Driving Digital Excellence: How A New Vision and Community Governance Are Transforming Campus IT 

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Technology is the invisible engine keeping the College of Charleston running smoothly. Over the past year, the Division of Information Technology (IT) has entered an exciting new chapter centered on collaboration, security and a renewed commitment to customer service. With the recent arrival of Chief Information Officer Sasan Poureetezadi and Chief Information Security Officer Joe Gibson, IT is reshaping its strategy to ensure campus technology is built entirely around the needs of our students, faculty and staff.

Here is how we are working together to put the College community first:

Put into Practice: Top-Notch Customer Support

Our primary goal is to make campus tech life intuitive, proactive and reliable. This past year, our IT successfully resolved 25,097 of the 26,237 tech support tickets submitted – averaging nearly 97 closed requests every single day. Thanks to a 66% first-contact resolution rate, two-thirds of these issues were fixed on the very first try, earning IT a strong 4.3 out of 5 customer satisfaction score directly from the campus community.

Putting the Campus in the Driver’s Seat

Technology works best when it is shaped by the people who use it daily. To ensure our digital environment aligns with actual classroom and office needs, we launched a collaborative shared governance structure featuring two crucial new committees:

• The Technology Steering Committee brings together diverse voices from across the College to prioritize institutional technology projects and ensures that our technology investments directly support faculty and staff goals and student success.
• The Cybersecurity Governance Committee fosters a culture of shared responsibility to protect our data while ensuring security guidelines don’t get in the way of academic freedom and daily work.

Proactive Protection, Global Defense

We are working around the clock to keep your data safe without disrupting your day. Our 24/7 security systems blocked 99.3% of malicious web traffic worldwide, which amounted to a staggering 221 billion blocked requests (that’s right, with a “b”).  

To keep the same protective and community-focused momentum, our transition from Ironscales to Microsoft Defender has been a major win for campus productivity and security. Listening to feedback from students, faculty and staff, we recognized that Ironscales was overly restrictive and frequently flagged legitimate messages you actually needed. Since switching to Microsoft Defender, the campus community has experienced a much smoother balance between robust protection and daily usability – all while maintaining top-tier security standards. In fact, in just a three-month span, Defender seamlessly blocked out over 8.2 million spam and phishing emails before they could ever reach your inbox.

Acknowledgements

Our success over the past year is a direct result of the incredible dedication and talent within our IT team. We are proud to share that 11 team members were nominated for Staff Employee of the Year for 2025–26, showcasing the personal passion our staff brings to supporting campus every day. Beyond our local achievements, the College of Charleston’s IT division has also gained national recognition with a nomination for the OnCon Icon Awards for Top IT Team. Standing alongside standout organizations like Amazon, Bayer, Zoom, Special Olympics International and the University of Tennessee, this nomination highlights our commitment to excellence on a broad stage – and we look forward to learning the final outcome this October!

Looking Ahead: A Three-Year Horizon

These recent milestones are just the foundation. Over the next three years, leadership is driving a full digital upgrade – bringing modern cloud systems, smarter data tools and ethical AI into the fabric of the College to create a personalized, proactive and resilient campus experience.

Thank you for partnering with us to keep the College of Charleston moving forward! For more information visit the IT Hub and check out our 2025-2026 I.T. By the Numbers or 2025-2026 End of Semester Infographic Accessible Version.docx