The new Hillsdale.edu will have all new pages for academic departments, campus life, and more.
Brad Lowrey | Courtesy
If not for a team of 15-20 students, the new Hillsdale College website would not have plans to launch by the end of April, Web Content Manager Kokko Tso said.
A team of students have been working with the marketing department over the last year in the process of updating Hillsdale’s website. The students have been working on everything from migrating information and coding to writing and laying out pages.
“We’re very lucky to have the student team that we have,” Tso said. “Hillsdale College students are the best and the brightest, but I really do think the students that work for us are. They’re passionate; they’re serious; they’re diligent. They’ve done an amazing job.”
Tso oversees the student writer team, which has been working hard writing student spotlights, campus-life features, and other content for the new website.
“If there’s a page on the website, there’s a very high chance that a student somewhere along the lines had a role in creating that or editing it,” Tso said.
Freshman Emma McCormick is a member of the student team and has worked on several projects for the new website. McCormick wrote a few pages for the major descriptions and did some technical work, transferring information from the current website and course catalog to the new Hillsdale.edu.
“Other writers were doing this too,” McCormick said.
McCormick said the descriptions of different majors have changed to target prospective students or current students deciding on a major. She is also working on a piece featuring things to do in Hillsdale.
McCormick said the aesthetic appeal of the site has improved, and it will be a much more useful resource for students than the current site.
“The website is going to look amazing. The photos and flow of the new site is beautiful, streamlined, and easy to navigate, while emphasizing the mission of the college and the purpose of the liberal arts,” McCormick said. “It will improve campus life because it will become useful to us. There isn’t current or helpful information on the website right now, for the most part. With the new site, everything will be up-to-date, and it can become a resource.”
Senior Ilana Goehner has been transferring content from the old site to the new site.
“That involves creating new pages, reformatting and reorganizing the text, and finding photos to enhance and illustrate the content,” Goehner said. “Recently, we’ve mostly been doing quality assurance, as many of the pages are nearing completion and just need a few updates for functionality and consistency.”
Goehner echoed McCormick’s praise for the new site.
“I like that the new website is so colorful and engaging,” Goehner said. “It’s definitely a more lively look for the college that will hopefully be appealing to prospective students.”
The marketing department expressed its gratitude for all of the students’ hard work.
“It would not be an overreach to say, without the student support, that we wouldn’t be in a position to launch right now,” Director of Digital Marketing and Social Media Brad Lowrey said.