Michele Thibodeau

Background

About Michele Thibodeau

I have worked in Higher Education for 24+ years; approaching my work at Butler University with a can do…no, a must do attitude to delivering the best systems, code, innovations, solutions, partnerships I can to my customer. And who is my customer? The student, ultimately; but also the functional analyst, the clerk, the VP. How can we make their jobs easier? What can we automate? How much better can we make their daily lives? Which then leads to: what comes next? How can we innovate? How do we integrate systems? How can we approach the future with excitement and clear direction? How can we manage what we are creating/implementing? I live a “Jack of All Trades” existence at Butler, involved in technical design, analysis, programming, but also functional…having worked with almost all areas even remotely touching our PeopleSoft SIS. While immersed in Butler activities, I have served in a myriad of roles with the Higher Education Users Group (HEUG). First as a member on advisory groups assisting with bug fixes, functionality development, and future planning. Second as a member of the Alliance Conference Team, culminating in serving as Conference Chair for the successful, profitable, 2016 global Alliance Conference. And currently, as an elected Director on the HEUG Board of Directors, truly trying to tackle the vastly changing world of Higher Education. We are a non-profit organization of over 900 institutions all over the world. We advocate for, educate, and support these institutions in day to day ERP systems use/troubleshooting, vendor interactions, training. It is a vast community with thousands of active individuals. How can we help them? Can we connect them to others so they feel like “I’m not alone”, “someone else has had and solved this problem”? Can we provide the strategic direction to handle new integrations, new systems, Covid, the ever changing needs of students? How do we help our institutions keep up with constant updates in technology? But also make things better for the individual who doesn’t work there to learn system X, but is there because they believe in the mission and the goals of Higher Education? And how will Higher Education stay relevant and continue to provide what the student of the future needs? This work with Butler University and HEUG has provided me with a network of individuals throughout Higher Education and throughout the world. I continually strive to use these connections to develop myself and to give back to the Higher Education Community (not industry…it’s so much more!)