Technolutions

For those of you who know me, you know I am not short for words when it comes to Slate and Slate adjacent topics. But as I reflect on the past two weeks and all that has occurred in the Slate community, I can honestly say: My words would not do justice to all I witnessed. Many moons ago (12 years) a group of around 15 from a few schools in central and eastern PA got together to explore some deep seeded curiosity and to learn this new tool we all had called Slate. Fast forward a few years, I joined forces with a colleague and friend in Alex Williams who shared some values in connecting and becoming a beacon of support to users of Slate, new and old. Through the generous support of RHB in the early days and now Huron, I have had the genuine pleasure, along with Kelly Lewis to see the PA Slate User group flourish in this idea of connection and collaboration through the PA Slate Summit. Tuesday marked the 9th in-person gathering (with 2 years skipped due to Covid), with nearly 300 attendees and Thursday marked the inaugural western PA gathering with more than 70. Wow! Just wow! But it’s so much more than that. Technolutions has embraced the community and is showing up in support. There are regional Slate user groups all over the country. Many of whom have had in-person or hybrid meetings in 2026. Of the ones that have happened just in the last 2 weeks a staggering 650+ Slate users have gathered to meet, reconnect, share and learn from each other in TN, OH, both halves of PA and OR. Huron was at all of them, facilitating the conversation; sharing knowledge collected over decades of Slate experience; leading the way on innovative solutions to unique institutional challenges; and fostering the community that is uniquely special to Slate. Among all that occurred in the past two weeks to be grateful for, here are a small sampling (not in any particular order): - Working for an amazing company in Huron whose leadership lives a shared value system - Witnessing the regional user group community far beyond the PA walls - Tremendous collegiality, connection and collaboration - Friends reuniting, new friendships created - Slate users stretching themselves (through knowledge sharing) and launching their future careers I am full and we haven't even hit the Slate Innovation Summit.

If you're in the Slate Community, don't miss Gwendolyn Page, Karin Ente, and Katy Pate's Get Inspired collab to create your own Technolutions Slate Professional Profile. You can add it as a "media" item to your LinkedIn Profile too after you set up your shared link! Link to mine is below and link to Get Inspired post is in the comments. https://lnkd.in/ejYsCpQU

🎉 Slate Summit will be here before you know it! RSVP for our evening happy hour get-together with us and the Slate for Advancement community. Technolutions #slate #slateforadvancement ➡️ https://hubs.li/Q04hyCLm0 📍 The Twelve Thirty Club Rooftop 🍪 Join us for light bites, drinks, and conversation It’s the perfect way to kick off Slate Summit and connect with fellow Slate for Advancement professionals! Space is limited; RSVP by June 12th to save your spot.

This week marked the 4th Annual Ohio Slate User Group Conference. The weather was perfect and the energy was palpable. Thank you to our hosts at Cleveland State University! The space was fantastic and your team was so welcoming and helpful! Thank you to everyone who attended, presented, or supported your team attending! (I am especially thankful to Kristen Zuro Kolenz and Jessica Sabath, who invited me into their presentation.) Your investment in professional development makes a huge difference for you and on your campus! Thank you to the support of Technolutions, who I could feel cheering us on from New Haven! We are so thankful Devon Corbett-Sliech could join us in Cleveland! We are so appreciative to our sponsors: Post Captain Consulting, Human Capital Education, Huron, SIG (Strata Information Group), Carnegie, ReWorkflow, and enrollmentFUEL. I love working in the #Slate world, where we all want to see higher education thrive - and we actively seek ways to help the community. Thank you for your support of events like this, where we make learning possible! Of course, an extra thanks to the leadership at enrollmentFUEL for supporting my work in this space. I am grateful to help create opportunities for professional growth in this space. Finally, I am so incredibly thankful to our planning committee: Clinton Midkiff, Ryan Collins, Jennifer Sayre, PhD, Christina Sobh, Jeff Strickland, Mark Ledoux, and Jonathan Cherry. You all were on it this year! This was our smoothest year yet - and it was thanks to your efforts. I look forward to seeing many of you next month at #SlateSummit and (hopefully) all of you next year at Bowling Green!

A successful Pennsylvania Slate Summit has come to a close! We had 289 attendees at West Chester University. Always great to catch up with the Pennsylvania User Group. A special thanks to everyone who helped plan this event! Domenick Rozzi, Kelly Lewis, Joshua Frankenfield, Diane Titter, Bethany Parliament-Chevalier, Jessenia Garcia, Erica Akaya Matt, Katie Lehnert, Najla Cree Whitehead. Thank you Jennifer Matyasovszky and Louise Karneus from Technolutions for making the trip to spend the day with us! I got to lead Configurable Joins Live working session with configurable joins challenges in realtime with Tommy Kennedy and Kelly Lewis. Shout out to Noah Porter and Morgan Meck for a great presentation on gamification badges! You can also see their presentation in Nashville! Looking forward to Slate Summit in Nashville in a few weeks!

At a conference this week, I was the only person from our college, so I spent the day introducing myself and sitting with strangers. In the conversations, I was intrigued by the varying levels of staffing and support across institutions. Some had fully fleshed out teams who were thriving, while others were constantly operating at a deficit of man power. In one of my conversations, someone told me they were barely scraping by as a team of one, but they wished they could do innovative things. I responded: here’s one thing I did this past year that took me about an hour to build, but has re-shaped student outreach for our office. I then walked them through the steps to build it out over lunch. I walked away from the conference grateful. We are certainly not the most resource rich office, but we have an incredible team and the support we need to continue to grow and innovate in the space. I was also humbled again by the Technolutions Slate community and how willing we all are to share our experiences and insights to improve things for everyone.

The Great Plains Slate Community Group will have our first meeting on Friday, May 15 at 10am CT! Join our inaugural virtual meeting to meet fellow Slaters in our region and idea share! 👋 We're also excited to share that we've been added to the Slate Summit schedule for an in-person meeting on Friday, June 26. Technolutions 🦈 Erin Toney Drew Carr Will Burenheide

On Tuesday, over 150+ Technolutions #Slate users in TN came together at Middle Tennessee State University for our first ever STAG Summit! And we even picked up some attendees from neighboring states! Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who attended and made our first-ever event ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC! STAG Summit was made possible by our volunteer Event Committee, who planned every last detail and worked tirelessly to see it through. Thanks to the generosity of several Preferred Partners, it was completely FREE -- lunch included! MTSU was a gracious host, even providing a whole parking lot for attendees. Sessions were taught workshop-style, led by community members who volunteered, and covered a range of skill levels and topics. We ain't called the Volunteer State for nothing! Shout out to the following people I KNOW are here on LinkedIn... if I missed you, it was not intentional, please holler in the comments! Janelle Dietrich, Kayla Williams, Emily T., Michelle Stanley, Arielle Kilday, Kerline Lorantin, Claire Hirte, Domenick Rozzi, Bailey Raffield, Kathryn Lucas, Parishweta Bhatt, Isaac Duncan, and Ryan Herman. (Plus many others who are not on this platform, but were still integral to this event and its success <3) I seriously couldn't be more pleased with how this event turned out and how the community showed up! Looking forward to 2027 (after a nap or two)!