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The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) is a diverse and multifaceted academic entity composed of sixteen departments and nine support units that exhibit equally diverse and complex technological needs. As As the use of information technologies for research, instruction, and administration within the University has evolved, a variety of technical support units emerged within the College. These independent units assumed a wide variety of functions based on the needs of the individual disciplines. As time went on, this led to duplication of services in some areas, while other areas were under-served. To ensure adequate service to students, faculty, and staff across the College, to reduce unnecessary duplication of services, to take advantage of the administrative and budgetary efficiencies afforded by centralization where appropriate, and to build a more cohesive IT team within the College, existing units were merged into a single unit in the Fall semester of 2004. This unit is called CAS-IT and reports to the Dean. The objectives of this new unit is to effectuate and promote proactive planning processes that establish and prioritize technology needs, develop and maintain ongoing projects for a wide definition of technical applications throughout the College, proactively and reactively enact efficient and helpful support mechanisms in response to complex outcomes resulting from the use of technology, evaluate instructional technology, train technical personnel and clients on the use of instructional technology, and facilitate ongoing projects and personnel maintenance at all levels throughout the College as consistent with the larger mission of Illinois State University, and particularly as addressed in the Educating Illinois II document.
In 2005 Dean Gary Olson, charged CAS-IT to craft their own strategic plan—building on Educating Illinois and the CAS Strategic Plan—to ensure that the service and support necessary to advance the aspirations of our students, faculty, and staff were provided. The result was the CAS-IT Strategic Plan 2006-2010. As consistent with the Educating Illinois document and the final committee report on Organizing Distributed Technical Support (aka the Chizmar Report) the assumption here is that "technical support includes both reactive and proactive assistance to users as they utilize information technology to accomplish professional, organizational, and instructional tasks." A final assumption is that the above-mentioned assistance facilitates or enables the constituency to, in turn, better support the College. In some complex organizations, goal statements stand as justification for existing actions and structures and can also serve as a basis for evaluation. Measurable goal statements for the proposed technology support unit within CAS included:
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