Have we really designed our systems for the people we serve, or just for the people who have always been here?
Higher education is now serving five generations of students at once, and each brings a different expectation of what “great service” looks like. There’s the traditional student who grew up online and expects every process to feel as seamless as ordering a coffee through an app. There’s the returning adult learner who still values personal interaction and the reassurance that comes from a face-to-face conversation. Then there are everyone in between, from those who grew up in the AOL era to those who grew up asking Alexa for homework help. They all deserve to feel like the institution was built for them, not the other way around.
In IT, we often talk about systems, workflows, and processes, but we rarely talk about people. The truth is, technology in higher education has evolved faster than the mindsets that manage it. Too often, I hear “this is just how we’ve always done it,” even when there’s no policy or data to justify why. It’s a sentence that quietly kills innovation. The moment we stop questioning the why behind a workflow, we stop serving the people that workflow was meant for.
User experience isn’t about screens and interfaces. It’s about empathy. It’s about the single mother finishing her degree online who just needs someone on the phone who can walk her through resetting her login without being told to “come in for help.” It’s about the first-generation student standing at the bursar’s office who’s told to “go pay online,” even though they came in person because they trust people more than portals. Neither approach is wrong. What’s wrong is when our systems and staff aren’t built to handle both.
Leadership has to stop designing processes around internal convenience and start designing them around student reality. That means investing in training so support staff can close their eyes and picture what the student is experiencing on the other side of the screen. It means creating policies that empower flexibility, not punish it. It means understanding that digital-first doesn’t have to mean digital-only.
Every interaction, whether online or in person, is an opportunity to make someone feel capable, seen, and supported. The goal of modern IT in higher ed isn’t just to modernize—it’s to humanize.