Over the last couple of weeks Andrews University has transitioned to using Dynamic Campus, a third party company, to handle the IT services at Andrews University. Due to the increasing complexities of information technologies and needs of the campus, Andrews University has decided to outsource the management of the IT services. Dynamic Campus has been working with faith-based higher education organizations for over 20 years, making it, according to some, the outsource company of choice. However, with this new transition comes a variety of opinions and questions of what the pros and cons will be for Andrews University, its staff and its students.
The transition placed ITS employees in a situation where they could continue working as new employees for Dynamic Campus or resign. While some employees have decided to remain on campus and transition to working for Dynamic Campus, several employees have been moved to other positions or resigned.
Two of the individuals who chose to resign were Dan and Lorena Bidwell. Lorena Bidwell has been the Chief Information Officer at Andrews University for many years. Along with the Bidwells, three additional client services individuals have resigned. As a result of these resignations, Russell Murnighan (graduate student, seminary), a Contact Center Technician, explained, “there may be delays in hands-on needs such as fixing laptops. Students and staff will have to be patient in getting their requests processed during this transition.”
Additionally, student workers for ITS have been allowed to continue on as Andrews University employees. Murnighan explained, “This transition does not affect my position and the position of other student workers.” However, while the student workers were able to keep their jobs, there is speculation that there will be fewer—if any—positions in the future for hiring new ITS student workers. One employee stated, “I imagine there will be fewer roles like mine in the future.” Therefore, there appears to not only be immediate, but long term effect for both staff and students as a result of this transition.
While parts of this transition may not initially seem entirely positive, the University is stepping forward to improve and move with the times. One employee explained that since Dynamic Campus is a larger entity than the original ITS team, the hope is that Andrews will have access to resources they did not have before in times of distress. Therefore, Andrews desires to enlarge their IT abilities and be able to provide the University with the services its students and staff need. Andrews hopes that this transition will help protect and provide security for Andrews IT systems, improve the efficiency of services on campus, and lead to a higher level of communication across campus. The full benefits or shortcomings of the Dynamic Systems move will only be apparent after some time.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.