On Thursday September 14th, Enrolment Services (ES) held its monthly Stand-Up Meeting. The meeting provided an opportunity for the SASI Leadership team to update stakeholders from ES about two key developments:

  • The Board of Governors’ decision to move towards an Integrated Program and what it will mean for SASI moving forward.
  • An update on the vendor selection process.

The meeting also featured some updates from Kate on Enrolment Services as a whole.

So, what is the Integrated Program?

The main goal of SASI is to identify and implement a software solution to replace the current and aging Student Information System (SIS). Recently, the UBC Board of Governors made the decision to also include HR Finance in this project, creating an Integrated Program. The goals of the Integrated Program include connecting student, people and financial activities of the university, and implementing new applications to replace UBC’s core enterprise applications (including Student Information Systems, Human Resources Management Systems and Financial Managements Systems). The underlying objective of integrating this program is to identify methods to allow one platform to support all activities in the aforementioned areas. This would mean that in the future, tasks will be simplified through the use of one system, with one login.

The new system will enable users to access a wide range of functions from budget and enrolment to vacation tracking. It will include improvements to reporting, with reports contained in one dashboard. The new system will also act as one source of record for data that is clean, accurate, and reliable. Aside from end-user benefits, there are a number of financial benefits associated with system integration. Having one single platform will reduce overhead costs and ultimately decrease the cost of ownership.

During the Stand-Up Meeting, SASI also announced that it has received endorsement from the Executive and Board to proceed to negotiations with the software vendor in question (Workday) and systems integrator (Deloitte). We expect the UBC Board of Governors to determine whether to enter into agreements with one or both proponents by late 2017 or early 2018. In the meantime, the Integrated Program team will be busy participating in planning for the next phases of work, which will move us towards implementation of the new solution, targeted to begin rolling out in 2019.

General Updates

EdPlanner BC is hoping to begin in August however this has not been confirmed definitively. Kate is working with the president of Douglas College to move governance decisions forward throughout the province. UBC will be a founding partner to create the organization under the Societies act, along with Douglas, SFU and BCIT.

Thanks also goes to those who stepped up to be on the steering committee for the Self Study that Enrolment Services is undertaking. The committee is working to produce the report by the end of November and the review team will be here in the second week of January!

Another great achievement for the Enrolment Services team is that UBC Okanagan admissions is now over 100%! Well done to the Student Recruitment & Advising team along with Admissions for this huge accomplishment.

We’ve also seen increases in Aboriginal students who are new to UBC and direct entry. These are now in double digits and it is thanks to tremendous work by Student Recruitment & Advising, the ESPs and Admissions. We’ve also seen the youth-aging-out-of-care numbers increase and now have the tuition waiver there as well.

As well on the Vancouver campus every program is at target – no empty seats!

 Kudos for the ES Team

The meeting ended on a high note, when an email from a recent alumna was read out; acknowledging and thanking the ES Team for the support and help they provided her during her time as a student at UBC. The full transcript for this email can be found below:

Dear UBC Enrolment Services,

I would like to say thank you for the support that UBC has provided me over my degree. I truly appreciate it, and it has made a great difference.

I am fortunate to have had incredible opportunities throughout my time at UBC. Your support has enabled me to travel internationally and contribute to international research collaborations, provided me motivation in continuing to strive for a high academic standard as a UBC student, and assisted me in reaching my future academic and professional objectives.

Moving forward, I will now be continuing my studies as an MSc student at ETH Zurich (Health Sciences and Technology MSc – Major in Neurosciences), and pursuing the EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) Research Internship Program in Switzerland this coming fall.

I am very grateful for the support and experiences that UBC provided me as a Kinesiology student, and I look forward to hopefully returning to UBC for further graduate work, medicine, or a combined MD PhD program following my Master’s.

Thank you again. 

Sincerely,

Zoe Sarafis

Stand-Up meetings are monthly opportunities for open dialogue with the Integrated Program/SASI. They are held every second Thursday, with the next one occurring at 8:30 AM on Thursday October 12th.

If you have any questions for Kate, please submit your inquiries to: https://survey.ubc.ca/s/es-stand-up/.

We look forward to seeing you at the next one!