Our students are drawn to Johns Hopkins for its innovative education, but once they get here, they often find the mechanics of being a Hopkins student — like registering, enrolling, and managing financial aid — a bit byzantine. To modernize the services we provide our students, the university launched the Student Services Excellence Initiative in February 2016, a major multiyear project to improve student services including recruitment and admissions, registration, financial aid, billing, career services and alumni tracking, and advising.

Ultimately the project will result in the redesign and replacement of the current student information system, which is challenged by functional weaknesses and is quickly becoming outdated. The effort, however, is going beyond addressing technical concerns to emphasize the user experience of students, as well as the faculty and staff who support them. We demand excellence from our students, and they deserve excellence in the services they receive.