How College of Eastern Idaho Found Its Groove With Pathify
In August 2024, College of Eastern Idaho (CEI) attended Softdocs’ BRIDGE Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. Eager to explore new strategies for modernizing its campus, CEI’s Enterprise Project Manager, Kay Meixner, and Application Development Manager, Ray Michel, discovered Pathify. With its intuitive design, seamless web-mobile parity, and ready-to-deploy integration suite, Pathify stood out as a comprehensive digital experience hub — a modern, unified solution perfectly aligned with CEI’s vision for an elevated and connected student journey.
The Starting Point — A Need for Change
CEI initially adopted Ellucian Experience Premium as its student portal, but the platform soon proved underwhelming and challenging to maintain. “[Experience] didn’t provide that extra step, that extra shine,” said Michel, who leads CEI’s application development and system support. While Experience offered a basic landing page and an improved front-end for Self-Service Colleague tasks, both Michel and Meixner noted it lacked the depth, visual appeal and campus-wide capabilities needed to drive meaningful engagement.
Discovering Pathify
As Idaho’s newest community college, CEI often operates with less funding than more established institutions. But the college remains resourceful — maximizing limited budgets to enhance the student and staff experience. With a lean IT team, Michel and Meixner quickly saw how Pathify could streamline CEI’s technology ecosystem while elevating the digital campus experience.
“Until recently, our approach relied on a patchwork of disparate, unintegrated systems,” said Michel. “Our team relies on features like the Recipe Library to save time and rapidly deploy new widgets,” added Meixner. “Pathify greatly simplifies our enterprise architecture and development efforts — all systems plug into one hub.”
Windows of Opportunity
Unlike Experience, which is built on static cards and links, Pathify provides dynamic windows into key systems like Canvas or Colleague — no need for users to open new tabs or leave the platform.
“On first impression, Pathify immediately stood out as a true one-stop shop,” Michel explained. “Students access everything they need without leaving the platform — information, resources, content, to-do lists — all served to them based on their roles.”
Added Meixner, “Pathify completely aligned with our needs and vision. The platform felt like a fresh coat of paint, transforming our front-end experience.”
Fragmented to Future-Proofed
The brief interaction at Pathify’s booth made a lasting impression. Less than three months after the conference, CEI proudly became Pathify’s newest customer.
“We envisioned the technology needed to enhance our student experience — and we made it happen,” said Michel. “The Pathify team played a key role in our success — helping us advocate internally, conducting demos for various campus groups, and more.”
With the support of CEI’s new CIO, Steve Brown, and President Dr. Lori Barber, Michel and Meixner continue leading efforts to modernize CEI’s digital experience, ensuring tools like Pathify remain relevant, impactful, and cost-effective.
“Pathify solved our long-standing challenges with tech sprawl and disconnected systems,” Michel explained. “For us, it’s more than a technical upgrade — it’s a step toward a more integrated, engaging, and future-ready campus experience.”
CEI officially launched “myCEI,” its Pathify instance, in spring 2025.
About College of Eastern Idaho
- Student Headcount: 3,763
- Institution Type: Public college
- Location: Idaho Falls, Idaho
- Tech Stack:
- SIS: Ellucian Colleague
- LMS: Canvas
- Productivity: Microsoft
- Technology Consolidated into Pathify: Link farm portal, mobile application
College of Eastern Idaho (CEI) is a community-focused institution offering affordable, high-quality education to meet the needs of students, regional employers, and the community. With a commitment to open access, CEI provides diverse educational opportunities, including transfer degrees, technical training, and career readiness programs. Students benefit from small class sizes, innovative learning techniques, and flexible scheduling designed to fit a variety of lifestyles. Located in Idaho Falls, CEI values collaboration with local and national partners to ensure a strong talent pipeline and lifelong learning opportunities. Learn more at cei.edu.
