January 5, 2012

Dear Colleagues:

Happy New Year!

Thanks to the dedicated efforts of our faculty and staff, the University has made extraordinary progress in recent years and is now recognized as one of America's top-tier research universities. Key to maintaining our positive momentum is the ability to provide our people—students, faculty, and staff—with the tools they need to be successful. A top priority in this regard is the modernization of our enterprise administrative systems, the underlying business processes and technology that we rely upon for everything from student registration to payroll to purchasing and billing. This university-wide undertaking will involve not only upgrading the information technology that drives student, financial, and human resources systems—it represents a fundamental transformation in the way we conduct business and provide services.

This enterprise resource planning (ERP) initiative will span several years and be implemented in three parts. Phase 1, which will launch early this year, will replace our current student information system with industry-leading software – Oracle PeopleSoft Campus Solutions. Campus Solutions will provide students and faculty with many new capabilities, including an enhanced registration process, course wait lists, prerequisite checking, student academic planning, improved tools for academic advising, and increased off-campus access to integrated academic information and services. This software has the capabilities that our students, faculty and staff require and can find at peer institutions.

While we launch the implementation of the student system, we will also initiate an analysis to determine the systems that best meet the University’s needs for payroll and human resources support, as well as for financial and supply chain management. Those phases of the project will follow closely behind the student system replacement.

This is one of the most far-reaching projects in UM’s history. Over the next several years, it will impact each and every one of us. Many of our jobs will evolve as we implement more efficient and effective ways to deliver services to our students, faculty, and staff.

There will be many ways for you to be engaged in this effort, including advisory committees, testing groups, and feedback tools. We will tell you more about our plans and progress through a comprehensive website, updates in e-Veritas, and other campus media.

Thank you, in advance, for your cooperation in this critical endeavor. And thanks for all you do for our University.

Thomas J. LeBlanc Executive Vice President and Provost	Joe Natoli Senior Vice President for Business and Finance and Chief Financial Officer