At the 2025 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference in Nashville, Arizona State University (ASU) reaffirmed its role as a national leader in innovation, demonstrating how higher education can harness the power of data, integration, and AI to advance student success at scale.
In partnership with SnapLogic, ASU’s Enterprise Technology team showcased a future-forward approach to digital transformation through both a thought-provoking panel presentation with the University of Houston and a dynamic poster session.
Strategic vision from the EDUCAUSE 2025 main stage
During a joint session with the University of Houston, Kimberly Clark, Deputy CIO at ASU, shared the frameworks and mindsets driving ASU’s technology evolution.
Her session, “IT Strategy Planning: University IT’s Role,” outlined how ASU’s multi-year IT strategy aligns with the university’s broader mission. This centers on inclusion, accessibility, and the intentional integration of emerging technologies to serve students, faculty, and the wider community.
“Our goal is to position ASU as a global beacon for integrating emerging and disruptive technology into learning ecosystems, operations, and communications; amplifying human potential throughout the educational journey,”
Kimberly Clark, Deputy CIO, ASU
Anchoring vision: the ASU charter and north star
Every initiative at ASU begins with its charter: a commitment to inclusion, measurable community impact, and its “enterprise technology north star,” which guides the strategic roadmap for innovation.
This foundation ensures that digital transformation strengthens academic equity, research advancement, operational excellence, and learner success.
The Strategy Triad: pragmatic, ambitious, and focused
ASU Enterprise Technology’s Strategy Triad helps bridge the gap between vision and execution. The triad’s pillars are: 1) pragmatic, 2) ambitious, and 3) focused. This foundation serves to keep projects achievable yet bold, ensuring that every initiative contributes directly to ASU’s institutional mission.
Clark highlighted how this framework enables ASU to:
- Turn abstract goals into clear, actionable plans
- Maximize the impact of resources
- Balance ambition with operational reality
- Create a unified roadmap across teams
The Strategy Triad is key to ensuring that ASU Enterprise Technology’s ambitious vision translates into tangible results that benefit the entire university community.
Top 9 strategic priorities shaping the future of higher ed IT
For the upcoming year, ASU Enterprise Technology identified nine strategic priorities that define the future of its IT and digital innovation agenda:
- Driving innovation for student and learner success
- Generative AI strategy for scaled learning
- Transformation toward an AI-centric organization
- Alignment and agility
- Cybersecurity
- Social impact and inclusive excellence
- Data, analytics, and insight
- Technology enablement and digital infrastructure
- Digital transformation
Together, these priorities form the foundation of ASU’s evolution as a data-driven, AI-empowered institution.
From vision to execution: ASU and SnapLogic
In the EDUCAUSE exhibit hall, Clark and Alexis Pumel, Data Success Lead at ASU, led a collaborative session titled “Igniting Potential: Tech Modernization to Fuel Transformative Student Journeys and Lifelong Success.”
Their poster presentation illustrated how ASU is leveraging SnapLogic’s intelligent integration and automation platform to modernize its data ecosystem, breaking down silos, improving agility, and enabling smarter, faster decisions across the university.
“Modernization isn’t just about upgrading systems. It’s about building digital foundations that make education more personal, more inclusive, and more effective for every learner.”
Alexis Pumel, Data Success Lead, ASU
The initiative showcased concrete examples of how SnapLogic enables seamless data flow and analytics across ASU’s learning systems. This has provided better insights into student engagement and operational performance.
Expert insights at EDUCAUSE 2025: What higher ed leaders should know
Key learnings from the event:
- Universities are moving beyond basic technology adoption to orchestrating technology across the enterprise. By connecting AI, data, and analytics, institutions can drive outcomes that directly support their mission and strategic priorities.
- Developing a clear and adaptable IT roadmap is essential. Roadmaps that emphasize alignment across departments, agility in implementation, and visibility across the campus enable sustainable innovation and long-term success.
- Collaboration across functions is now critical. Strong partnerships between IT teams, academic leadership, and strategic partners like SnapLogic form the foundation for delivering scalable and transformative results across the institution.
Empowering higher education through data
As the higher education landscape continues to evolve, ASU’s Enterprise Technology organization offers a blueprint for what’s possible when strategy, AI, and integration converge.
Through the leadership of Kimberly Clark and Alexis Pumel, and in partnership with SnapLogic, ASU continues to set a new standard for digital transformation, where technology doesn’t just support education; it redefines it.
Explore how your institution can achieve similar outcomes with SnapLogic for Higher Education.
