Put an Expert at The Helm

What’s your favorite type of Slate project?

Anything that exists in the intersection between evergreen Slate functionality (something you don’t have to update every year) and making someone’s job easier (simplifying or accelerating a complicated process). That’s often some kind of a portal, but it can also be a suite of administrative alerts or dashboards, an internal-use dataset, or a custom integration.

What's your favorite way to engage with the Slate community?

Slate Summit. There’s nothing like the energy that comes from bringing Slate users together under one roof to learn, brainstorm, and celebrate.

When you're not Slating, what are you doing?

Trick question, since I am always Slating somewhere deep in my subconscious. But I also love walks to the playground with my wife and daughter and tinkering with projects around the house.

How did you first come to Slate?

Like many others, I started my career as an admissions counselor at Ohio Wesleyan University. From there my path wound all around the enrollment division until I landed in the Data Manager seat. We implemented Slate and the rest is history.

What's your favorite type of project?

I love the relationships formed during long-term support projects. Feeling like you are a part of the team and seeing huge improvements to the processes is an amazing feeling.

When you're not Slating, what are you doing?

When I am not Slating, you can find me at the Columbus Zoo, waterpark, or playground with my husband and two children. I also love to read, build puzzles, and eat delicious food.

How did you first come to Slate?

My Slate journey began in the Summer of 2013 over several rounds of French 75s at the Union League Cafe with Alexander Clark, who invited me to join his growing team at Technolutions. At that time, Technolutions supported 60 schools. We were responsible for building every application and trigger (rules before there were rules), and we helped schools with everything else from fields to portals.

What is your favorite way to engage with the Slate community?

I loved teaching Launchpad, Launchpad 200, and Basecamp (remember that?). So, I can’t wait for Post Captain to launch our own Navigator Series workshops.

When you're not Slating, what are you doing?

My head belongs to Slate, but my heart belongs to the great outdoors. I love camping with my dog Bailey and I dream of catching that perfect sunset wave off Playa Guiones.

What's your favorite way to engage with the Slate community?

There are so many great ways to connect with everyone, and I might be biased, but Post Captain Office Hours are my favorite. With a narrow focus and small group, we are able to have a meaningful conversation and share with the community. Summit is an amazing experience but this introvert loves the low-pressure, smaller group discussions.

How did you first come to Slate?

After I received my MA in Applied Linguistics, I found myself working in the Office of Admissions at a small liberal arts school. With very limited experience in the field, I started working with Slate during the implementation of the CRM as one of the school’s Captains. Eventually, I made the big jump to Technolutions in 2020. Now at Post Captain, I am able to approach projects, requests, and conversations from all Slate points of view!

What’s one Slate thing you are proud of?

The growth of Slate.org and Start.edu is something that I will always be proud of when it comes to the greater Slate community. I worked closely with the Slate.org team at Technolutions for a few years, and as a student’s first point of entry to the Slate world, I am so happy I got to be a part of that.

What’s one Slate thing you are proud of?

I’m proud of my ability to translate items from different instance types – leveraging my Advancement background and interpreting how items used in Advancement can be helpful in Admissions and vice versa. Slate provides many of the same building blocks in both instance types and I enjoy finding ways to configure them to help my clients get the most out of Slate.

How did you first come to Slate?

I never envisioned becoming a Slate Captain! Throughout my 10 years in higher education, I worked in different capacities in both Annual Giving and Alumni Relations roles. During my time as the Alumni Engagement Director at Mount St. Mary’s University, it became more and more apparent that we couldn’t do our jobs efficiently trying to piece together 7+ systems to meet the needs of the university and our constituents. Our admissions team had recently implemented Slate and our CIO encouraged us to look at Slate Advancement as our solution. I helped lead the implementation of the university’s Slate Advancement database (the 8th Slate Advancement database at the time) and quickly found a way to incorporate Slate into every daily operation.

When you're not Slating, what are you doing?

While Slate may always be on my mind, when I’m not in Slate you can find me walking my dog (we’re serious walkers – 4 to 5 miles a day), listing to Taylor Swift, trying new recipes (I love to cook), and teaching in the history department at my alma mater.

What's your favorite type of project?

My favorite type of project recently has been integrating contact reports into the performance management dataset. So fun to see how everything can connect to support keeping gift officers and engagement officers on track to meet their goals!

How did you first come to Slate?

I first came to Slate from a small liberal arts college as an end-user. I was the Director of Development/Major Gift Officer in the Advancement Office, so I had a combination of responsibilities of managing a major gifts portfolio, while managing the annual fund and events such as giving day. We had a Slate Captain who was a magician and could take my vision and build it in Slate. One of my favorite items was a giving day portal. However, the longer I was in Slate the more interested I became in being a builder instead of an end-user. I left that institution for a non-slate institution and realized I was not fulfilled in my day to day without working in Slate. So, I became a Slate consultant helping clients implement and build their Slate dreams.

What is your favorite Slate tool?

Configurable joins! I did not come from a tech/coding background so it has been so nice to be able to get every datapoint needed just through configurable joins and not worrying about SQL.

What is your favorite type of Slate project?

Anything that makes the user say “wait, but what if we…?!” That’s when the magic happens. I love any project, big or small, that encourages a team to think outside the box. Small steps can lead to big results.

What is one Slate thing you are proud of?

I’m most proud of how I was able to create processes for my institution that reduced time and opened doors for new projects. If a project took a week to do using our old system, it would maybe take only 4 hours in Slate. It was so gratifying to build solutions for the team that saved time and energy, regardless of how big or small the project was.

What advice would you give to new Slate captains?

Take the time to clean up your data before you move it to Slate. You will not regret the investment of time and energy! Life will be exponentially better if you clean up all of those “I wish this was different” items ahead of time. And don’t be afraid to leave bad data behind if there’s not time/staff available to tackle a particular cleanup project and your business processes can allow for a “fresh start.”

What is your favorite way to engage with the Slate community?

Summit is always fun because I can be an unabashed Slate nerd for several days. Year-round, I enjoy hanging out on Slack and joining the peanut gallery (i.e. the Chat area) in Community Conversations.

How did you first come to Slate?

My official “Slate-iversary” is February 14, 2014. (Happy Valentine’s Day, Slate!) At the time, I was one of the Slate captains helping to implement Slate at my institution, and I quickly became the technical lead for the instance.

What advice would you give to new Slate Captains?

It can be so easy to get overwhelmed! My biggest advice is to take advantage of the Slate community. There are so many people who are willing to help troubleshoot issues, offer advice, and share best practices. No one person knows everything about Slate, but together, we can do amazing things!

What is your favorite way to engage with the Slate community?

Slate Summit! The opportunity to meet our clients and other users in person is definitely a highlight of the year for me. I love the energy, synergy, and inspiration that is a part of this particular conference experience. Everyone leaves feeling empowered to make changes and updates on their campus (and where else can you literally return home with a suitcase full of possible solutions!)

How did you first come to Slate?

Having managed enrollment operations on different (and less flexible) platforms, my former institution finally decided to make the leap to Slate and I was excited to lead the way. I thrived in a role where I was able to map out and develop what the system could do to help us achieve our goals (versus needing to conform to systems that weren’t nearly as user-friendly or admission-driven.)

When you're not Slating, what are you doing?

I get outdoors whenever possible and enjoy long walks and hikes (where, believe it or not, I often have my best Slate a-ha moments as I decompress work projects in my head!). I also enjoy any and all excuses to travel, be with family and friends, and catch live music.

What is your favorite type of project?

My favorite type of project is one that makes people’s work easier and gets folks the data or functionality they need. The landscape of Higher Education is constantly changing and our systems need to be flexible enough to support the broad range of work we are asked to do. A successful project to me is one where the team feels like Slate is empowering them and not adding something burdensome or intimidating to their task list.

How did you first come to Slate?

In 2016, I joined the Undergraduate Admissions Office at the University of Vermont after managing the front end of an institutional student success portal overseen by the Office of the Registrar for over five years. The Admissions team was looking for a new CRM, and luckily, the best product won: we chose Slate. As the number of Slate instances on campus grew, so did my role. I eventually transitioned to central IT, where I supported cross-divisional work in three different databases.

When you're not Slating, what are you doing?

Trying to make a perfect pie crust, hanging out with my awesome children, or reading something fantastical from my to-be-read pile.

What is your favorite type of project?

I love projects that start with the question, “What if?” “What if Slate could do this?” or “How could Slate make this process easier?” Some of the most interesting, challenging, and rewarding projects I’ve worked on began with a “what if…”

What’s one Slate thing you are proud of?

I’m proud of transforming the onboarding process at Goucher by moving it into Slate. I created a process that was not only more student-friendly but also enabled us to track student progress in a way that was impossible with our previous system.

What is your favorite Slate tool?

Queries! There’s so much interesting data that can be captured in Slate, and queries allow you to access all of it.

What’s your favorite type of project?

I love a project where I can learn and grow my Slate skills. My favorite type of project is one where I’m able to sculpt a vague idea into something beautiful and sustainable. The best projects feel like an art piece when they’re launched.

How did you first come to Slate?

I was the Data and Operations Manager at Prescott College. A new administrator joined the college who loved Slate and got us signed up. After we launched Slate for the Admissions Department, I began to meet with leadership from across the college. Advising, Student Success, Financial Aid, the Registrar and anyone else that had a need for some streamlining of data and processes. Over the years we implemented several wonderful custom Slate solutions across many departments at the college.

What is your favorite Slate Community memory?

Slate After Dark is the best. It’s a showcase of the most enthusiastic in the Slate community. During the last one on the pier in Chicago I asked around in the crowd to hear the feature request ideas being pitched. The passion and the energy from the crowd was amazing.

How did you first come to Slate?

I happened into Slate entirely by accident. I had started working with a small private school in an AV/IT role, overseeing the installations for a new campus, working closely with the grad admissions team who would go on to occupy most of that space. As the project was wrapping up, the existing Slate Captain put in her notice, and I inherited her system.

What’s one thing in Slate that you’re proud of?

Funny enough, the things I’m most proud of are the least technical solutions—like a process I put in place for a grad nursing school. After meeting with key members of the team, I was able to build a workflow and review process for them to do all of their decisioning within Slate along with the reporting to show their top applicants for final assessment.

When you're not Slating, what are you doing?

When I’m not in a database, you can likely find me on the golf course, in my garage 3D printing, recording my podcast (cough willsavethepodcast.com cough), at the beach, traveling, cleaning, or doing whatever the hyperfixation of the month is!

What is your favorite type of Slate project?

I absolutely love building eye-popping student status portals that standard Slate users can easily update and interact with. I also enjoy creating internal admin dashboards to visualize data for campus partners. Outside of portals and dashboards, there’s nothing I enjoy more than a good law school implementation or a financial aid visualization buildout.

How did you first come to Slate?

After a short career in student affairs within higher education, I transitioned into enrollment operations and became the Associate Director of Operations at Millersville University in Pennsylvania. When asked, “We purchased this system called Slate; do you want to manage it?” I said yes, and I’ve been working with Slate ever since. I’ve led full-scale implementations, built award-winning portals, presented at the Slate Summit four times, and done everything in between. Slate is more than a career to me; it’s a passion.

When you're not Slating, what are you doing?

Playing basketball, working out, chauffeuring my 3 boys to sports and events or hanging out with my beautiful wife. If those things aren’t happening and I’m not Slating, then I’m watching LeBron James highlights while listening to Taylor Swift, because they are the two G.O.A.T.s of their respective worlds and I won’t accept any other opinion.