Today we congratulate Carousel client and technology innovator, Michael Mathews, Oral Roberts University CIO and EVP of Innovation and Technology, for being, selected for the prestigious CIO 100 Award by CIO Magazine.

For nearly three decades, CIO has celebrated the innovative use of technology to deliver genuine business value.  As Carousel clients, partners, and employees all know, driving favorable and measurable business outcomes for clients has been one of our company’s primary tenets since our founding 26 years ago. So, it is little coincidence that ORU’s Michael Mathews has earned a CIO 100 Award.

VIDEO: Oral Roberts University Transforms Into a Global University With Geo-Vision Technology

For Michael and his tremendous team at ORU, this award is yet another well-deserved acknowledgement for their ground-breaking use of advanced collaboration tools and emerging technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, as well as analytics and mobility to create a Global Learning Center (GLC) on their Tulsa campus to reach millions of people globally with ORU’s award-winning curriculum, known as “whole person education.”

Since 2014, Carousel has had the great privilege to be one of ORU’s most strategic technology partners, working with Michael and his team to deliver managed services and support of enterprise-wide networking, Wi-Fi, and educational technologies to transform the University by creating ORU’s “OneCampus” Global Education Network. The world-class Global Education Network was established last January to design, deliver, and support ORU President Billy Wilson’s vision to improve recruitment, retention, grades, and job placement.

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One result of our partnership has led to ORU trademarking a new concept called ORU Geovision™ technologies across the campus and around the world for all remote students. Since the opening of the GLC, ORU’s successes are nearly countless and the University has set national best ratings in many areas. To cite just a few:

• Grades have improved 5 percent for all students using virtual reality environments.
• Retention has reached 95 percent for freshman fall to freshman spring semester.
• Retention across all grades increased from 63 to 80 percent (national average is 42 percent).
• Placement at ORU has reached 97 percent across all six colleges (national average is less than 60 percent.
• A 600 percent increase in student access to online and onsite concierge services.
• A 100 percent participation by all freshman and sophomores in wearable technology embedded into the curriculum.
• A 300 percent increase in faculty using online collaboration tools and a 100% increase in faculty using augmented or virtual reality.
• ORU is the first University to integrate (seamlessly and automatically) wearable technology wearable technology data directly into the gradebook.
• An increase in gift giving towards the measurable success. A $50M campaign was complete with an additional $5M given towards the direct impact of the GLC.
• Overall, ORU is performing a conservative 20 percent increase in productivity, with 20 percent less staff; with an increase of 40 percent in IT related degrees, certificates, and skills. This is a net gain of 40 percent improvement in efficiency.

Clearly these results are impressive. What makes the CIO Award win equally impressive is that Michael was one of 400 CIOs nominated for this year’s CIO 100 Award selected through a rigorous three-step process. First, companies filled out an online application form detailing their innovative IT and business initiatives. Next, a team of external judges (many of them former CIOs) reviewed the applications in depth, looking for the most innovative IT practices and measurable results. Finally, CIO editors reviewed the judges’ recommendations and selected the final 100.

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To Michael and all members of both the internal IT team at ORU and all Carousel account team members, we congratulate you. Your success is our success!