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Shadow IT often enters the conversation only after it has already gained momentum. A system shows up on the network. A department quietly renews a contract. Someone asks IT for support for a tool the institution has never heard of. By the time this happens, the instinct is often corrective: tighten the rules, reinforce policy, or bring out the checklist. But in my doctoral research with CIOs and CISOs at U.S. public R1 institutions, the leaders who consistently improved  thei

For years, Shadow IT has been framed as a governance problem — something to monitor, restrict, or eliminate. But in my research with CIOs and CISOs at U.S. public R1 institutions, a different story emerged. Shadow IT isn’t simply unauthorized technology. It’s the manifestation of innovation pressure  inside the institution. This distinction is critical. It reframes the problem from “people breaking rules” to “people trying to meet needs the system isn’t ready for.” And once l

Shadow IT Leadership Series - Post 2 The Hidden Costs of Shadow IT That Higher Education Leaders Often Miss Shadow IT is usually treated as a matter of compliance: unauthorized tools, unmanaged risk, systems that sit outside governance. These concerns are real — but they’re not the whole story. When I interviewed CIOs and CISOs at public research universities for my doctoral dissertation, a pattern emerged that reshaped the way I think about Shadow IT. The most significant co

Shadow IT in Higher Education: Why We’re Asking the Wrong Questions Shadow IT is a phrase that tends to spark an immediate reaction in higher education—sometimes frustration, sometimes fear, sometimes resignation. But after several years researching this topic for my dissertation, and presenting the findings at EDUCAUSE 2025 , I’ve come to a conclusion that may surprise some IT leaders: Most institutions fundamentally misunderstand what Shadow IT actually is. In the public re