Build a Campus Platform with Slate
By expanding Slate beyond admissions, St. Lawrence University reduced costs, unified processes, and replaced multiple standalone systems across campus.
Institution Snapshot
Institution: St. Lawrence University
Location: Canton, New York
Primary Stakeholders: Faculty, Advisors, Deans, Executives, IT
Enrollment: ~2,000 undergraduate students
Initial Slate Adoption: Admissions (2017)
Current Scope: Institution-wide operational platform
The Challenge
St. Lawrence’s personalized approach to student-facing processes helped students feel seen, valued, and helped, but left staff and faculty over-burdened and under-resourced.
Academic forms, petitions, advising approvals, leave requests, and reviews were managed through paper, email, and disconnected tools. Students moved from office to office for signatures, while staff relied on spreadsheets for tracking. This limited faculty visibility to overall metrics and individual student status.
Could one platform support more of the institution’s operational work?
The Solution
St. Lawrence University expanded its use of Slate from admissions into a shared operational platform for student success and institutional processes.
It began with a single workflow for major and advisor changes and steadily expanded across departments.
Today Slate supports:
Academic change requests and approvals
Course evaluation
Student accessibility workflows
Emergency contact management
Document storage across departments
Dean’s office processes
Institutional forms and approvals
Campus-wide workflows (30+ active processes
Security and access were structured by department, so each office sees only relevant student information while maintaining centralized data integrity.
“We started with one process and realized we could replicate it across nearly everything we do.”
The Impact
Operational Efficiency
Paper processes eliminated across multiple offices
Standardized routing and approvals across 30+ workflows
Significant time savings each semester across campus staff
Cost Reduction
Ongoing replacement of standalone software tools with Slate functionality
Technology purchasing decisions now evaluated against Slate capabilities
Platform consolidation used as part of institutional cost-containment strategy
Adoption & Institutional Alignment
Used by faculty, vice presidents, and executive leadership
Campus-wide acceptance after initial hesitation from faculty
Shared workflows improved consistency across departments
Data & Decision Making
Centralized document storage with role-based security
Institutional data available across offices instead of isolated systems
Preparing to proactively identify student needs through data analysis
The Result
Slate evolved from an admissions system into institutional infrastructure.
Instead of purchasing new point solutions for each need, departments now collaborate around a shared platform. Processes are consistent, secure, and repeatable across campus, reducing complexity while improving service.
What began as a workflow project became a long-term operational strategy.
What’s Next
St. Lawrence is expanding its use of Slate to deeper student success analytics and evaluating replacement of additional student support systems, enabling proactive identification of students who may need help rather than relying solely on manual referrals.