Town Hall Updates - September 2025
Good morning, and I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you. Thank you for joining our first-semester town hall! Welcome new employees to the college, and welcome back returning folks.
We have been very busy since the start of the summer, and we are on the tail end of our largest project to date - pairing the Windows 11 update with lifecycle updates. As a reminder, the Windows 11 requirement is based on Microsoft's changes, where they will no longer support Windows 10 security updates as of October 14, 2025. Personal or home user devices will need to migrate to Windows 11 too. (If you've been wanting a reason to buy a new computer... this is one major reason!)
Service Desk and Student Employees: Members of IT have been working tirelessly to update our Dell computers to Windows 11, replacing labs and employee devices with the new Lenovo devices, and replacing our old and outdated printers. By reviewing our systems and processes, we are not only addressing previous challenges with life cycle management, and we are also creating visibility by communicating our technology standards for office and classroom use, and thinking differently about our funding strategies.
Since the spring semester, we've made changes to our service portal, https://services.saintpaul.edu, to enhance its user-friendliness. We will continue to make improvements to the site, working through most commonly requested services and creating service forms that gather most necessary information so we can increase our efficiency when working with you; updating our knowledge base articles to reflect technology changes and how-to's accurately; and a News and Updates section where we can centralize our information for Outages (usually unplanned) and Scheduled Changes and Notifications.
Network Services: We are also reviewing our Network infrastructure and identifying ways to create additional efficiencies and improvements. While they generally work behind the scenes, they collaborate closely with all members of the IT/IR team.
Data Services and Institutional Research: The Data Matters portal, a central resource for data services and institutional research, is undergoing a facelift and revision. We are reviewing the data and ensuring that our portal remains updated for the start of the semester. We are also backfilling vacancies, and I believe by the next town hall, I will be able to share additional updates.
Finally, I would like to extend a special thanks to the entire team for their tireless efforts. We have made substantial changes to our process, procedures, and the overall function of our department. We do our work in support of our students and all of you. I am so proud of their work!
With that... I hand this off to Raji!