Student Affairs and Technology: To Centralize or Not to Centralize

Technology impacts student affairs operations in several different ways. Advertising events on the Internet, online maintenance requests in residence halls and interactive educational programs are a few examples of how student affairs is utilizing today’s technology. As technology continues to advance, student affairs divisions will continue to utilize more technology in everyday operations. Student affairs divisions need to analyze how their Information Technology departments are structured and staffed, how they are using technology effectively and how they are planning for future technology use. Student affairs divisions are typically comprised of several different departments, but not all student affairs divisions have their own IT department. A recent study suggested that a major problem of advancing technology in student affairs is when student affairs relies on the institution’s centralized IT department (Barratt, 2001). Centralized IT departments have to plan, implement, support and maintain all IT resources on the entire campus. This can limit the amount of time and resources that the IT department can devote specifically to student affair