New York Institute of Technology (New York Tech) is a nonprofit, independent, private, and non-sectarian institute of higher education founded in 1955. It has nearly 8,000 students across six schools and colleges offering undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, and professional degree programs in in-demand disciplines; notable alumni include tech industry leaders and business executives, as well as others in fields as diverse as architecture, engineering, computer science, medicine, data science, biology, and health professions. The university boasts state-of-the-art facilities, including cutting-edge labs and research centers.
New York Tech is committed to providing world-class support for its faculty, students, staff, and partners. That includes outstanding technical support, which is why the university chose ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) for its IT service management. In addition to full-time staff, more than 30 New York Tech students work part-time at the service desk, helping them pay for college and giving them the opportunity to gain real-world skills.
Partnering with ServiceNow to build students’ skills
Recently, New York Tech joined the ServiceNow Academic Partner Program, letting the university tap into a rich set of ServiceNow resources and support. Darren Moses, director of Client Services and Engagement who oversees New York Tech service desk, enthuses, “We’ve only begun to unlock the full potential of the program, but we’re already seeing huge benefits for students. It’s also helping us to deliver even better IT services to our clients, so it’s a winner across the board.”
One key benefit of the ServiceNow Academic Partner Program is free ServiceNow training, which lets students come up to speed faster and increases their skills. Darren says, “Before partnering with ServiceNow, it took us up to six weeks to train students. Now, it only takes two weeks, which means that they hit the ground running. It’s not just about being faster—students are far more capable, so they deliver better support to our clients. For example, we’ve seen significant improvements in our resolution times. And the students are incredibly enthusiastic. They get great training and then get to put it into action, so we’re setting them up to succeed.”
A long-term commitment to student success
These benefits continue once students are on board. Darren explains, “We’ve created a structured long-term program for students that includes ServiceNow training and certifications. We bring in students in their freshman and sophomore years and give them the opportunity to continue to build marketable skills over their entire time with New York Tech. They develop a strong interest in the platform and start to see the potential career opportunities. We know that’s delivering results—students are telling us how their ServiceNow experience is helping them to secure internships and jobs.”
Accelerating delivery of new services
Tim Fisher, who leads ServiceNow development at New York Tech, talks about one key aspect of this structured program—becoming a ServiceNow developer. “Some of our students want to become developers, so we bring them into our development team once they’ve built their core ServiceNow skills. By using ServiceNow development training, we can get them productive in a month. For instance, we have students developing ServiceNow catalog items and supporting workflows, which lets us quickly increase the range of services we offer to clients. And students get the opportunity to become a Certified Application Developer, which is like gold in the job market.”
From reactive to proactive
More broadly, Darren talks about how the ServiceNow Academic Partner Program is helping New York Tech to mature its service desk. “Because students can now take on more advanced work, we’ve been able to free up our full-time staff for more strategic activities. For instance, we can spend a lot more time on analytics. That means we can be proactive, not reactive. We’ve been able to take our top two or three issues by volume and drive them down dramatically. It’s having the time to do things like create training resources and documentation and working to improve our processes. Being part of the ServiceNow academic program gives us the time to do that.”
A winning partnership
Summing up why he is so enthusiastic about the ServiceNow Academic Partner Program, Darren says, “Sending students on approved ServiceNow courses gives exponentially better results. Our students benefit, and our service desk benefits. And ServiceNow is easy to work with and gives us outstanding support, so it’s an easy lift. I’d recommend it to any higher education institution.”