IT News

Across the University of Arizona’s IT ecosystem, a quiet yet transformative effort is nearing completion, one most campus users will experience firsthand, often with a single click to submit a ServiceNow ticket. Beneath that simplicity lies a complex, months-long effort to integrate dozens of independent systems and workflows into a unified platform.

In 1987, the University of Arizona stood at the edge of something new. Today, as Microsoft Teams becomes the hub of collaboration across campus, it’s easy to think we’re navigating uncharted territory. But for many in IT, especially those who remember the early days here at the university, the story feels strikingly familiar.

Members of the campus community are relying on the university’s critical systems to be secure—preventing bad actors from sabotaging services or stealing information. The core of information security is risk management. The Information Security Risk Management Program (RMaP) provides Information Resource Owners a way to identify and minimize potential risks to university systems and information before a successful threat is realized. For 2026, the RMaP cycle is in its 7th year. The program runs every spring, with completion due by June 30.

Beginning Wednesday, April 15, Microsoft will stop offering the embedded Copilot tool within Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. This change will affect University of Arizona students and employees. You don’t need to take any action.

Eight years ago, the university faced a moment of change. As Skype reached the end of its lifecycle, teams in UITS needed a new way to communicate. What followed was months of evaluation, testing, and discussion, ultimately leading to the decision to adopt Slack at a time when Microsoft Teams was still emerging and not yet fully mature.

What will happen to rainforests as global temperatures rise with climate change? Biosphere 2 has the hottest rainforest on the planet—there’s a huge temperature change from the shaded forest floor to the top of the tree canopy under the Arizona sun. That makes it the ideal place for postdoctoral researcher Justin Bestily to study resilience in plant life.

When most of campus powers down for the night, critical enterprise systems are just getting started. Reports begin processing. Data compiles. Networks move information between systems. Websites remain online. Behind the scenes, the University of Arizona’s technology infrastructure continues running around the clock—and someone needs to be watching.

Whether it’s a support request, a quick comment after a service interaction, or feedback shared through a form, those experiences help shape how technology services evolve across the university. To better capture and learn from those experiences, University Information Technology Services (UITS) has launched a new Voice of the Customer initiative.

As Flandrau Science Center & Planetarium marks its 50th anniversary, visitors are stepping into an experience that feels anything but ordinary. Inside the dome, the night sky comes alive, planets move in real time, constellations shift overhead, and audiences can travel across the solar system in seconds. Behind the scenes, that seamless experience is powered by advanced computing, high-performance Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), and a carefully designed projection system that brings the universe into focus.

Each year, when more than 130,000 visitors arrive on the University of Arizona campus for the Tucson Festival of Books, they expect to easily find author talks, food vendors, exhibits, and gathering spaces spread across dozens of buildings and hundreds of tents. What most attendees don’t see is the sophisticated mapping effort working quietly behind the scenes to make that experience possible.