The National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) announced last week Indiana University is the recipient of the association’s 2008 Innovation Award. The NACUBO Awards program is focused on innovation in the management of college and university business and financial affairs.

“With the KUALI Financial System, Indiana University exemplifies how colleges and universities are working diligently to operate efficiently and to save money,” notes John Walda, president and CEO of NACUBO.

The award goes on to say that "KFS demonstrates that higher-education-specific software can be developed through the successful collaboration of a community of institutions."

As you can imagine, NACUBO is a pretty conservative group. I remember in one of the foundational discussions before we actually started Kuali where Casey Green was reporting on his analysis of a survey we conducted of the NACUBO membership. According to Casey the data suggested "affirmative ambivalence" toward open source administrative applications.

The NACUBO award and the growing numbers attending Kuali Days (more that 400 people from nearly a hundred colleges and universities in Chicago a few weeks ago) seem to indicate that we've moved past the "affirmative ambivalence" era.