Gearing up for the launch of Workday Student is an exciting time for the Student Sunrise project and our campus partners who have been working for two years to reimagine academic operations at WashU. Now that our system configuration is wrapping up this fall, we will begin offering a series of readiness activities where faculty, staff and students can learn more about what’s changing with Workday before the system’s debut in AY2024-25.
This phase of work began this summer with a Readiness Ramp-up and continues through the fall with Workday Student Readiness Kickoffs in each of the schools and other academic units. A new readiness webpage has also been developed that gives an overview of our campus readiness activities.
“Everyone who works with students or supports those who do will be impacted by this change,” said Erin Culbreth, Student Sunrise executive project director and senior associate provost. “So if you’ll be using the new system, we encourage you to take advantage of the readiness resources and opportunities that will be available to prepare for the transition.”
Readiness Ramp-up
Over the past two years, more than 180 university representatives have participated in a variety of roles to help the Sunrise team design new academic processes and configure Workday. Now these groups are coming together as Workday Student Readiness Ambassadors to focus on preparing their schools and academic units for the transition to Workday.
The group gathered for a Readiness Ramp-up at Risa Commons this summer to brainstorm what their school/unit’s readiness efforts will look like and how they might engage their students, faculty and staff in the planned readiness activities. Everyone was challenged with ensuring that their affected colleagues are aware of what may be changing for them and why, and what they need to do to prepare for the transition to Workday Student.
“This summer’s Readiness Ramp-up was a great chance to get a big-picture look at where the project has come and where it’s headed,” said Kurt Greenbaum, communications director at Olin Business School. “I appreciate that it included a realistic look at the anticipated pain points. It’s great to have that context as we prepare to spread the word about Workday Student more widely to the WashU Olin community and beyond.”
Workday Student Readiness Kickoffs
Our Workday Student Readiness Kickoffs began Sept. 12 at the School of Arts & Sciences. Throughout the semester, all schools and academic units will hold their own kickoffs to introduce their faculty and staff to Workday Student. School/unit leaders and readiness ambassadors will recognize their experts who have been involved with the project, review the project at a high level, share some of the changes that are coming, and explain how Sunrise will prepare them to use the new system. Sunrise will also demonstrate some of the system’s functionality from the perspectives of a student and an advisor/instructor using a mock student profile.
Left: Billy Acree, associate vice dean of graduate education, and Erin McGlothlin, vice dean of undergraduate affairs, welcome staff to the Arts & Sciences Workday Student Readiness Kickoff Sept. 12.
Middle: At their kickoff meeting Sept. 14, Arts & Sciences faculty had a chance to ask questions of experts from A&S who have been involved in the Sunrise project.
Right: Matt DeVoll, senior assistant dean in the College of Arts & Sciences, asked A&S faculty for a show of hands to see how many play a role advising students.
New webpage features readiness activities
Our new Sunrise webpage, Preparing for Workday, provides an in-depth look at the readiness activities that campus has engaged in to date — configuration reviews and change impact validation sessions — and the upcoming readiness activities that will begin in January 2024.
Check out this page to find out more about Sneak Peeks, our series of Workday Student preview sessions, Workday Student Workshops, our preview of training materials, and Mock Semester, our dry run for Spring 2025 registration for Fall 2025 classes.