Datatel Honors Edison State Community College for Exemplary Leadership and Collaboration.

Business Editors/Education Writers

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 2004

Datatel(R), Inc., a leading provider of enterprise information management solutions for higher education, today announced that it has awarded Edison State Community College the Datatel 2004 Award for Exemplary Leadership and Collaboration in the Community College.

The award was presented to Dr. Kenneth Yowell, President of Edison State Community College, at Datatel's annual AACC Presidents' Dinner in Minneapolis. Datatel hosts this invitation-only client event every year to bring together its community college leaders and thank them for their dedication and support. Edison is the 15th community college to meet the rigorous award criteria, and received a $5,000 unrestricted gift from Datatel.

Award recipients are active in the Datatel Client Community and take a leadership role in the advancement of issues important to community colleges. They also exhibit an innovative approach to implementing technology practices, and are clearly committed to improving services for faculty, staff, and students. The Award was introduced in 1989.

Edison has fully utilized Colleague(R), Datatel's Enterprise Resource Planning system, and WebAdvisor, Datatel's web access solution. Edison has used Datatel's WebAdvisor to provide online services to their constituents, replacing previous business processes. Edison has also utilized many of Datatel's consulting services - streamlining their business processes on campus and optimizing Colleague's functionality. Edison was the first client to take advantage of the remote system management services offered by Datatel's Professional Services Division. These services provide consistent IT support, regardless of personnel changes, so Edison can stay current on software upgrades, and in turn focus on more on their strategic goals.

"Edison State Community College has consistently been a strong partner with Datatel since they became a client in 1999," said H. Russell Griffith, Datatel president and CEO. "Their high involvement in our client community shows the true spirit of academe though their willingness to work in partnership on many important topics."

Through Datatel's Center for Institutional Effectiveness(R), Edison has adopted the Balanced Scorecard approach to implement continuous quality improvement efforts across campus. Their efforts began with the training of internal personnel, which empowered Edison's staff to make data-driven, strategic decisions in a much more timely manner.

About Datatel, Inc.

Datatel, an employee-owned company, is a leading provider of fully integrated enterprise information management solutions for higher education. Headquartered in Fairfax, VA, the company has more than 620 client institutions throughout North America. For 25 years, Datatel has exclusively focused on meeting the needs of colleges and universities, helping institutions operate more efficiently so they may better serve their constituents. More information about Datatel is available at www.datatel.com.

2004 Datatel, Inc. All rights reserved. Datatel is a registered trademark of Datatel, Inc. All names, products, and services mentioned are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.