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23 weeks from tomorrow: It’s October 8th, 7am. Coffee is brewing in the District Office 4th floor kitchen. It’s pretty quiet in the hallways, but you can tell from all the lights that are burning and from the clutter on the conference room tables that there was a lot of activity here this weekend. A peek in the Baird room shows the checklist of things accomplished and the last minute problems resolved and several still pending. After 6 years of activity, Maricopa is up on the New Student System. Everyone is walking on eggshells and hoping for sleep tonight. The system activity monitors give readings that people are starting to log in. The help desk starts getting calls — “what is my Enterprise ID?” or “what do I do after Quick Admit?” We’re off and running.

Okay, I am not claiming to have a prophetic power, but I am taking a few minutes to point out that the day is coming that our New Student System will be real. Maricopa has had thoughts about, and a vision for, a new student system for a long long time. The current NSS project has been underway for most of this decade. For some, it has become a pattern to think of it as something that will happen “someday.” That’s why I’m imagining the very real Monday morning in October when the planning, programming, installing, training, testing and conversion all come together. Will it be perfect? No. Will it be good? Probably not, not on Day One. But will it be pretty good? And will it lay the foundation for vastly improved student service? Absolutely it will. And just like a newborn, it is going to be ours, and we will have the opportunity to make it better and better from that day forward.

During the next 23 weeks, lots of Maricopans will be nervous and have worries. That is the way it always is with new implementations, especially those with anything approaching our size and complexity. I see a lot of encouraging activity recently, and several people are dedicating themselves to the tasks that will make October 8th a new beginning for us all.