DMARC in Higher Ed: Lessons in Sponsorship and Complexity

The complexity of a DMARC deployment can vary greatly from one organization to another with factors such as the number of domains, the variety of email sending systems, organizational structure and industry. Higher education, especially large universities, face unique challenges that often make DMARC significantly harder.

I recently completed such a project, and every challenge I’ve come to associate with working in university environments showed up. I was grateful for the experience I brought into it; without that, the outcome could have been very different. The main lesson was not about technology but what happens when sponsorship is weak or incomplete in a complex email environment.

Broadly speaking, organizations approach DMARC in a few different ways. Some tackle it piecemeal, reviewing data and fixing issues when they can. Others treat it as a proper project, forming a team, defining tasks and milestones and executing against a clear step-by-step strategy.

At dmarcian, we use the latter approach. It requires commitment, leading to a quicker, safer and more successful deployment. That success depends on sponsorship being broad enough to reach the people who actually own the systems that send email.

DMARC Deployment: Why Vertical Buy-In Is Not Enough

Like any other project, we needed a team. Before beginning a professional service engagement, we educate customers so they understand the scope, expectations and team needs. 

By the time we joined the first call, it was clear this had not happened. The customer struggled to secure time from key stakeholders and to explain the project’s value across the organization. They had leadership support, but not broad buy-in.

Without that buy-in, departments often push back, unclear about what’s required or the risks involved. This is where most DMARC delays occur. 

To protect legitimate mail flow, DMARC compliance must include every system sending mail for the organization’s domains. The challenge in higher education: many of those systems aren’t managed by IT but by business units using third-party services. Often, IT isn’t even aware these systems exist. 

DMARC also depends on alignment, and most third-party systems won’t be aligned initially. Achieving it requires two steps: configuring the applications for authentication and adding DNS records. Only IT can handle the second, while the first relies on the department owning the service. Success depends on connecting these two steps early in the project. 

The Diplomat: Influence without Mandate is Expensive

Universities are complex ecosystems of independent departments and systems. In today’s SaaS-driven landscape, most departments use third-party services, many of which send email. Common examples include marketing and communications, facilities, research institutes and laboratories, enrollment, student services and housing, international services, finance, human resources, athletics, library services and more. 

In my experience, leaders of these areas have significant autonomy over the systems they use. Without DMARC buy-in, the project team is left to persuade each one to help complete configuration steps needed for compliance. Convincing the athletic department to adjust its ticketing service during playoff season or asking admissions to update recruiting platforms before a new semester can be a difficult sell. 

Even with careful timing, these leaders may resist or ignore requests altogether. Without a clear directive from university leadership mandating cooperation, the project team becomes a group of diplomats, selling an initiative that protects the very services those departments rely on. That diplomatic effort adds both time and complexity to the project. 

Leadership lesson: When you do not secure a mandate for collaboration, you pay for it later in one-on-one diplomacy. Influence without authority is possible, but it is slow and fragile compared to clear sponsorship. 

Clock’s Ticking: Risk without Prioritization

Time management is critical in any project. Deploying DMARC in a university setting means navigating real constraints tied to academic and events calendars. Big games pause email system changes for athletics, while the start of a semester makes enrollment and recruitment teams unavailable. When delays hit, the team must pivot to whichever department is free, but working on multiple systems in parallel can be tricky.  

In our case, shifting focus to a fundraising platform seemed practical until a major event halted that work, too. Eventually, the easy wins disappear, leaving only complex systems that require deeper cooperation. Without organization-wide buy-in, each change becomes an exercise in persuasion, proving risks are mitigated, impact is minimal and rollbacks are safe. Meanwhile, other priorities quickly consume the schedule, and DMARC remains the project everyone supports in principle, but not today. 

Leadership lesson: If leadership does not explicitly prioritize DMARC against other critical events, the project will always lose to nearer, louder deadlines. Sponsorship is what turns this is important into this takes precedence right now. 

The Third-Party Problem

Even when stakeholders agree, bringing third-party systems into compliance is not simple. As noted earlier, after identifying the right contact for each email-sending system surfaced in the DMARC data, IT administrators must either guide them through technical alignment steps or ask them to request changes from the vendor.

• SPF, DKIM or both? 
• Where are the configuration options located? 
• What nomenclature do they use? 
• Do they rely on CNAME delegation or direct record management? 
• Is SPF alignment done through a subdomain for the purpose of bounce management?

Each service is different, standards are inconsistent and documentation can be sparse. 

The second route, working through the third-party provider, can be equally difficult. Support responsiveness and accuracy vary widely. Some vendors delay progress with slow communication; others provide incorrect guidance that leads to rework and wastes time. Without deep familiarity with a broad range of service providers, navigation becomes slow and uncertain.

This complexity exists everywhere, but universities face it at scale, often depending on dozens of separate third-party services. Combine that with limited buy-in across departments, and a six month project can easily stretch into years without the proper guidance.  

Leadership lesson: The more complex and distributed your email ecosystem is, the more costly weak sponsorship becomes. In a university or college environment, third-party sprawl is a fact of life. The variable you control is sponsorship. 

It may sound like common sense, but it is not always common practice. For most mid- to large-sized enterprises, especially universities, DMARC cannot be implemented by IT alone. Success depends on genuine teamwork and department leaders who give the project time and support.

The lessons from this project are straightforward:

• Secure sponsorship both laterally and vertically, so system owners are directly asked to participate. 
• Pair that sponsorship with clear prioritization, or DMARC will always lose to more immediate deadlines. 
• Understand that third-party sprawl amplifies every gap in sponsorship and plan accordingly. 

As mailbox providers tighten sender requirements, DMARC is quickly shifting from a nice-to-have to a must-have. Sponsorship isn’t a box to check midstream, it’s the foundation to build on before the project even begins.

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