I encourage you to go out and take a look at some of these as they will shape the new University–or as we call it, the “new U”–and by proxy, the new YOU.

As always, thanks for everything you do. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Ron