Microsoft is another key partner that engages at a level far beyond the transactional vendor-customer relationship . As well as products and services , Microsoft brings tremendous value to Burrell and his teams through knowledge transfer .
“ Microsoft has a tremendous ability to generate a lot of cutting edge research and thinking . Through their leadership channels they bring that to us in ways that match what we need to do in higher education , with digital transformation and other types of initiatives ,” says Burrell . “ And it ' s evident that they operate from a base of multidimensional thinking and transformational thought because they ' re concerned as much about the people aspect as they are about technology . They look through other lenses , bringing quantum capability and very strong EQ to the relationship , which I greatly appreciate .”
With the fundamentals in place , NAU is embracing an ambitious future of extending and improving access to higher education . Plans are in place to reimagine policies and systems to remove the barriers for college goers who are the first in their family to take their education further . Burrell is also an advocate of simplifying technology and considering its impact from the students ’ perspective .
" From the students ’ point of view , we spend a lot of time asking students and engaging them as a holistic approach ,” he says . “ We want to know what ' s most valuable to them . I ’ m of the opinion that perhaps not a lot of universities take the amount of time that we do to ask students those kinds of questions .
“ We ' re also actively driving collaboration and teaming across the institution and bringing together diverse points of view .
Seeking new opportunities is so important to us ,” he adds .
Burrell ’ s statements are purposefully devoid of the buzzwords CIO ’ s often reach for - digital transformation , cloud technology , edge computing - he says . Instead he is committed to multidimensional , quantum thinking “ that positions us to do good things with technology ”.
258 March 2022