Following the readiness assessment work completed in the fall which involved surveys, listening sessions, and stakeholder interviews, the College is beginning the formal process of evaluating next generation, cloud-based, Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) systems. We are referring to the overall effort as the Information Systems Modernization (ISM) project.

Initial discovery sessions were held in February and March with the three vendor candidates with the participation of the functional administrative areas of the College. The discovery session video recordings may be found within the newly published Information Systems Modernization website on the Vendor Candidate page (login required) as they are provided to us. The project involves evaluating our entire Ellucian Banner ecosystem, including Apex (Faculty Services, Major/Minor Portal, AppGarden, etc.), mySwarthmore, Argos, and Banner Document Management. A proposed timeline for the ISM project is as follows:

Each vendor under consideration for our new ERP system will spend a week demonstrating their system and providing deep dives into their capabilities in each specific functional area. The confirmed schedule is: 

• Week of March 31 – Oracle

• Week of April 7 – Workday

• Week of April 21 - Ellucian

A live, detailed schedule is available on the ISM Project website (login required) where any adjustments will be reflected. We encourage everyone to attend as many of the general sessions as possible. It is crucial that as many stakeholders as possible in each functional area attend their specific deep dive sessions and be prepared to ask questions, describe processes, and present scenarios for the vendors to address. Your feedback after these sessions will be a major consideration in selecting one of these solutions.  A survey will be provided at the end of each week of demos. Questions and comments related to the project can be sent to ism@swarthmore.edu.

Related to the ISM project, I am pleased to announce an important organizational change within ITS: the formation of a new Project and Change Management Team. This team will play a critical role in strengthening our project management discipline, managing a portfolio of ongoing IT projects, and assisting us in the significant undertaking of modernizing Swarthmore’s administrative systems.

Leading this new team as Director of Project and Change Management is Mark Dumic. A 30+ year veteran of Swarthmore ITS, Mark is transitioning from his role in Networking and Telecommunications. Mark brings deep institutional knowledge and extensive experience in managing complex technology projects.

Joining Mark are Project Engagement Manager, Jessica Stockett and Project Engagement Specialist, Clare Grundstein, both of whom are moving from Support Services to this new team. Jess and Clare have been instrumental in managing our training, communications, and change management operations, and their expertise will be invaluable as we refine our approach to project and change management.

With Mark Dumic's move to Project and Change Management, Aaron Smith, Associate Director of Networking and Telecommunications, has been promoted to Director of that team.  Aaron has previously held positions at the University of Pennsylvania, Ursinus College, and Haverford College.

For more general information on our ISM project, please navigate to swarthmore.edu/ism (login required). Questions and comments should be sent to ism@swarthmore.edu, which will route you directly to our core project team.