CEMI News & Momentum Stories
Across Cornell, the digital experience is everything on a screen that a community member interacts with to get things done. That experience extends to all the systems and applications and data that drive what a community member sees or does on their screen.
The Cornell Experience Modernization Initiative (CEMI or “See Me”) is a community-driven effort to improve the digital experience for everyone who uses technology to accomplish their work and further their learning on a daily basis. CEMI strives to unify and improve the university’s systems and processes to better serve our entire community—faculty, researchers, clinicians, students, staff, alumni, partners, and donors.
By creating more efficient and user-friendly experiences, CEMI will enable our community members to focus on what matters most: advancing Cornell’s mission.
Behind the Scenes in a Digital Experience
Imagine going to your favorite restaurant. You sit down, browse the menu, place your order, and enjoy a delicious meal. That’s your experience as a diner—what you see, smell, taste, and interact with directly.
But behind the scenes, there’s a much bigger system at work: servers taking orders, chefs preparing dishes, dishwashers cleaning up, and suppliers delivering fresh ingredients. All of these roles and processes contribute to your overall dining experience, even if you never see them.
In the same way, Cornell’s digital experience isn’t just the apps or websites used to make payments, complete HR activities, interact with alumni, or register for classes. It includes all the systems that help community members manage data, support students, donors, and patients, and keep everything running smoothly. Each person may only see the front end, but a whole “digital kitchen” is actively working behind the scenes to make it all possible.
Getting Rid of the Big Red Tape
Cornell’s current digital experience is composed of over 1,000 separate and often duplicate systems, applications, and data collection tools. Individually, each component was chosen and customized to streamline work for one or more colleges, schools, or business units. Unfortunately, several decades of individual additions resulted in a layered bureaucracy that now hampers the university’s ability to quickly assess and address challenges, opportunities, and priorities as they arise and shift.
Eliminating that digital bureaucracy, or Big Red Tape, is one of the goals of CEMI.
Introducing CEMI
Learn more about CEMI concepts in the next article in this series, CEMI 102: Streamlining Broadly Used Systems.
Cornell community members depend on many different technology tools to complete their routine tasks. In fact, the CEMI program’s technical team has identified over 1,000 systems and applications used across the university’s campuses.
Broadly used systems are technical solutions that many researchers, faculty, staff, students, and clinicians rely on to complete their daily tasks in areas like administration, finance, human resources, and engaging with alumni, donors, and patients. These systems also provide data used by Cornell leaders to make strategic decisions.
The data in these systems are disconnected, making it difficult to produce timely reports which are necessary when responding to challenges and opportunities. Streamlining these broadly used systems and making reporting more efficient is one of the goals for CEMI.
Five Types of Broadly Used Systems
To unify and simplify how work that supports the university’s mission is accomplished, the Cornell Experience Modernization Initiative (CEMI or “See Me”) is exploring five broadly used systems:
- Data and Analytics for unified campus reporting. This will not only meet an urgent need, but it will help us identify problems that we hope to address in the new solution.
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems such as Kuali/KFS, Jenzabar, PeopleSoft, SAP, SuccessFactors, and Workday. Each of these has a related ecosystem of supporting systems for specialized functions like procurement or financial aid.
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems like Slate and Salesforce. These are being examined as possible tools for filling gaps or improving the experience of a new unified system.
- “Gap Apps” or smaller ERP or CRM adjacent solutions that have developed over time to fill functions that should be in the core systems but were missing or not optimal at the time these systems were adopted.
- Identity Management for a unified across our major campuses. For example, Ithaca and Cornell Tech use NetIDs while Weill Cornell Medicine’s campuses use CWIDs, which they share with New York Presbyterian and Columbia. This is a very complex problem with important security and usability implications.
Many other system and tools will be evaluated in the CEMI analysis—such as pre-award research administration, Microsoft 365 email, Amazon Web Services, and cloud storage solutions—but they are not the primary focus of the initial CEMI analysis.
Introducing CEMI
Learn more about CEMI concepts in the first article in this series, CEMI 101: What is the Cornell Digital Experience?
Working as One: In the November 2025 webinar, Cornell’s Chief Global Information Officer Curtis Cole addressed the breadth of the CEMI transformation and emphasized its multiple phases and initiatives, including the selection of Workday for HR, budget, and finance, with an expected go-live of summer 2028.
The implementation of the Workday system is only the first of multiple initiatives and solutions that will each be critical to achieving an environment where everyone using administrative processes and systems at Cornell can work as one. Cole said, “Our goal is to make work easier for everyone. We want everybody spending less time on administration and more time on the stuff that really matters: our actual mission. We want people to have the data they need to make decisions, and a much easier chance of working with one another. Making it easier for faculty to collaborate, easier for students to use the power of the whole university. To do that, we’ve got to get rid of these administrative barriers. And hopefully that will give us an enhanced experience for everyone. You’ll get a new computer interface, better access to information, fewer barriers, and fewer complex processes to get your work done. That’s the goal we’re going to push for.”
To achieve the goal of working as one, the CEMI transformation includes design teams, readinness initiatives, and other activities that support one or more funcational focus areas: budget, data and analytics, donor and experience engagement, finance, HR, research administration, and student services, plus a techical focus team that is working on the infrastructure needed to link all those functions. More information about each of those areas of focus and their teams can be found in the CEMI website. The CEMI working groups and teams continue to form and expand. See ways to get involved with CEMI, ask a question, or be added to the CEMI Community mailing list for quarterly updates and invitations to webinars.
Access the November 12, 2025 webinar recording using your campus login:
- Cornell Ithaca and Tech: CEMI Webinar 11.12.2025
- Weill Cornell Medicine New York and Qatar: CEMI Webinar 11.12.2025
We are pleased to announce that Workday has been selected and approved as the technology foundation for Cornell’s unified solution to manage the core administrative functions of finance, budget, human resources, research, and student services. This is a major milestone in the Cornell Experience Modernization Initiative (CEMI), achieved through the deep engagement, insights, and expertise of people throughout the university, at all locations, to select the solution that would best support our collective work both now and in the future.
More than 200 Cornell community members from Ithaca, New York City, and Doha leveraged those insights to define the Request for Proposal (RFP) requirements and evaluate potential solutions. Their final decision reflects thoughtful deliberation and a shared commitment to identifying the best technical foundation to meet Cornell’s unique needs.
The collaborative effort reflects Cornell’s deep commitment to modernizing core business processes, improving data transparency, and enhancing operational efficiency across all campuses. This is more than a technology upgrade—it’s a step toward realizing the vision of One Cornell, where shared goals and aligned systems support a more connected and responsive university.
Workday provides a robust, cloud-based solution already proven at research universities with medical schools and supports CEMI’s guiding principle: to align administrative processes and data to be as common as possible, as different as absolutely necessary. This approach ensures consistency across the university in our administrative practices and processes, while accommodating differences found to be essential to preserve.
As we move forward into the next phase of CEMI, preparing for implementation, we will continue to build from the excellent foundation you and your teams have established in the selection process. We appreciate your ongoing support and guidance. We’re sending this announcement to everyone who has been working with us on CEMI so far, as well as the IT leadership teams. Please share with your teams as you see fit.
Curt Cole and Chris Cowen
Cornell community members who previously registered for a CEMI Webinar should receive an email invitation to register for future webinars. Eager to register before receiving your email? Use the link to sign up now with your campus email for the November 12, 2025 presentation.
Opening with a video introduction by Cornell University President Michael I. Kotlikoff, the Summer 2025 Cornell Experience Modernization Initiative (CEMI or “See Me”). Following the president’s message, Cornell’s Chief Global Information Officer Curtis Cole shared several recent accomplishments including a newly reorganized effort to align contributor experiences across campuses: the Donor and Engagement Experience Project (DEEP). a unified identity program, functional leadership selection and team formation, and new CEMI communication channels. Cole also answered questions from the audience and continued to encourage more participation in various activities by community members at all levels of the university.
To access the recording, please choose the link based on your login:
- Cornell Ithaca and Tech: CEMI Webinar Recording 7.30.2025
- Weill Cornell Medicine New York and Qatar: CEMI Webinar Recording 7.30.2025
In July 2025, Cornell University President Kotlikoff recorded a video introducing the Cornell Experience Modernization Initiave (CEMI or “See Me”) and explaining why the time is right to engage in this type of university-wide transformation.
He described a program that aims to modernize and unify administrative systems across campuses. Addressing debt, duplication, distribution, and data challenges, it seeks to streamline processes, reduce costs, and improve user experience through common solutions and better technology integration.
Designed to inform and inspire, the refreshed Cornell Experience Modernization Initiative (CEMI or “See Me”) empowers every Cornell community member to engage and contribute to the university’s digital future. Read more about the refresh in the July 23, 2025 news article.
On April 30 2025, Cornell University Chief Global Information Officer Curtis Cole summarized the analyses completed and described the challenges ahead as well as progress for several of the readiness inititiatives. To access the recording, please choose the link based on your login:
- Cornell Ithaca and Tech: CEMI Webinar Recording 4.30.2025
- Weill Cornell Medicine New York and Qatar: CEMI Webinar Recording 4.30.2025
The Cornell Experience Modernization Initiative (CEMI, pronounced “See Me”) program team welcomes additional insights and feedback. Use the new community interest forms to ask a question, suggest improvements, get involved in a CEMI team, or join the mailing list to stay informed.
The CEMI hub for these forms is managed through Salesforce and is accessed via campus login: https://cornell.my.site.com/cemi/s/.