Notes From Nick
Twenty years ago, a small team of IT professionals arrived at a brand-new campus and built the technology foundation a university needs from scratch. The network went in alongside the first buildings. The first servers were racked. The team answered the first help desk tickets. Everything was new, and everything was being built for the first time.
Two decades later, OIT has grown from that small team into a department of over 80 professionals supporting a campus that has grown tenfold since day one. The work has changed; we're no longer just standing up infrastructure; we're maturing it, modernizing it, and in many cases, rebuilding it entirely to meet the needs of a university that serves thousands of students, supports nationally recognized research, and operates at a scale our founders were planning for but hadn't yet seen.
In my first Notes from Nick, I shared that my guiding philosophy is service and partnership, and that I ask myself every day how OIT can effectively support campus needs, be seen as an enabler of our shared mission, and steward our resources effectively. That philosophy hasn't changed. If anything, this year reinforced it.The 2025/2026 academic year was defined by collaboration. We launched Scout, the campus's first AI assistant, and began securing enterprise AI agreements so the campus community adopts these tools on a foundation we trust. We migrated over 1,000 phone lines to a modern system for our front facing offices, expanded the MERCED Cluster for Valley researchers, supported the opening of the Cat Cave as a space for the whole campus community to recharge and connect, and much much more.
And OIT faced one of the hardest challenges yet this past year: we hosted UC Tech 2026, welcoming 400 technology professionals from across the UC system to Merced. The conference reinforced something I believe deeply: our best work happens through collaboration. That belief runs through everything in this report. OIT didn't accomplish any of what you'll read here alone; we built it through partnerships with campus departments, faculty, students, and colleagues across the UC system.
As we look ahead to new buildings, new programs, and new challenges, I'm proud of the foundation OIT has built and excited about what the next twenty years will bring.
Nick Dugan
Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Officer UC Merced Office of Information Technology
Infrastructure Maturing With Us
The systems and infrastructure that support UC Merced are only as strong and reliable as the teams maintaining and maturing them. Across service management, daily operations, data pipelines, and outreach tools, OIT's teams strengthened our infrastructure and tools campus depends on daily.
Twenty years in, UC Merced's technology landscape looks nothing like it did at the start, and this year, OIT leaned into the future. From launching the campus's first AI assistant to rebuilding campus websites, expanding regional research partnerships, and creating new spaces for students to connect, the 2025/2026 academic year reflected a department focused on building technology that serves the campus community today and positions it for the decades ahead.
21st Century Technology
Where We're Going
The work reflected in this report doesn't end with the academic year. As UC Merced prepares for new buildings, new programs, and continued growth, OIT is laying the groundwork, strengthening our teams, planning for new spaces, and using the data from this year's efforts to shape what comes next.
Thank you for reading the 2025/2026 OIT Annual Report.