Client Success Story - Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) is a relatively young institution, having opened its campus in the eastern metropolitan St. Louis area in 1965. Today SIUE is a major public university offering a broad range of degrees and programs. SIUE opened its first on-campus housing in 1969, and in 1975 the university added more apartments. For students, SIUE became truly residential in 1994 with its first residence hall; the school built two more residence halls in 1998 and 2001.
CBORD Solution: Odyssey HMS and HMS Judicial
Prior to first installing CBORD's Odyssey Housing Management System, SIUE's University Housing used a homegrown database system. This system was purely used for tracking, and all assignments were done by hand. In October 2001, SIUE upgraded to CBORD's Odyssey HMS and added Odyssey HMS Judicial in December 2003.
SIUE's old homegrown system could only track a few things. Scott Gluntz, Associate Director of Housing stated, "We needed a system that would do automatic assignments. In upgrading to Odyssey HMS, we wanted a system that was a little more flexible, had less of a learning curve, and could produce faster automatic assignments. The ultimate goal was to improve efficiency, speed up our operation, and make it more user-friendly."
After implementing CBORD's Odyssey HMS, Scott expressed, "Assignments are so fast that we can run them multiple times in one hour, making adjustments each time. Odyssey HMS is just more flexible and user-friendly."
At SIUE, Odyssey HMS and HMS Judicial are utilized for everything. "We track conversations between students and parents. We track changes students make to their applications, room changes, preferences, and choices made during the reservation process. We also track Judicial status through the Judicial module and Notes section, as well as using Odyssey HMS for automatic assignments, web access, and some facility tracking."
"The Judicial module is the first database we have used for disciplinary situations. In the past everything was done by hand. The ability to enter an incident report online and track a student's progress through the discipline cycle has provided a better check and balance, and a faster, more informed response to issues," stated Scott.
SIUE is using Odyssey HMS to offer full-time staff, RAs, and desk workers individualized online portals that provide specific rosters and specific content tailored to them and their position. For the desk workers the information is available at each front desk.
Future Plans
SIUE's plans for the future involve moving more information and services online. Students will have more opportunities and services online as SIUE plans to offer online applications for new students, an online reservation/lottery/room selection process for returning students, roommate matching, study group matching, account/profile editing, assignment letter/ information, and possibly an online check-in process.
"Odyssey HMS continues to answer the call when specific information is requested or there is a need to track something new. It is just an overall useful and beneficial product." — Scott Gluntz
CBORD Configuration
University Housing at SIUE is a 3,000-bed operation which includes three residence halls housing about 500 students each, and 496 apartments, including 123 family housing apartments with 1,500 students.
CBORD is a registered trademark and Odyssey HMS is a trademark of The CBORD Group, Inc.
