Press Releases
Savannah College of Art and Design Wins 2010 SunGard Higher Education Award for Institutional Performance
April 12, 2010 — San Francisco, CA
SunGard Higher Education announced The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) as the 2010 winner of the SunGard Higher Education Award for Institutional Performance for outstanding results from its academic process redesign initiative. More than 5,000 attendees watched the award presentation during the opening session that kicked off the four-day SunGard Summit annual conference in San Francisco. In addition to the award, SCAD will receive $10,000 for student aid and scholarship.
SCAD was honored for its successful redesign of 15 academic processes that had proven outdated for students and departments across campus. Previously, students who wanted to process requests such as withdrawing from courses, applying for internships, requesting prerequisite waivers, declaring or changing majors, requesting transcripts, or applying for graduation had to manually walk paper forms through a progression of requirements, obtaining necessary hand-written signatures and other approvals from offices across a multi-building urban campus. The redesign transformed the tasks into an online environment of efficient, automated and easily accessible transactions.
The project has made a difference in student satisfaction and has contributed to efficiency improvements across the campus. According to SCAD:
- 8,300 student requests have been processed, saving 1,200 person hours so far and projecting an annual time savings of 2,100 hours
- 2,700 prerequisite requests have been processed, saving approximately 445 person hours annually
“Our Academic Processes Administrative Redesign project is emblematic of SCAD’s commitment to providing a high-quality educational experience for our students,” said Harley Lingerfelt, vice president for information management and technology, SCAD. “Increasing student access to academic processes, and improving the ease with which they navigate through such requests, contributes to a more positive academic environment.”
SCAD utilized several SunGard Higher Education solutions to achieve its objectives, including: the Luminis Platform; the Banner Digital Campus; and the Banner Workflow engine, which was central to achieving the automation and efficiency-related goals of the project. The success of the project has led to the creation of more administrative redesign teams that are examining other business processes at the institution and are exploring more ways to improve efficiency and better serve students.
“SCAD’s nomination revealed an institution that is not satisfied with status quo, that continually strives to improve the education experience, and that dares to change,” said Ron Lang, chief executive officer, SunGard Higher Education. “We congratulate SCAD on this well-deserved accolade and feel privileged to play a supporting role in this achievement.”
The SunGard Higher Education Award for Institutional Performance recognizes one institution of higher education for measurable institutional performance improvements supported through SunGard Higher Education technologies and/or services. Final judging is done by a panel of peer institutions. Nominations that earned finalist recognition included:
- Community College of Philadelphia
- The College of William & Mary
- Georgia Southern University
- Michigan Technological University
- SAIT Polytechnic
- University of North Carolina Wilmington
- University of the West Indies
- Vermont College of Fine Arts
About The Savannah College of Art and Design
The Savannah College of Art and Design is a private, nonprofit, accredited institution that offers bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in 46 majors. Visit scad.edu.
About SunGard Higher Education
SunGard Higher Education serves colleges, universities and foundations in 40 countries worldwide. Through its Open Digital Campus strategy, SunGard collaborates with the higher education community and provides software and services to help institutions find better ways to teach, learn, manage and connect. To learn more, please visit www.sungardhe.com.
About SunGard
SunGard is one of the world’s leading software and technology services companies. SunGard has more than 20,000 employees and serves 25,000 customers in 70 countries. SunGard provides software and processing solutions for financial services, higher education and the public sector. SunGard also provides disaster recovery services, managed IT services, information availability consulting services and business continuity management software. With annual revenue exceeding $5 billion, SunGard is ranked 435 on the Fortune 500 and is the largest privately held business software and IT services company.
Trademark information: SunGard, the SunGard logo, Banner and Luminis are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.