As the Spring semester comes to an end, I would like to take this opportunity to share some of the achievements and challenges of the Information Services and Technology (IS&T) department and express my gratitude to the campus community for your support and partnership.

We have successfully completed numerous projects aligned with the campus strategic plan, and several more are currently in progress. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of these key initiatives here.

Completed projects: 

  • Catalog and Curriculum Management Process Improvements 
  • Improve Permission Number Request Process 
  • Tracking Outside Interests – Office of Research 
  • Course Scheduling Enhancements

Ongoing projects: 

  • Academic Advising CRM (Customer Relationship Management) 
  • Annual Program Review for Graduate Studies 
  • Syllabus Tool Automation in Canvas 
  • Census Data Automation 

I am thrilled that, working with the Office of the Registrar, we have replaced the manual process students were using to request a change to their major or minor. We think this will make life so much better for students, who can see the status of their requests in the Student Center while improving the workload in the Office of the Registrar. To date, almost 2000 requests have been processed through the new system.

Another exciting project that will transform the student experience is the launch of a student CRM. The first office that will use the student CRM to manage their interactions with students is the Advising Office. This will simplify how our students, particularly the incoming class, get services from the Advising Office. The system will go live at the end of the semester and reshape the way we prepare the incoming class for success at Chapman. Over time, we will roll the system out to all students, providing better access to Student support services, resulting in a better path to graduation.

In support of our goal to increase our footprint in Research, we have partnered with the Office of Research to enhance our Cayuse system, particularly in developing a simplified process for research administration. The system enables better collaboration among researchers, administrators, and external partners by providing a centralized platform for communication and information sharing.

I would like to acknowledge some accomplishments from some of our IS&T team members. First, congratulations to Elena Marusak, who presented a poster on using the Canvas impact tool adoption data to foster student and instructor success at the Waypoints Symposium at UCI in March. It was very well received! In October, Sarem Yadegari and Michelle Sypinero did a wonderful presentation at EDUCAUSE on the power of mentorship in the workplace. Keith Barros presented on AI for Information Security at the Los Angeles chapter of ISACA in April. Michelle was also a mentor at the Empowher Institute Girls to Greatness Summit at the LA Convention Center in April.

Finally, I want to acknowledge and thank the campus community for your collaboration and partnership. I would particularly like to thank those who joined us at our open house in February – our first such event since the pandemic! We had almost 200 people stop by and connect with us. We plan to make it an annual event and look forward to seeing you next year!  

 

Warm regards, 

Helen Norris