Information Technology Services (ITS) rolled out Duo Push, a phone application used for multi-factor authentication, to students on Monday, Sept. 30. This change comes alongside a recent switch to Workday, the University’s new financial management system. While Duo has been used by faculty and staff at the University since 2021, this is the first time students have been required to use it for their University accounts.

Information Security Update 

Duo is a multi-factor authentication program designed to enhance security when passwords or devices are stolen or compromised. Students will now have two layers of security for their University accounts: in addition to password protection, students will have the Duo application on their mobile device and will be prompted to approve their login. This new measure ensures that the only people accessing University accounts are members of the University community. Duo hardware tokens will be provided to students who do not have smartphones. 

The Duo system was implemented for faculty and staff in 2021 with positive feedback, suggesting that students would also benefit from additional cybersecurity.

ITS saw the implementation of the Duo system as a way to better address the problem of compromised email accounts. When a student email account gets hacked, the hacker takes advantage of the @wesleyan.edu address and reaches out to other students with false job offers or other scams. Students trust these accounts because they seem to be affiliated with the University. While ITS is often able to recover hacked accounts, it is difficult to detect all hacked accounts before they can compromise other accounts. 

“Putting Duo in place will greatly cut down on compromised accounts,” Chief Information Security Officer Joe Bazeley wrote in an email to The Argus. “When we put it in place for faculty and staff, we dropped from an average of 1–2 compromised accounts per month to an average of around 1 compromised account per year for the protected accounts.”

The planning of the Duo implementation for students began in January 2024. ITS worked with the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) to determine that a month into the semester was the best time to roll out the new service. 

“Rolling it out over the summer could have increased the stress on the incoming class getting ready to come to Wesleyan, and rolling it out over the start of the semester could have put additional stress on all students,” Bazeley wrote.  

Bazeley reiterated that an important preventative measure comes from student support. If students receive emails that seem like scams, they should forward the email to security@wesleyan.edu.

Duo enrollment will take place from Monday, Sept. 30 to Wednesday, Oct. 9, rolled out by student class. Graduate students and seniors have already begun enrolling in the program, with some experiencing difficulties gaining access to their WesPortal accounts. 

“I got locked out completely, and it said I needed an IT code to get through,” Ali Scher ’25 wrote in a message to The Argus. “I had to go to the [ITS Help] desk and get it reset, there wasn’t anything I could do. The guy at the desk said something about how a lot of people had this problem today.”

Workday Changes

Workday, a new financial management software for University employees and clubs, was implemented on July 1, replacing the former Finance, Payroll, and HR system PeopleSoft. Workday is an AI-based management platform and will be used for employee onboarding and payroll in addition to other administrative work.

This transition caused problems over the summer, as Workday had issues integrating with the school’s hourly wage tracker, Workforce Time. Over the summer, ITS and the Workday Implementation Team—led by Workday Project Manager Steve Machuga—recommended that employees track their hours by hand until the issue was resolved on July 5. 

The Workday Implementation Team updated students on the change via email on Monday, Sept. 16. Machuga informed students about the specific ways the new system would affect them, detailing changes to student jobs, clubs, and requisition applications. He also addressed the issues with the new software implementation. 

“After 25 years, Workday is a major change for the University – requiring new skills and training for faculty and staff,” Machuga wrote in an email to the student body. “We are working hard to smooth out the inevitable wrinkles.” 

The new system also processes requests made by club finance managers for WSA reimbursement. While there were some difficulties transitioning to the new system, the WSA worked with the Office of Student Involvement (OSI) to fix the issues. OSI also hired an additional staff member to help process the WSA Student Budget Committee’s fund transfer approvals.

“We have made a much more user-friendly process for requesting funds and reimbursement, and it will be more straightforward for students than ever before,” Student Budget Committee Chair Ben Shifrel ’25 wrote in a message to The Argus. 

Anabel Goode can be reached at agoode@wesleyan.edu.