Update: Michael Korcuska has a blog post up about some small colleges that have been successful with Sakai.
Sakai has a reputation for being technology-driven and focused on the needs of large research universities. There was some truth to both of those claims in the early years of the project. However, the recent election of the Sakai Foundation Board Chair and Vice Chair are strong indicators that neither claim is true anymore. The community recently elected the Sakai Foundation board members and the board members, in turn, elected Josh Baron and Maggie McVay Lynch as Chair and Vice Chair, respectively.
Both Josh and Maggie come from small schools. Josh represents Marist College, a small liberal arts school in Poughkeepsie, NY with about 4,200 undergraduates. Maggie represents College of the Redwoods, a community college in Eureka, CA with 6,774 students. These are not tiny schools, but neither are they huge. Both of these schools hire an external support company (rSmart) rather than managing their Sakai instances with their own IT department.
Equally importantly, both Josh and Maggie are teachers and not technologists. Both have advanced degrees in education. Both run their educational technology programs at their respective schools. And both came to prominence within the Sakai community for their contributions to developing the Teaching and Learning committee and, more generally, bringing pedagogy to the forefront of the Sakai community’s work and focus.