Success Story: New Mexico State University
New Mexico State University’s MAP Program staff, faculty, and students to benefit from automations in Slate
When New Mexico State University’s master’s accelerated program (MAP) wanted to upgrade their manual processes and move toward automating program management, Danielle Salas began advocating for the adoption of Slate for student success. MAP, an opportunity that is offered to current undergraduates at NM State, enables students to enroll in up to six credit hours that count toward both undergraduate and graduate degrees. Application material management, form creation, and review was all done manually. Because Danielle worked in this office previously, she understood first-hand how inefficient the process was and this became the starting point for the case that Slate should be adopted.
An additional obstacle involved changing the mindset of campus staff who were focused on the fact that business processes differed for undergraduate and graduate students. Danielle spent a lot of time working internally to educate constituents about how Slate could be leveraged. During Slate Summit 2022 she networked with peers who had overcome similar misconceptions on their own campuses, and she became more optimistic that her colleagues could be convinced that Slate could work for them.
Inspired by the successes of the schools she met at Summit, Danielle continued to advocate for an improved process. She met with Technolutions experts as well as staff at the university such as IT, VPs, Deans, and Data Custodians and finally received the green light to leverage Slate’s functionality for student success in the MAP program beginning in January of 2023. There are currently three staff who process MAP, degree certification, and admissions for graduate students, and migrating to Slate will free up staff time. Implementing Slate will allow these staff to focus on enrollment, professional development, and improved customer service. Once MAP is humming along, Danielle plans to begin building out an automated process for Degree Certification to launch by May 2023.
“This was a project worth fighting for. All of the Graduate School faculty and staff, financial aid, and student records offices are thrilled to have these two processes automated in Slate.”