March 17, 2016
I am pleased to report that we have
just completed a very successful two day Action Planning engagement involving
Colleague. Four representatives from Ellucian were at Virginia Wesleyan to
conduct extensive interviews and carry out the action planning. Bolstered with
survey data, the goal was to learn how we use Colleague, discover what we might
be under utilizing and suggest ways to improve it's uses across campus.
The
College has been using Colleague for
decades--so long that most still call it Datatel. However, business
processes evolve
over time, which is why it is important to consult experts to evaluate
our instance of Colleague against these processes. Since the College
last
engaged in this planning process, our institutional priorities have
changed as
well.
Thanks to Greg Baptiste for setting the stage for this successful
engagement -- Greg Baptiste and his team organized all the meetings and
conducted the surveys. I appreciate campus personnel who
participated in the Ellucian surveys. More than 80 users engaged in this process.
This impressed Ellucian visitors and demonstrated an extensive institutional desire
to engage in this process.
Special thanks to our new Chief
Information Officer Robert Lietgeb and Vice President for Finance Cary Sawyer
for co-sponsoring this consulting engagement.
The combination of survey and
face-to-face data will help to develop a technology road map for the future of
Virginia Wesleyan.
Finally, the Ellucian personnel
were impressed. They asked if Mr. Lietgeb would be willing to participate in an
executive panel and share our experiences at their national convention in
April.
The results of the action planning engagement will be made
available to us in approximately two weeks. I would expect to see details about
a new portal, lots of training, improved reporting and many other improvements.
