Every year, Slate Summit reminds me why I enjoy being part of this community.
Yes, it’s an opportunity to see the latest innovations coming to Slate. Yes, it’s a chance to learn from sessions packed with creative ideas and practical solutions. But more than anything, Summit is where thousands of higher education professionals come together to share knowledge, solve problems, and help one another make the most of the tools they use every day.
This year’s Summit in Nashville was no exception.
Starting Summit by Bringing the Community Together
Before the conference officially kicked off, our team—Marcus Webb, Katie Jordan, Malyn Pickett, Julia Watson Dozier, and I—welcomed more than 70 current partners, colleagues, and new friends to Pins Mechanical for an evening of arcade games, pizza, and conversation.
One of my favorite parts of Summit is reconnecting with familiar faces while also meeting people attending for the first time. Having Technolutions staff, community ambassadors, partner institutions, and new connections all in the same room created exactly the kind of energy that makes the Slate community special.
A Strong Start and Plenty to Be Excited About
Wednesday’s “Slatest News”-themed opening session, delivered by Technolutions CEO Alexander Clark, gave exactly what attendees were hoping for: an energetic look at the newest features and enhancements coming to Slate.
Like everyone else, our team immediately started talking about the updates we’re most excited to put into practice.
For me, the standout feature was Reader Form Communications. The ability to send internal workflow alerts directly to the appropriate staff members has the potential to simplify communication and help teams respond more quickly without adding unnecessary complexity.
Senior Director of Slate Strategies, Katie Jordan, is particularly excited about the upcoming enhancements to Subtabs. Beyond giving administrators more flexibility in organizing information, she sees significant potential to help institutions better manage sensitive information within shared Slate environments and to make timelines easier to navigate. She was chatting with clients about it, and Kara Azchat from Mount Saint Mary’s mentioned that it will also be a great way to have person-scoped and application-scoped event registrations show in one spot.
For Senior Director of Slate Support, Malyn Pickett, the new Express Query Tools stood out as one of those small improvements that will have an outsized impact. Being able to rename exports and adjust filters and joins on the fly will make it faster and more intuitive for everyday users to refine queries.
And finally, VP of Enrollment Analytics and Chief Slate Strategist Marcus Webb had two! Marcus thought that Custom Delivery Windows for Queries will be particularly useful for streamlining external system integrations, and that AI Chatbot Conversation History will make the way users interact with AI chatbots reviewable, queryable, and a tool for refining instructions/knowledge sources.
These kinds of quality-of-life improvements may not always grab the headlines, but they’re often the updates that save users time every single day.
Shameless plug: for more tips and tricks that save users time every single day, check out The Parish Group’s Slate 101 Series, headlined by Katie Jordan. This practical learning series is for those who use Slate throughout the student lifecycle. Whether you’re new to the platform or looking to deepen your knowledge, these short videos break down key tools and highlight new functionality to raise your confidence and understanding.
Sharing Ideas Is Just as Important as Learning New Ones
One of the things I appreciate most about Slate Summit is that our team doesn’t just attend—we get to contribute.
Katie Jordan joined Alice Byrd from Brown University to present Slate Knows What You Did Last Week, featuring strategies for monitoring user activity across a Slate database, drawing a packed room of attendees interested in better understanding how to track and evaluate activity within their institutions.
Katie also presented This Is Not a Side Quest, with Villanova’s Tommy Kennedy—they had a standing-room-only crowd and two lines of questions for their session on gamifying user training.
I had the opportunity to co-moderate a Scenario Lab session with Kelly Connor Lewis from Lynn University focused on building effective record dashboards. Rather than presenting a single “right” answer, the session encouraged discussion about which data points deserve valuable screen space and how thoughtful dashboard design can support better decision-making.
Marcus co-led the Financial Aid Affinity Group, where participants explored the evolving challenges facing financial aid offices and discussed practical ways Slate can help institutions respond to them.
And Malyn co-led the Career Center Scenario Lab, sharing insights from her professional journey while encouraging other Slate professionals as they continue to develop their careers.
Katie also co-led both the New England Slate Users Group and the inaugural Remote Workers & Collaboration Affinity Group, creating opportunities for networking, collaboration, and even a little friendly competition with a Slate-powered Bingo game.
These sessions are among my favorite parts of Summit because they’re reminders that some of the best ideas come from conversations between peers solving similar challenges in different ways.
As always, Summit balanced technical learning with opportunities to reconnect and celebrate the community. Wednesday evening’s nostalgic ’90s concert—featuring performances from Mark McGrath, O-Town, 98 Degrees, and Chris Kirkpatrick of NSYNC—gave attendees a chance to unwind after a packed day of sessions. It’s one of those uniquely Slate traditions that reminds you the conference is just as much about the relationships you build as the knowledge you bring home.
One Conversation That Turned Into a New Feature
One of the most memorable parts of my week happened during Slate After Dark.
For anyone unfamiliar, Slate After Dark is an opportunity to speak directly with Technolutions CEO Alexander Clark and members of their engineering team about small improvements that could make everyday work in Slate even better.
I suggested adding the ability to assign a realm when copying a Quick Query so the copied version automatically respects existing security permissions. It’s a relatively small enhancement, but one that can save administrators time and reduce the risk of forgetting an important security setting.
Even better? They liked the idea, and it very well may roll out to databases in the coming weeks.
It’s a perfect example of something that makes the Slate community unique. Users aren’t just consumers of the platform—they have opportunities to help shape how it evolves.
Looking Ahead
By the time Summit wrapped up on Friday, I found myself reflecting on the conversations as much as the sessions themselves.
Every year, I leave Slate Summit with new ideas, practical solutions, and an even greater appreciation for the community surrounding this platform.
Whether it’s reconnecting with longtime colleagues, meeting first-time attendees, sharing ideas during presentations, or seeing user feedback become future functionality, Summit continues to demonstrate that Slate’s strength lies beyond the software itself. It’s the community it’s built around.
Want to see how experienced Slate consultants help institutions make the most of their Slate investment? Learn more about The Parish Group’s Slate services and explore how we partner with colleges and universities to build smarter, more effective enrollment solutions.
