Pathify’s software and vendor-agnostic system enabled the community college to innovate despite limited resources, CEI Application Development Manager Ray Michel said.
Integrating the “application layer” is a growing trend in higher education as schools have turned to more third-party vendors to keep up with rapid technology changes in light of generative AI, Michel said. Steve Brown, CEI’s chief information officer, said his team has more than 300 tech tools that still need to be vetted before implementation.
Keeping track of all those sites and apps can be taxing for faculty and administrators, and navigating to many different places for information like grades, forms and emergency notices can wear on students, Michel said.
“Idaho has a limited population to begin with, and a good majority of that population lives over in Boise, which is the capital,” he said. “So, when the Legislature allocates funds, we just don’t rate that high, compared to, say, a school sitting in Boise.”
With funding constraints, an enterprise solution to the disconnected applications was not on the table. Kay Meixner, CEI’s enterprise project manager, said not all integration is built the same. Its ease of use for a small staff, use of modern entry points rather than static links and attention to detail on emergency alerts led the CEI team to select Pathify.
In myCEI, “They can see anything Microsoft 365. We have an events widget up where we can update events. We have a task manager up for them. They can see their academic profile, their GPA, what majors they're in, their balances for their term, things like that,” Meixner said. “So it’s a one-stop shop.”
