As a service-driven organization, University Information Technology (UIT) provides over 100 essential services to faculty, staff and students. These range from critical niche services like Classroom Technologies to large-scale systems such as Networking, PeopleSoft and Microsoft productivity tools that serve the entire university community.

Resource management in UIT is both adaptive and responsive. UIT annually reallocates space, funding and human capital as circumstances and demands change, shifting resources to sunrise services for emergent needs, support growth and sustain services in key areas, and suspend or sunset services with reduced demand. By staying focused on university goals, customer needs and legal/policy requirements, UIT ensures efficient use of resources to maintain a nimble service environment and infrastructure. You can see this principle at work in the Strategic Planning Process described on page 11 and in the Alignment of Priorities to the goals of the university, the UH System and the State of Texas Department of Information Resources on pages 12-13.

Rather than seeing Information Technology as an expense, it is better to view it as an investment in an essential, strategic asset, and as a means to advance the university’s goals for student success, research and community engagement. Consider the Peer Benchmarks tables to see how UH compares to state and national peers in IT investment. Yes, prudent budget management and cost control are important, and are practiced throughout UIT. But IT’s greatest value is in fostering innovation to make processes less costly and laborious, freeing humans to do the things humans do best — for the university, for each other and, most of all, for the students. As an investment, Information Technology is indispensable.