Blue Hen Excellence
Operational Transparency Innovation and Service
Under the direction of the Executive Vice President for Finance & Administration, the University of Delaware is undertaking a series of strategic projects to improve campus operations, ensure financial stability and sustainability, align administrative processes and mitigate risk. This long-term initiative is composed of multiple projects focused on discrete challenges and opportunities, each managed by functional leaders in key positions and supported by relevant staff throughout the University.
This website is designed to keep the UD informed about the initiative and provide opportunities to engage in the improvement process. Information about the scope and status of each project is available below, grouped into three broad categories.
Ensure trusted, seamless, and high‑value experiences for the campus community
Standardizing Non‑Benefitted Hiring Through Talent Link
Project: Expansion of Talent Link, building on its existing use for full‑time staff, faculty and undergraduate student hiring to include Supplemental Professional, Adjunct Faculty, Miscellaneous Wage, and Graduate Student Labor roles.
The Challenges to be Addressed: Hiring for these employee groups relied on multiple approaches, including manual steps and email‑based coordination, with limited visibility. This led to inconsistent experiences and made it difficult to clearly understand hiring activity, timelines, and requirements across campus.
The Impact for UD: By bringing additional employee groups into Talent Link, the University will create a more consistent and transparent hiring experience across campus. Departments will gain clearer insight into hiring activity, and leadership will have access to better data to support planning and oversight. Standardizing the approach to hiring also improves coordination and reliability, ensuring candidates receive a clear, timely, and professional experience that strengthens UD’s reputation and supports a smoother hiring process for everyone involved.
Milestones:
- March/April 2026 — Campus communications
- May 2026 — Stakeholder training
- Summer 2026 — Go live
Managers: Melissa Bard, vice president and chief human resources officer; Kate Bove, director of human resources projects and strategic initiatives
Campus Safety Projects
Enhancing security cameras for the University population to provide a safer campus
The Project: Enhance safety on campus by providing adequate security camera coverage
The Challenges to be Addressed: Many cameras are past their life expectancy. These need to be replaced and additional cameras are needed for adequate security coverage.
The Impact for UD: The UD Police Department will be able to provide proactive policing and thorough investigatory resources to improve safety and solve crime.
Milestones:
- July 2026 — Project kickoff and assessment
- September 2026 — Obtain quotes and begin bidding process
- January 2027 — Begin installation of new security cameras
- April 2027 — Ensure all cameras are functioning properly
- December 2027 — Review budget and maintenance timeline
Manager: Patrick Ogden, associate vice president and chief of police
Enhancing security controls for the University population to provide a safer campus
The Project: Add access control and security cameras to the main academic buildings to foster an environment where students, faculty, and staff feel safe
The Challenges to be Addressed: o Many heavily trafficked academic buildings do not have access control or cameras on the exterior doors.
The Impact for UD: The UD Police Department will have the ability to lock and unlock buildings remotely, will have additional camera coverage in high traffic areas. Integration of card access with ADA door openers.
Milestones:
- Phase I
- April-May 2026 — Pricing buildings that can add access control and cameras without architectural services
- May 2026 — Mobilize contractors to begin installation of security equipment
- May-December 2026 — Installation of access control and security cameras
- Phase II
- May 2026 — Issue RFP for architectural services
- July-November 2026 — Design Phase
- December 2026 – February 2027 — Bidding
- April 2027 — Mobilize for Phase II
- Construction timeline TBD
Manager: Patrick Ogden, associate vice president and chief of police
Enhancing license plate readers for the University population to provide a safer campus
The Project: Enhance safety on campus by providing adequate license plate reader coverage
The Challenges to be Addressed: Increase license plate reader coverage around Newark campus to cover more ingress and egress points
The Impact for UD: The UD Police Department o will be able to provide immediate, actionable information to aid in vehicle recovery, locate missing persons, and solve crime to enhance safety on campus.
Milestones:
- July 2026 — Project kickoff and assessment
- September 2026 — Identify pole locations
- January 2027 — Obtain quotes and begin bidding process
- April 2027 — Install all new license plate reader cameras
- December 2027 — Evaluate coverage and functionality
Manager: Patrick Ogden, associate vice president and chief of police
Enhancing the security of the University Police space for additional safety measures
The Project: Enhance building and infrastructure security of University of Delaware Police Department to safeguard employees, students, visitors and equipment from external threats
The Challenges to be Addressed: Replace and install security measures to restrict unauthorized access and prevent harm to the police department and its personnel
The Impact on UD: The UD Police Department will be less vulnerable to an external threat.
Milestones:
- July 2026 — Project kickoff and assessment
- September 2026 — Identify specific areas that need safety enhancements
- January 2027 — Obtain quotes and begin bidding process
- April 2027 — Install all new safety enhancements
- December 2027 — Project completed
Manager: Patrick Ogden, associate vice president and chief of police
Modernize processes, systems, and ways of working
Create the foundation for operational efficiency and student success through strategic technology enhancements
The Project: The University of Delaware is embarking on a large-scale administrative modernization effort to improve core business functions, deliver robust analytics, enhance data security, and drive operational efficiency, enabling time and resources to be directed back into the research, teaching and service missions of the University. The Readiness project will provide the actionable outputs to guide the future direction of the implementation project. Our focus areas will include data cleanup, reimagining business processes within the existing PeopleSoft environment, enhancing information delivery, and the possible inclusion of a service orchestration layer.
The Challenges to be Addressed:
- Reduce operational risks associated with legacy system configuration decisions
- Enhance and optimize our existing PeopleSoft environment with emphasis on user experience and overall system effectiveness
- Improve quality and accuracy of reporting to make it easier to manage operations with more accurate and up-to-date information
- Enable faculty, staff, and leaders to make faster and more effective decisions by pulling data more rapidly and seamlessly
- Speed up day-to-day processes to save staff time
- Bolster efficiency through more consistent and standardized processes and data
The Impact on UD:
- Business process simplification
- Improved ERP functionality
- Enhanced decision making
- Improved student, faculty and staff experience
- Agility for growth and innovation
- Prepare the University to incorporate AI into future business processes
- Align with industry direction without the expense of a full ERP replatform
Milestones:
- Project Launch – March 19, 2026
- Current State Assessment – June 2026
- Future State Vision – September 2026
- Implementation Roadmap – December 2026
Managers: Angela Chen, vice president and chief information officer; Candice Zhu, assistant vice president for enterprise systems and data management
Provide clear governance, accountability, and open communication
Moving toward an integrated asset management model to maximize asset life, improve operational efficiency and increase customer communications
The Project: Establish a shared, authoritative single source of information for University assets that reliably supports maintenance management, asset condition reporting, project planning and delivery, space management, fleet management and broader University and research asset management, enabled via a unified suite of tools and workflows.
The Challenges to be Addressed: Currently, the university business processes are spread across many disconnected systems with conflicting data and no central management. This Asset Management system project will centralize the management and data flow for all facilities and university assets being managed. It will improve customer service and communication, support strategic asset replacement plans based on real-time condition assessments and extend asset life to maximize both operational efficiency and capital reinvestment.
The Impact on UD:
- Improved management of all University assets
- Real-time asset condition assessments
- Strategic asset replacement priorities and reinvestments
- Extended asset lifespan
- Increased operational efficiency
- Data-driven preventative and predictive maintenance
- Improved customer experience and communication
- Improved reporting and analytics
Milestones:
- Summer-Fall 2026 — Selection of software solutions
- Fall 2026 — Begin phase implementation of improved maintenance management system and communications
- Spring 2027 — Implement improved asset management system
- Winter 2028 — Extend asset management solutions to non-facility university assets
Managers: Tom Flood, associate vice president xxxxxxxxx; Kevin Borek, xxxxxxxx
New Capital Planning Process to improve identification of campus needs and priorities for critical investments
The Project: As part of the integrated operating and capital plan, increased participation and transparency are critical to determining how to allocate resources to capital investments.
The Challenges to be Addressed: Information about the capital investments and needs on our campus needs to be shared more broadly. With limited resources, it is crucial to align investments with our strategic plans and institutional goals.
The Impact on UD: Creating a more transparent and inclusive process will help members of the campus community understand the critical investments being made and elevate needs that might otherwise not be clearly articulated. Setting criteria, weighing the criteria, and scoring each project creates a method that is clear.
Milestones: The University established a capital planning advisory committee. Fiscal year 2027 is our first iteration on an ongoing process to collect needs, rank project priorities and then apply funding sources as available.
Manager: Marci Hutton, associate vice president, campus and enterprise capital planning