Organizational Developments in the IT Industry

Bill Balint, Chief Information Officer at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP)

Bill Balint, Chief Information Officer at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP)

I nearly made it, more or less unscathed, at least as much of a higher education CIO could expect these days.

But just as I was preparing to take those first, refreshing steps toward the twilight of my career, a voice behind me was literally calling my name, pulling me back into reality. Five minutes later, it was clear I was not destined to enjoy a safe landing.

It was April, 2019, and I was headed out of a convention center during a software conference. A vendor representative was eager to know if I had heard anything about Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) implementing a common student information system (SIS). I had worked as an IT worker at PASSHE member Indiana University of Pennsylvania for 29 years by that point.

It was all news to me, but not a total shock. In fact, PASSHE had been down this road many years earlier, successfully implementing shared finance and human resources systems during the 2000s and a learning management system a few years later. However, the SIS piece – so complex with 14 universities who would remain direct competitors for students – failed to launch after seven, often excruciating, years.

But here was PASSHE, giving SIS another try more than a decade later. The scepticism mixed with realism about the technology, the business case, the expense, and those unsuccessful seven years fresh in the minds of many, produced a Mount Everest-like set of challenges.

Oh, and then there was COVID lurking right around the corner.

Finally, after nearly three years of business case building, accumulating the financing, an RFP and negotiations, PASSHE began this journey in early 2022. PASSHE set off with the mission of becoming the first fully federated higher education State System to implement the Ellucian Banner Shared Technology Platform in the cloud.

The coincidental timing was astounding. Six PASSHE universities were in the middle of integrations into two universities with six campuses, the most high-profile example of PASSHE’s immense enrollment and financial challenges.

“Branded by PASSHE as OneSIS, this mix of 28 products needed to make the SIS work will eventually integrate with some 200 additional software applications utilized across the PASSHE landscape for things like housing, dining and library systems, among many others.”

As if that was not enough, the six integrating universities operated SIS’ from five different vendors and employees had just recently started working together. Sure enough, the business needs of the integrations dictated these schools needed to begin implementing immediately. PASSHE’s five legacy Banner universities that were not integrating would have to wait instead of implementing first and working out the bugs for their sister institutions coming from other SIS.’

The project’s risks were therefore astronomical, perhaps better left unmeasured by some accounts. Eyes were already wide open when a few colleagues and I agreed to serve as the project’s central administrators.

Branded by PASSHE as OneSIS, this mix of 28 products needed to make the SIS work will eventually integrate with some 200 additional software applications utilized across the PASSHE landscape for things like housing, dining and library systems, among many others.

There is, understandably, an ever-evolving bullet lists of challenges, crises, stresses, unknowns, and setbacks resulting in countless virtual meetings that will stretch across four calendar years. Well over 100 experts are involved spanning the mix of PASSHE employees, vendor representatives, and contractors. OneSIS is being implemented in three cohorts, so universities will be at different stages in the process until all are fully in production. This reality complicates even the smallest agenda.

PASSHE is celebrating its 40^thAnniversary in 2023 and it celebrates as 10 universities in 14 locations instead of the 14 universities that existed at its birth. But to the extent, software applications can change an enterprise, it is clear OneSIS will help ensure PASSH can celebrate knowing a new SIS will better serve its students.

The celebration began on April 17, 2023 as students from PASSHE’s two new integrated universities – Pennsylvania Western University and Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania – registered students concurrently in the same cloud SIS instance. The universities boast separate catalogs, courses, sections, and dates, but still operated in one SIS infrastructure. Nearly four years to the day I had first learned of this mammoth undertaking, one foot was planted safely on the side of accomplishment.

It is exhilarating to know this is just the start. The remaining universities will be joining the mix by 2025, holding the potential for students to register for selected courses at PASSHE universities other than the one they attend. The manual labor of being admitted, aligning financial aid and billing and transferring back course credit to the home university will mercifully be moved to the dustbin of history. All PASSHE students will finally experience the same SIS user experience.

PASSHE is also beginning to witness the promise of new, richer collaborations between SIS and IT experts across the State System. Registrars, financial aid experts, bursars, and IT staff among others work in the same SIS instance for the first time together. They can collaborate while preserving local autonomy due to OneSIS’ multi-tenet construction. Impediments to implementing a colleague’s best practices are beginning to fade while still preserving an important local touch.

All of which brings it back to the personal journey. Having led a major software implementation as a much younger person, I spent more than 20 years reminding myself “Never again!” if called to duty. But somehow, the path to wrapping up a career had morphed into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Apparently the chance to play a key role in the most complex IT project in PASSHE’s history, one that contained unique elements no State System had attempted, proved irresistible in the end.

That remains OneSIS’ gift to me. The notion that a certain age and years of experience does not mean growth and enrichment must take an early exit. Just like life, some of the best moments can occur when you least except them and when you dismiss the path of least resistance. In my case, it has led to my 35^th year in the IT industry being as satisfying as any of the previous 34.