One Team, One Mission, One Family: Lessons Learned from a Statewide IT Merger

Starting in January 2020, the University System of New Hampshire (USNH) brought together the IT staff, operations, and services across Granite State College, Keene State College, Plymouth State University, and University of New Hampshire. The new Enterprise Technology and Services organization provides service and support across USNH, with a distributed staff and teams located across the region. The goal that our new system-wide CIO proposed was that we become “One Team, One Mission, One Family.” What does that really mean?  How have we done in achieving that? We will share the story of this merger, both the good and the bad. It certainly didn’t help that we started this right before the pandemic hit, which provided both brand new challenges as well as unthought-of opportunities for the new organization. While not every school is going to face a merger across institutions, overall trends in higher education mean that USNH is not unique. Even if you are not facing this situation, we believe what we have learned about organizational change, breaking down silos, rethinking service delivery, and modernizing infrastructure will have valuable lessons for every school.