Administration & Operations

FY2026 Accomplishments

Administration & Operations strengthened the financial, workforce, communications, facilities, and technology foundations that enable ITS to serve the university effectively. From the marketing and communications to the security hardening of systems throughout the university, the Administration and Operations team continued to be the backbone of ITS. 

Marketing and Communications

ITS Marketing & Communications led strategic communications for the university’s most visible and complex technology initiatives—including digital accessibility compliance, Go Blue, Okta Verify, AI services, and urgent incident responses. Through executive communications, web content, social media, and events, the team translated complex technical developments into clear, human-centered narratives for the U-M community.

  • Campus Recognition: Won a university-wide Maizey Award for the Digital Accessibility Initiative awareness campaign and earned a finalist nomination for the Go Blue app promotional campaign.
  • App Adoption: Propelled the Go Blue app past its adoption goal, reaching more than 10,000 downloads against a target of 6,000.
  • Identity Management Launch: Led the rollout of Okta Verify and FastPass, introducing "Oktavia the squirrel" as a campaign mascot to humanize the security deployment.
  • Social Media Milestones: Produced the department's most successful social media post of all time with a 2026 Pi Day video that earned over 120,000 views; grew the ITS Instagram audience past 2,000 followers.
  • Compliance & Support: Anchored communication campaigns for the April 2026 Digital Accessibility compliance deadline and the May 2026 nationwide Canvas/Instructure cybersecurity incident.
  • AI & Security Engagement: Managed communications for university-wide cybersecurity training and supported expanding AI initiatives, including U-M GPT, Maizey, Claude Code, and the 8-Week AI Challenge.
  • Community & Executive Strategy: Strengthened IT community ties via MTech Connect and delivered strategic messaging, media prep, and executive communications for ITS leadership.

Facilities

The ITS Facilities team completed key safety, infrastructure, and workplace upgrades across Arbor Lakes (AL) and other ITS locations to maximize building performance, space utilization, and staff safety.

  • Workplace Safety: Completed proactive fire safety walks across Arbor Lakes Buildings 1, 2, and 3 to mitigate workplace risks.
  • Operational Standards: Established a new Service Level Agreement (SLA) with the University of Michigan for streamlined maintenance and triage support across AL 1, 2, and 3.
  • Security & Navigation: Completed the AL Building 3 foyer renovation to improve sightlines to the security desk and deployed new exterior wayfinding and parking lot signage.
  • Infrastructure Upgrades: Completed the AL2 crane project to safely lift maintenance materials into the penthouse and executed a comprehensive HVAC tune-up to optimize campus airflow and comfort.
  • Space Optimization: Relocated DPSS into Building 1 (Suite 2200) to optimize occupancy and generate new space revenue.
  • Staff Support Capacity: Resolved over 1,000 iOffice facility tickets and successfully coordinated approximately 300 employee onboarding, offboarding, and relocation requests.

System Operations

System Operations modernized critical campus infrastructure, standardized automated security safeguards, and executed seamless system migrations across multiple University environments.

Storage Team

  • Ransomware Protection: Implemented automated ransomware snapshots for the MiServer environment with VCI, standardizing 14-day recovery capabilities from air-gapped virtual machine (VM) copies.
  • Disaster Recovery: Partnered with UM-Dearborn to pilot VM-level snapshot backups, strengthening disaster recovery for the UMD VMware environment; expanded VM-level backup pilots to external customers.
  • Service Lifecycle: Initiated the AFS Retirement Project, guiding Unit IT through the decommissioning of AFS Class and Group volumes toward modern web hosting.
  • Capacity Scaling: Collaborated with the ARC Storage team to expand Turbo’s available storage capacity past 20PB.

Core Applications & VCI

  • System Decommissioning: Successfully retired Nagios and ITAR-compliant GitHub services.
  • Resiliency Planning: Identified a single point of failure in the email architecture during a disaster recovery tabletop exercise and initiated remediation with IAM.
  • Resource Optimization: Cross-trained staff to eliminate single points of failure and embedded dedicated engineering support (50% loan) with the Emerging Technology team to prime the AI Workflows service for production.
  • Infrastructure Migration: Successfully transitioned the School of Dentistry's server virtualization infrastructure (30 servers with complex imaging applications) into MiServer with zero disruption to clinical operations.
  • Cloud Management: Migrated nearly 400 AWS accounts into the new Organizational Structure and finalized renewals for all three major cloud service commitments.

Linux Team & Container Team

  • Expanded Security Coverage: Introduced Ubuntu Pro support within MiServer, securing over 30,000 open-source packages with guaranteed long-term support for up to 10 years.
  • Containerization Growth: Piloted an on-campus hosting environment to provide containerized applications with rapid access to local assets; built a dedicated container hosting environment for the Center for Academic Innovation and launched a supportive training video library.

Data Science Practice

The Data Science Practice migrated foundational infrastructure toward cloud-native solutions, minimizing reliance on constrained local hardware while expanding advanced analytic capabilities.

  • Visualization Upgrades: Transitioned to Tableau Cloud to leverage advanced, vendor-supported data-cleansing features and reduce internal infrastructure dependencies.
  • Warehouse Modernization: Concluded a multi-year Proof of Concept (POC) evaluation to launch the Data Warehouse Modernization project, moving legacy services off end-of-life products onto a cloud-native platform built for complex data modeling and integrations.

Organizational Development Team

The Organizational Development (OD) team expanded professional growth frameworks and change management services, aligning workforce capabilities with strategic university talent needs.

  • Course Satisfaction: Achieved a 90% recommendation rate among OD learning participants.
  • Practical Impact: Enabled 88% of course participants to immediately apply a new tool or workplace strategy.
  • Talent Mapping: Piloted a comprehensive skills and competency inventory to drive data-informed professional development and strategic talent planning across ITS.
  • Strategic Consulting: Expanded the newly launched OD consulting service, delivering 15 targeted engagements focused on organizational change management, team effectiveness, and facilitation.
  • Leadership Alignment: Launched the IT Leadership Conference series, convening over 100 ITS leaders to drive cross-functional collaboration, leadership growth, and organizational alignment.

Finance

The Finance team established long-term funding models for enterprise-scale technology assets, modernized rate architectures, and maintained strict fiscal discipline throughout FY26.

  • Budget Optimization: Managed the $191M FY27 budget preparation while closing FY26 accounts at $179M ($1.2M ahead of budget projections).
  • Capital Funding: Partnered with central offices to secure final funding for the five-year, $67M ARC Replacement and Expansion project.
  • Financial Architecture: Designed the billing and recharge rate models for the IT Transformation project, restructured multiple ITS Recharge Rate services, and launched the Web Hosting offering.
  • Compliance & Governance: Completed Phase I of the new CUI/CMMC compliance capability and centrally absorbed the 1% Provost task for all ITS departments.

Human Resources

ITS Human Resources deployed updated workforce governance policies, modernized performance evaluation workflows, and executed competitive compensation adjustments.

  • Talent Retention: Increased the overall ITS retention rate to 96%, onboarding nearly 40 new employees and managing 14 staff retirements.
  • Onboarding & Policy: Completed the first full year of the revamped new employee orientation program and implemented updated policies governing student hiring, ESTA requirements, and immigration guidelines.
  • AI Workforce Alignment: Integrated the new central AI job code series into the growing ITS AI department.
  • Performance Management: Partnered with Service Support to launch a digital annual review tool, training over 350 ITS staff members on the new evaluation process.
  • Compensation & Merit: Executed merit review training for supervisors and processed $1.9M in merit increases alongside $425,000 in promotional and equity adjustments.