When Karolina Holl stepped into the leadership role at Utica College’s Financial Aid Office, she quickly set a goal to move things into the digital age. “Paper, paper, and more paper. We had lots of paper and lots of people. Everything was done manually,” she explained. Things were changing at the small, private institution in upstate New York. “Financial aid cycle times had to improve, and staff was feeling frustrated in their efforts to help students more quickly.” Focus on People, Not Paper Utica College’s paper-heavy financial aid process was resulting in stacks of paperwork. “I had many employees whose whole job was paper processing: verifying IDs, deciphering handwriting,” Holl said. “I had people with great ideas that just weren’t able to put those things in place, and n

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