Release 2024.12

What’s New: Your ITS Update for the 2024.12 Release

2024.12 was the cycle in which ITS set out, in writing, how the college guides its technology decisions. A comprehensive policy set was consolidated, reviewed, and taken to the President’s Executive Committee. In parallel, the department replaced the ticketing system the campus had used for years, laid the fiber that will carry the network for decades, and kept services running through a planned campus power shutdown at one of the busiest points in the fall term.

It was also the cycle in which release management became the language ITS uses with partners across campus: tell us which release your project belongs in, and we can plan for it together.

Key Initiatives for the Campus Community

1. A Modern Service Desk

• FreshService in service: With the previous ticketing platform reaching the end of its supported life, the FreshService rollout moved to the front of the queue. Ticket history was imported, teams were provisioned and trained, and orientation was delivered across student technology services, media technology, and the help desk.
• Two front doors, clearly labeled: ITS made it plain how to reach us: a help desk ticket for anything broken, and your department consultant for anything strategic. Both routes land in the same system, so nothing gets lost.
• A renewals board: A dedicated purchases-and-renewals board gave ITS and its partners visibility into the full renewal cycle for every solution and hardware lease, well ahead of decision points.

2. Policy the Campus Can Actually Use

• Consolidated and readable: The policy program was consolidated into a compact, navigable set, and roughly twenty existing policies were mapped down to about thirteen aligned documents.
• Four components, one proposal: The submission to governance covered the Information Security Policy, the Data Classification Standard, an Exception Policy providing a clear, documented route when a standard needs to flex, and initial AI guidance.
• P1–P4 in daily use: Staff began using the four-level classification vocabulary in ordinary work, so the standard is lived rather than filed.
• Shaped by the people doing the work: The review process added guidance for colleagues working internationally, drawn directly from staff experience.

3. Teaching and Learning

• Electronic Blue Book grows organically: EBB reached roughly 15 faculty, 150 students, and 20 sections — and much of that growth came from students asking their instructors to use it. Streamlining roster setup became the next focus, informed by how peer institutions handle it.
• Canvas and Sakai in parallel: Spring courses were created in both systems with enrollment loaded two weeks ahead of term, and faculty support sessions continued for both transition and advanced use.
• Windows 11 migration, planned with people: With a substantial share of workstations still on Windows 10, ITS committed to reaching out to each owner of an older machine, offering a purchase consultation, and helping plan a transition — supported by an accelerated workstation rotation.

Behind the Scenes: A More Resilient & Secure CMC

1. Fiber for the Next Twenty-Five Years

• Fiber pods built: Three fiber cabinets went in along 6th Street and behind the student apartments, cross-connecting at central manholes so campus fiber networks merge into a unified consortium backbone. The project ran in parallel with Pomona, Harvey Mudd, and Scripps.
• 100 gigabits, east to west: The design target is full 100 Gbps capability between east and west campus, with the regional network cutover completed in December.
• Costs planned into the building: The fiber investment was built into the Robert Day Sciences Center construction budget rather than raised as a separate capital ask — a good outcome for the college.
• Standards chosen on the evidence: Cabling standards for the new building were reviewed against the actual environment and the digital conversion underway, and the standard chosen delivered the required performance at meaningfully lower cost.
• Early into the building: With handover set for the following May, ITS worked with the construction team to get switching and wireless installed early in the schedule, protecting both the equipment and the timeline.

2. Security Operations Matured

• Awareness that keeps improving: A campus phishing awareness exercise informed a follow-up campaign promoting the Report Phishing button in Outlook and webmail, including guidance for mobile devices.
• Endpoint and network in one view: Endpoint protection was integrated with our security monitoring platform and network flow data added, tuned to the signals that matter most.
• Web application hardened: Additional protection was added to the web application environment and validated with a controlled test.
• Protecting our community from scams: ITS worked with the Soll Center and the academic offices so that job and internship opportunities reach students through verified channels — a simple change that makes fraudulent offers much easier to spot.
• Planning ahead on authentication: Retiring older telephony-based authentication in favor of app-based methods was placed on the release roadmap.

3. Keeping the Campus Running

• A planned campus power shutdown: A full-day power shutdown was needed to energize the new science center for its certificate of occupancy — scheduled during the fall thesis season.
• What ITS did about it: Working with Facilities and the Dean of Students, ITS secured a dedicated generator for Adams Hall so the Poppa Lab stayed open with working printers, set up a second laptop workspace in Collins Hall, staffed labs with student technology assistants, and ran residence-hall checks through the day. Students had somewhere to work throughout.
• Learning for next time: Everything observed during restoration was captured and folded into the playbook — which would be used more than once in the following year.

Looking Ahead: ITS Priorities for the 2025.04 Release Cycle

2025.04 is a delivery cycle. The new service desk goes live, an expanded research cluster arrives, and the new science building moves from shell to occupancy-ready in four months.

• FreshService go-live: Complete the transition and onboard every ITS team onto the new platform.
• The NSF-funded cluster: Take delivery of the expanded HPC cluster, complete the data center electrical build, and extend access to consortium researchers.
• Robert Day Sciences Center: Land network, wireless, cameras, phones, and AV in the new building, and add its rooms to campus scheduling systems.
• Incident response, exercised: Run a facilitated tabletop exercise against the incident response plan.