ACM SIGUCCS 2025 Conference

Student employees are vital to IT organizations in higher education. While some may devalue the contributions from student members of our work communities, the fact is that in the big picture, students are the reason we’re all employed. Part of our responsibility as fellow educators is to ensure they gain the skills required to succeed once they matriculate. Specific needs vary among institutions, but some basic practices can be widely applied. Our approach treats student employees with the same level of respect we’d give a full-time employee, including investment in their development through experiential learning.
The acronym CARE (Collaboration, Appreciation, Respect, Empathy) forms the basis of tangible practices that elevate student employees as members of the team. Investing in our students leads to a fundamental change in the way our organizations function for the betterment and benefit of both our clients and the students themselves. For instance, a focus on collaboration leads to coaching and championing our student employees, appreciation leads to the practice of acknowledgement, respect leads to improved retention, and empathy leads to excellence.
This panel will focus on how institutions of differing sizes and structures allow each of us to achieve success using this approach. We’ll discuss each of our varying approaches as well as the experiences and results we’ve seen by utilizing our own methods. The examples listed in the previous paragraph are just a teaser of the CARE approach - join us to get the full spectrum of our approach.
The foundation of our approach is simple: happy people are productive people - we take care of the employee; they’ll take care of the work.

In the ever-evolving IT landscape, organizations must innovate and adapt to stay relevant. This session explores how IT leaders can develop resilient organizations that embrace change. At UNC Charlotte, we recently overhauled our service desk infrastructure, implementing new call center software, a campus phone system, a ticketing solution, and a knowledge base—all within a year.
We will discuss the technical and human components of this transformation, including culture, deployment, staffing, training, and communication strategies. Key topics include the general approach for adopting new systems, the importance of user feedback, and maintaining open communication with stakeholders. Our experience highlights the necessity of a holistic approach to change management, ensuring success for both the IT organization and the user community.
Join us to gain practical insights and strategies for fostering resilience and adaptability in your IT operations.

This presentation aims to demonstrate that migrating from on-premise Windows device management to cloud-based management is possible and outlines the steps Universities should take to accomplish that.
Any organization that has windows devices in their fleet likely uses some sort of domain
binding to join their devices to a Microsoft Active Directory domain. The most basic level is Active Directory join where a device talks to an on-premise domain controller to receive authentication information, group policies, and resources. A more common way is hybrid join. This is for organizations utilizing Microsoft Entra ID, formerly known as Azure Active
directory. This type of domain join sends information from on-premise servers up to the
Microsoft cloud. It enables endpoint devices to authenticate with Azure and allows users to use things like Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, and Office 365. However, Windows authentication is still handled primarily by an on-premise domain controller. This mode,
despite its name, has become outdated with the rise of hybrid work scenarios. Users working off campus are required to use a VPN in order to access on-premise resources. While the effects of this are not immediate, it does present challenges for users that change their password remotely or rarely, if ever, visit campus especially to log on to their device for the first time. Enter Entra-Join. This mode joins the device solely to Microsoft Entra ID and requires no connection to on-premise domain controllers. Only an internet connection is required to perform Windows authentication, not a VPN. This empowers
users to change their password off campus without worrying about syncing issues. It also empowers IT staff to ship devices to users where they can perform their first login from home.
The road to Entra-join is not without its challenges, however. There are many primary and secondary systems that rely on on-premise resources and must be transitioned to the cloud or restructured entirely. Examples include: automatic certificate-based WiFi connections, application deployment, group policies, provisioning and more. Each hurdle requires a unique solution and big picture planning.
In our presentation, we will discuss the reasons why organizations should switch to Entra- join, the barriers to doing so, and how to overcome them.

In early 2024, we were forced to move our existing Confluence instance from on-premise to Atlassian's cloud service. This was a prime opportunity to reassess our public knowledgebase and figure out a way to make it more appealing, more accessible, and create new processes and procedures for the maintenance and upkeep of the site.
This presentation or poster, will discuss the steps we took to garner buy-in from the other directors and CIO, find volunteers to work on it, and the months worth of meetings and decision making it took to get to where we are today.
This project is currently ongoing and we hope to have a finished product by the time the conference occurs.

This presentation will cover the University of Hawaii's IT Service Management (ITSM) journey, starting with the selection and implementation of an ITSM platform in 2019 to our current project to move towards a new ITSM platform. The presentation will discuss the initial project requirements and goals, how our goals slowly changed as we got more experience with ITSM, and the lessons we learned throughout this journey.

The ultralight backpacking community builds their practices on the idea that, when you venture into the wilderness, you “don’t pack your fears.” This concept keeps backpackers from being weighed down by unnecessary items that, at best, hinder their progress, and, at worst, put them in danger.
In college and university IT support, there are many fears that weigh down effective solutions and interfere with collaboration. Whether it’s a fear of escalating problems, customer dissatisfaction, new and threatening technologies, or internal conflict, those anxieties lead to a “backpack” full of extraneous tools, procedures, and preparation. These result in overinflated, inefficient solutions that rely on protection, rather than aspiration.
In this interactive presentation, we will explore how both IT-specific and universal fears manifest in our work environments, and how we can move forward with intentional solutions. Participants will be encouraged to share real fears accompanying challenges in their workplace, allowing the group to collaborate on identifying what are essential and what are extraneous tools to address them. Participants will leave with ideas of how to incorporate fear-free approaches that lead to specific solutions at their own organizations.

Over the past decade, the expectation of access to technology to complete coursework has grown dramatically. It is now expected that students have 24/7 access to a personal computer, laptop, or tablet. While many students can meet this expectation without issue, for others, especially those from vulnerable or low-income backgrounds, reliance on technology in a course creates significant barriers to their success.

Equitable access to technology, or the digital divide, has been studied since the emergence of public internet access in the 1990s. These studies showed that socioeconomic status and household income was the strongest predictor of individual internet use. More recent studies examine the impact of household income on the type of device that an individual has access to use, for example, a laptop or smartphone, and the type of internet access available, ie. mobile only or home broadband. Despite increased access to technology in general, the digital divide still exists.

Supervising student workers in higher ed IT goes beyond ensuring tasks get completed —it is about fostering professional growth and building valuable skills. In this session, we will share onboarding, skill-building, and engagement approaches we have found effective across multiple teams at Lewis & Clark. Discover how we create meaningful roles that encourage development, recognize leadership potential, and offer expanded responsibilities. We are proud of the environment we have built and find our team most engaged when we can cultivate a growth-oriented culture. We will also discuss how cross-department collaboration and connection keeps students motivated and supported and helps us all provide better service to our community. Join us to share your experiences, and together, we will elevate our student worker programs to set our employees up for success well beyond graduation.

Our panel discussion will be on moving from on premise network share drives to Microsoft 365 SharePoint. The panel will include viewpoints from 3 different institutions at different stages in the migration process, as well as the benefits experienced by end users.

Project management skills are essential for IT professionals in higher education. Establishing standards for technology project management is crucial for departmental success. However, many institutions lack a dedicated project management office (PMO), leading to challenges in consistently identifying, tracking, prioritizing, and completing technology projects. This panel discussion will provide valuable insights and practical strategies for effectively managing IT projects in higher education, even without a formal PMO. Attendees will learn about diverse approaches to project request management, prioritization techniques, and software solutions employed by different institutions to organize, prioritize, and drive projects forward, as well as some lessons learned along the way about some potential obstacles to success. Join us for an engaging discussion and share your own experiences in managing IT projects within higher education.

Picture this, May 2020 and the semester is wrapping up - classes were 100% virtual, students had vacated their dorms in March and commencement has been postponed - for a year??

My institution, a small liberal arts college in New England, was trying to balance financial obligations with the want to continue to provide for its employees. With the campus on lockdown and hundreds of thousands of dollars returned for room and board, there needed to be a way to cut costs. I was approached by my leadership and told that I would need to furlough one full time employee.

With a small team of only 4 people, I knew the team would never recover if 1 single person had to bear that weight. I shared this concern and suggested that each position be cut 10 hours per week - equally sharing the weight of the furlough.

It was then up to me to develop a plan that still provided the coverage needed for our department. Often as leaders, we feel like we have to have all the answers. Why is that? Is it because leaders feel a strong sense of responsibility and accountability to their direct reports?
Are they afraid of being vulnerable in front of their team? Are they supposed to have every answer and work in a vacuum? Is it all decisions or just these personnel decisions that we wrestle with having to have the right answer.

In this talk, hear a real world example of how empowering your team to devise a solution improved the overall outcome of a difficult situation.

This lightning talk explores the multifaceted nature of leadership in today's higher education landscape. I will share personal anecdotes and insights emphasizing that effective leadership requires more than technical expertise. It involves understanding human behavior, building relationships, and possessing a strong sense of self. I will highlight the importance of defining personal success and leveraging unique strengths while emphasizing the need for strategic thinking, decision-making, and emotional intelligence. The goal of this talk is to encourage aspiring leaders to trust their instincts, be bold, and embrace both the expected and unexpected opportunities that lie ahead.

This talk explores the indispensable role of community within communities of practice (CoPs) in shaping the growth and resilience of Higher Education IT professionals. Much like the relationship between a raiser and a Seeing Eye puppy, CoPs provide guidance, patience, and collective wisdom, fostering an environment where members can grow confidently into their roles. By nurturing this partnership of shared goals, mutual support, and continuous learning, CoPs empower IT staff to adapt to new challenges, drive innovation, and support the diverse needs of their institutions. Using the bond between a raiser and a service dog in training as a framework, this presentation illustrates how community involvement and shared responsibility cultivate expertise, adaptability, and a sense of purpose within Higher Ed IT, ultimately enhancing outcomes across the institution.

If we want our technical documentation and communication to have a wider audience reach, it's time to examine the elements that might cause issues with comprehension. These include using colloquial speech, sports jargons, pop culture references, and other expressions which do not translate well.
Why is this important? Our audience is made of diverse backgrounds and life experiences. We are expecting our audience to heed our calls to action through our technical communication..
In this Lightning Talk, we will discuss how to write in a globally inclusive style. We will focus on what to include and what we can leave out.