From Six Tools to One: A Higher Ed IT Consolidation Story

Speaker: Heather Meyers

Today's students expect Netflix-level personalization and Amazon-style convenience — seamless, customized and mobile-first. But more than half say their institution's digital experience doesn't measure up. Our 2025 Student Digital Experience Survey reveals that 47% have missed critical deadlines due to fragmented systems and 32% would reconsider their college choice based solely on digital experience.

For IT leaders, the challenge runs deeper than student frustration — it's a sprawling, expensive stack of redundant tools that's difficult to maintain and increasingly hard to justify.

This session pairs that data with a real-world consolidation story. We'll walk through how Dalhousie University replaced six standalone tools — a social app, communication platform, campus portal, separate mobile portal and more — with a single Campus Experience Platform. The result: a unified hub for students, faculty, staff and alumni that reduced digital sprawl, simplified administration and delivered measurable cost savings. And as contracts expire, Dalhousie continues rolling tools into the platform — turning consolidation into an ongoing strategy rather than a one-time project.

You'll leave with the data to build a compelling case for change and a proven roadmap to act on it.

Learning Objectives:

  • After attending this session, participants will be able to:
  • Interpret student digital experience data — including expectations benchmarks, dropout risk factors and satisfaction drivers — to build an urgent, evidence-based case for platform consolidation with leadership and budget stakeholders at their own institutions.
  • Evaluate their current digital ecosystem against a Campus Experience Platform framework, identifying where fragmented tools (portals, chatbots, apps, intranets) are creating operational overhead, redundant contracts and student frustration — using Dalhousie University's consolidation of six tools into a single platform as a real-world benchmark.
  • Apply stakeholder buy-in and change management strategies from peer institutions that have successfully reduced digital sprawl — including how Dalhousie navigated tool sunset timelines, integration requirements and cross-functional alignment across IT and student affairs.
  • Articulate the ROI of platform consolidation — from cost savings and contract reduction to improved student engagement — using concrete implementation outcomes that translate directly into capital planning and vendor evaluation conversations."

Speaker Bio:

With over a decade of experience in higher education, Heather Meyers is passionate about helping institutions create better digital experiences for students, faculty and staff. As an Account Executive at Pathify, Heather partners with decision-makers to reimagine and optimize campus technology ecosystems. Heather's background spans higher ed tech, marketing, sales and athletics, giving her a well-rounded approach to her work. In her downtime, she enjoys traveling, playing pickleball, serving as a referee in her local community and spending quality time with her family.