Workday Student Program Update
Check out the Spring 2026 Town Hall
The Spring 2026 Elevate Student Town Hall was held on April 2, 2026. You can find the recording from the session on our website. Senior Vice President and Provost Jennifer King Rice kicked off the session, and Jack Blanchard, Associate Provost for Enterprise Resource Planning, shared program updates and hosted a live Q&A.
Highlights from Senior Vice President and Provost Jennifer King Rice
Provost Jennifer King Rice opened the Spring Workday Student Town Hall by underscoring the importance of continued campus engagement as UMD advances the Elevate Student Program. She emphasized that this work represents a major step in modernizing the systems and processes that support students throughout their academic journey, building on lessons learned from UMD’s successful Workday Finance and HCM implementations. Provost Rice highlighted strong engagement across the university—including significant contributions from faculty, staff, and students through design sessions and advisory committees—and reaffirmed UMD’s commitment to a thoughtful, collaborative approach that reflects the complexity of the institution while supporting long‑term sustainability and success.
Want to learn more? Check out the Town Hall recording.
Spring 2026 Town Hall FAQs
Our community asked many thoughtful questions during the Town Hall. Below are a few highlights from the session:
What’s changed since the last Town Hall?
Since the last Town Hall, the Elevate Student team has continued making strong progress in design, including key work related to curriculum, registration, and academic progress reporting. Engagement with the campus community has also expanded, with the launch of a Student Advisory Committee this spring (involving over 170 undergraduate and graduate students) and continued collaboration with the Faculty Advisory Committee. This ongoing input helps ensure the system is being designed with UMD’s academic and student needs in mind.
When will Workday Student be fully implemented, and when will current systems become view‑only?
Workday Student will become UMD’s official student system of record in Fall 2028, at which point legacy systems identified for sunsetting will move to view‑only status and eventually be retired. Access to Workday Student will begin earlier through a phased rollout, starting in Summer 2027 with central teams and expanding to broader campus use in Spring 2028 for advising and registration activities. UMD will continue to share system‑specific timing details as each milestone approaches.
What’s decided—and what’s still being worked out—for course renumbering?
UMD has made key decisions about course renumbering, including the move to four‑digit course numbers (effective Fall 2028) and a long‑term plan to phase out most suffixed courses, with limited exceptions. Clear approaches have been defined for common scenarios, such as using section numbers instead of suffixes for faculty‑specific graduate research courses. More detailed, unit‑level guidance is still being developed and will be shared as the university moves closer to implementation.
Will there be a replacement for the SIS data warehouse in Workday?
Yes. UMD is launching a data warehouse effort that will run alongside the Workday Student implementation to support continued access to student data for reporting and operational needs. More information about the data warehouse and UMD’s broader reporting strategy will be shared in the coming months.
Is UMD considering AI‑powered features as part of Workday Student?
Yes, there will be opportunities to consider AI‑enabled functionality as part of the Workday Student implementation. Workday offers native, opt‑in AI and machine‑learning features, and UMD will thoughtfully evaluate which capabilities make sense to adopt based on value, timing, and community readiness. The current focus is on using existing Workday functionality rather than developing custom AI solutions.
Check out our FAQ website for additional questions collected from prior Town Halls.
Want to Dig in Deeper to Town Hall Spotlights?
Please continue to visit the Workday Student Learning Hub and Future Ready pages on the Elevate site to learn more about Workday Student functionality and how UMD is planning for key changes. The following pages were recently updated and align with Spring 2026 Town Hall highlights:
Workday Student Future Ready: Key Changes
Workday Student Learning Hub
Stay Connected
Have a question about Workday Student? Email us at elevate@umd.edu.
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