As having graduated from a large university and having worked at another one, there are several problems: - failure to understand customer needs. There is ver

As having graduated from a large university and having worked at another one, there are several problems: - failure to understand customer needs. There is very little feedback considered in most university processes. It's "if you [student] don't like it, too bad." State schools offer on average less hand-holding compared to Ivys and private, which makes some sense. - failure to share and integrate between departments, giving the appearance of fragmentation and more work for the served affiliates (students, faculty, staff, visitors, etc) - failure to adapt to modern technologies fast enough. I started with desktop servers connected on public IPs and Apple Newtons, and ended with rack mounted gear in real datacenters behind hardware firewalls. The problem is partly that budget is yearly, top-down, not based on need. Also, most departments are cost-centers, not profit-centers (we were, so we had more leverage to suggest changes). Combine these and you get reactive capabilities devoid of marketplace competition^ that are a year behind the times, at best. Yeah, pretty nuts for a $160 m dept. ^ Our customers (other departments within the same hierarchy) often owned a-la-carte discretionary funding control over our departments' projects, so there was competition because opting for outside vendors would be loss of funding and more integration work.