Modernizing for What's Next

Since 1966, Parkland College has helped students in central Illinois reach their postsecondary goals through academic transfer pathways, career-focused programs, and community-centered learning. The college enrolls approximately 10,000 students annually, offers more than 130 degree and certificate programs, and serves a diverse campus community that includes students from more than 40 countries.

With technology evolving at an accelerated pace, Parkland leaders saw an opportunity to modernize the systems that underpin campus operations and institutional decision-making. The college's on-premises Colleague environment carried the weight of long-standing customizations designed for earlier ways of working. Over time, those customizations made updates more labor-intensive and limited the college's ability to take full advantage of new capabilities.

For Dr. Pamela Lau, President of Parkland College, the need to modernize Parkland's underlying technology infrastructure had become increasingly inseparable from the institution's ability to fulfill its mission.

"We can't really truly function in this day and age without keeping up with technology," Lau said.

Parkland conducted a comprehensive assessment that informed conversations across campus and helped stakeholders align around a shared vision of the future. The result was a decision to modernize to Ellucian Student powered by Colleague and Ellucian HCM and Finance, adopting Ellucian's complete Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution designed to sustain both current operational needs and future innovation.

Starting With the End in Mind

Amin Kassem, Associate Vice President of Campus Technologies and Chief Information Officer at Parkland College, helped to champion the initiative, build support, and guide it through governance and Board approval. His team approached the modernization project with a clear philosophy: Define success first, then build the project around that outcome.

"Day one, I had my team imagine the go- live week," Kassem said. "The vision was how to make that week as smooth as possible. Starting with the end in mind became the driving factor for a lot of the things we did."

Strong governance was also central to project planning. From the outset, the institution established clear project structures, oversight mechanisms, and communication processes designed to keep decisions moving and maintain alignment across stakeholders.

"There's the question, 'Can you build a house in one day?'" Kassem said. "Yes, you can if you plan properly. That's the approach we took."

Dr. Lau further emphasized the importance of fostering campuswide buy-in and collaborating closely with staff and faculty to the project's ultimate success.

"The academic enterprise can only take place if you pay attention to the infrastructure that goes behind it," Lau said. "Whether it's your business systems, your HR systems, or your student information system, you've got to see that this is an essential part of what is being done."

Turning Preparation Into Project Success

Parkland's project team remained focused on three recurring priorities as they drove the work forward: de-customization, integrations, and reporting. Keeping these priorities clearly defined and consistently reinforced helped the work stay on track.

Parkland employees rose to the challenge, learning new processes and technologies as they successfully fulfilled their roles.

"First and foremost, the success of a project of this scale depends on the people and teams behind it," Kassem said. "Vision and strategy are important, but they are ineffective without strong execution."

Rather than viewing new capabilities as end-state goals, Parkland celebrated "mini go lives" throughout the project as they became achievable. The project team also reintegrated applications and proactively migrated reports ahead of time.

When the scheduled go- live week arrived, the changeover became less about introducing new ways of working and more about transitioning the underlying system to SaaS.

"By the time we reached the final migration, people had already gotten used to the new functions and features," Kassem said. "It became just really switching the system from on-premises to the cloud."

Parkland's successful go live validated its careful preparation, planning, and change management efforts. The college completed its implementation on time and on budget and restored operations ahead of schedule during the planned cutover period.

"We were supposed to come back on Monday the following week," Kassem said. "We ended up finishing by Thursday and brought the system back live early."

Simplifying Infrastructure and Operations

With their transition to a SaaS-based operating model complete, Parkland is recognizing meaningful gains across the institution. The college retired 30 virtual servers, reducing infrastructure refresh costs by approximately 40% and lowering annual backup costs by an additional $12,000. The migration also bolstered institutional resiliency.

"In the past, we were a single site for our ERP system," Kassem said. "We didn't have standby infrastructure to fail over to in case of disaster. Disaster recovery has been much improved as part of the project."

During the project, Parkland's project team eliminated more than 560 customizations that had accumulated on its legacy system. The simplified integrations, standardized workflows, and automated updates available within Ellucian's SaaS environment now save Parkland's technology teams approximately 30 hours per week.

"We don't have to support the lower layers of the system anymore," Kassem said. "That allows us to free resources to work on more important things and focus more on our end users."

Staff and faculty across campus are also beginning to take advantage of new capabilities. Dr. Lau is particularly encouraged by the reporting and analytics tools that her office can now leverage.

"Now we have the data warehouse that I've been looking for," Lau said. "I won't have to send an email to institutional research every time I want a report and wait for something to be churned out within five days."

Igniting Innovation Across Campus

From the beginning, Parkland College viewed modernization as a necessary step toward building a stable foundation for the institution's next chapter. Early signs of engagement and adoption across campus have demonstrated how investing in infrastructure can inspire innovation.

"It has ignited possibilities," Lau said. "We have creative, innovative people here who are not content to do things the same old way, but are looking for new ways and better ways to do things."

According to Kassem, the institution is now looking to future opportunities that will build on its SaaS environment, including innovative digital service delivery, new user experiences, and emerging artificial intelligence capabilities.

"With the migration to the cloud, we're better positioned for future technology enhancements," Kassem said. "I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next, and how we'll be able to take advantage of AI."

Looking back, Lau sees the project's greatest success not simply as a successful migration, but as an opportunity to reposition technology as a strategic enabler of the institution's mission.

"The college is only as good as its people," Lau said. "Our success depends on people not only being able to do their work, but being excited about the work and how the tools we provide help them achieve the mission from their corner of the campus."