CMC.edu Sucks

Forgive the blunt title, but this has gone on too long. First, some backstory.

When I was a wee high school junior in the streets of Manhattan, I would come home from school, take off my snow boots, and look for colleges in warmer climates via the web.

Everything I read about Claremont McKenna sounded amazing to me– “Happiest Students,” “Most Politically Active Students,” “Best Classroom Experience,” “Best Quality of Life.”

I also read a hilarious, stereotype-enforcing “Unofficial Guide to CMC” on the website-formerly-known-as ClaremontMcKenna.com, which left quite the impression on my 16-year-old, wannabe Warren Buffet-Mike Bloomberg self. (To this day, the archive.org copies of cmcstudents.com has some worthwhile stuff on it.)

Then there was ClaremontMcKenna.edu.

ClaremontMcKenna.edu was pretty bad. It was composed of mismatched colors and awkwardly placed student portraits, and I couldn’t find the information I needed. To this day, I don’t understand why “admission” and “prospective students” are different sections of the site (and now “CMCNation.com” makes it even more confusing). Granted, the old version of the site might have been better than the current “puke-on-puke yellow” color scheme, but peer institutions’ websites looked far better to students who lived 3,000 miles away. There weren’t even pictures of the campus beyond thumbnail-sized shots of parking lots and buildings that looked like they were taken by a freshman with a polaroid camera and a scanner.

But I digress.

The point isn’t that ClaremontMcKenna.edu sucked then, it’s that it continues to be awful when compared to our peer institutions’ or even Pitzer’s websites. And it’s getting comparatively worse. Compare the ClaremontMcKenna.edu of six years ago to today’s CMC.edu and tell me you see change beyond the move to the “puke-on-puke yellow” color scheme. Sure, a couple years ago CMC brought in some people to make the flashy “Life@CMC” application, but that doesn’t excuse the rest of the website.

Needless to say, our website is vital for marketing to prospective students. Still, admitted student questionnaries show the website is not actually a huge factor for most HS students who ultimately apply to CMC, but some have berated it in the survey anyway. But many of those students would have applied to CMC regardless, as many of them have some human or geographic connection to CMC (which is stronger than any website). It’s the people we never learn about— those who are turned off by the website and decide not to apply, that we are losing. Especially East Coasters like myself with no connection to anything or anyone Claremont.

And it’s not hard to fix— it just costs a little money that would go a long way.

1. Keep the ITS department away from web design. They are understaffed, overworked, and not specially trained in or focused on web design. They can code the backend, but they aren’t designers. I can’t see a bigger disaster than letting ITS redesign the site themselves— it will be difficult to undo or disregard if it does not turn out well. Clarification 7/17/09: ITS has no role in the design of the CMC.edu website– that is solely Public Affairs’ responsibility.

2. Stop wasting money. A couple years back some students and administrators met with web consultants who wound up making dumb recommendations that the college never took. It was a waste of thousands of dollars because the school had no idea what we needed and when it comes to professional web design, neither do most students. And while student input should not be disregarded, the website is not really for current students— it’s for prospective students, alumni, parents, and anyone else who wants to learn more about the College.

3. Hire an outside firm to see the process through from start to finish. White Whale Web Services, an Oakland-based design firm that is responsible for Berkeley Law’s, Haverford College’s, Duke University’s, and Kenyon’s College’s website, specializes in web design for higher education institutions. I e-mailed Jason Pontius, President of White Whale, who shared some of the costs behind a website redesign:

“Costs for a higher ed web site are of course flexible, and depend on lots of variables (how many sites are to be designed, whether information architecture consulting is part of the project, whether we come to campus for extensive community research, etc.). In our case, we tend to be hired more for the level of service we provide (immersive, collaborative, community-focused) than for the price tag. As a general ballpark figure, I’d say our .edu projects start at around $20K (strategy, consulting, small design projects, writing, etc.) and top out at around $150-200K (for deep, immersive, full-service redesigns over 9-12 months— we only take on a couple of these per year).”

4. Account for web design as a depreciable asset. To cover the $150-200K, it would be much easier to set aside $40-50K a year, allowing constant innovation and upkeep. Trying to shell out $200k every four years is difficult and dependent on market forces, endowment returns, etc.

5. Do it now. After years of stagnation, Evie Lazzarino left CMC as VP of Public Affairs. In February, the College hired Richard Rodner, who held the same position at UCLA, to fill the post. Mr. Rodner now has the opportunity to make right by CMC.edu, and it’s an opportunity he cannot afford to waste.

It’s pretty simple— find the money, hire professionals, and get it done. Then keep it up to date with innovation and contemporary practices.

Josh S.

In late 2007, Josh started the website CMCForum.com. It has since grown into this fine publication today. He is a senior at CMC and is not looking forward to graduating, after which he will move back to NYC and take over.

http://claremontconservative.com Charles C. Johnson

I agree 110%.

I would say that the content also needs a complete overhaul.
http://claremontconservative.com Charles C. Johnson

I agree 110%.

I would say that the content also needs a complete overhaul.
Mark Munro

Couldn’t agree more. I know CMC tends to regard visual aesthetic as unnecessary, but I think we should prioritize and revamp our website, shifting away from a spartan design. I’ve spoken with the Admissions Office and heard rumors that an overhaul is coming down the pipeline. Who knows how long this will take though?
Mark Munro

Couldn’t agree more. I know CMC tends to regard visual aesthetic as unnecessary, but I think we should prioritize and revamp our website, shifting away from a spartan design. I’ve spoken with the Admissions Office and heard rumors that an overhaul is coming down the pipeline. Who knows how long this will take though?
Jed Bartlett

this article puts it perfectly. unfortunately, every time our school tries to fix the problem it gets caught up in bureacracy. our board of trustees need to take notice. at least pam gann needs to take notice. quick, someone give henry kravis a computer!

cmc.edu is more of an eyesore than the pods on the old tennis courts. at least you can’t see those things thousands of miles away

Whitewhale looks like an awesome company, I hope they hire them. Who has the authority to do that anyway?
Jed Bartlett

this article puts it perfectly. unfortunately, every time our school tries to fix the problem it gets caught up in bureacracy. our board of trustees need to take notice. at least pam gann needs to take notice. quick, someone give henry kravis a computer!

cmc.edu is more of an eyesore than the pods on the old tennis courts. at least you can’t see those things thousands of miles away

Whitewhale looks like an awesome company, I hope they hire them. Who has the authority to do that anyway?
MarkZuck

QUICK- someone start a “CMC.edu Sucks” Facebook group!
MarkZuck

QUICK- someone start a “CMC.edu Sucks” Facebook group!
Tom

“growing up on the streets of manhattan?” Yeah, and I lived in the White House.
Tom

“growing up on the streets of manhattan?” Yeah, and I lived in the White House.
Josh

just because everyone else at cmc who grew up in a “major metropolitan area” really grew up in the suburbs doesn’t mean you should hate on those of us who had to hustle to afford our free inner-city public school lunch…
Josh

just because everyone else at cmc who grew up in a “major metropolitan area” really grew up in the suburbs doesn’t mean you should hate on those of us who had to hustle to afford our free inner-city public school lunch…
form over function?

I agree with everyone on the aesthetics but cmc.edu does not suck. I have no idea how they do it, but it is a very easy to navigate website and the parts that need to be updated constantly (the ath, IT, IPTV) have never caused me a major problem, although once I was allowed to sign up for an ath event which was “full”.

There are some departments which need to update their respective webpages on the cmc.edu site as the pictures are from before 2003, but that is more of an internal issue. There are way too many clicks necessary to reach student email from the .edu webpage. As an example of the functionality of cmc.edu, I just tried to hook up my phone to my email. I’m no techy but with four clicks from the main page I was able to find instructions on how to hook up mobile phones to your student email acct. Thats pretty good.

As an aside, I know a few of the labs and departments at CGU have their own webpages either designed by grad students or contracted out for far less than the 150-200k price figure quoted. Granted CMC’s web issues are larger than those of a lab, we don’t need a complete overhaul imo, just an aesthetic touchup and maybe some consolidation.

Josh

An “aesthetic touch-up and consolidation” is harder than it sounds when the stakes are so high. Regarding form vs function, the two are inseparable in this case. There are many other issues with the website that I didn’t go into in the article, but take a look at the Haverford College website for an example of some of the things we could be doing (and that site was designed three years ago). Of course, add CMC’s character and ideas into a new site, and there is a lot that could be accomplished.

Sure, there are some “internal” problems, but nothing that can’t be done by external experts– our staff is not capable of it. The whole thing needs to be redone.

I should also mention that I’ve heard from various students and administrators since this piece was published that the website is already being completely redone soon. Even so, I just don’t believe that it will be done in the next 12 (or even 18) months. And that’s way too long.

form over function?

I agree with everyone on the aesthetics but cmc.edu does not suck. I have no idea how they do it, but it is a very easy to navigate website and the parts that need to be updated constantly (the ath, IT, IPTV) have never caused me a major problem, although once I was allowed to sign up for an ath event which was “full”.

There are some departments which need to update their respective webpages on the cmc.edu site as the pictures are from before 2003, but that is more of an internal issue. There are way too many clicks necessary to reach student email from the .edu webpage. As an example of the functionality of cmc.edu, I just tried to hook up my phone to my email. I’m no techy but with four clicks from the main page I was able to find instructions on how to hook up mobile phones to your student email acct. Thats pretty good.

As an aside, I know a few of the labs and departments at CGU have their own webpages either designed by grad students or contracted out for far less than the 150-200k price figure quoted. Granted CMC’s web issues are larger than those of a lab, we don’t need a complete overhaul imo, just an aesthetic touchup and maybe some consolidation.

Josh

An “aesthetic touch-up and consolidation” is harder than it sounds when the stakes are so high. Regarding form vs function, the two are inseparable in this case. There are many other issues with the website that I didn’t go into in the article, but take a look at the Haverford College website for an example of some of the things we could be doing (and that site was designed three years ago). Of course, add CMC’s character and ideas into a new site, and there is a lot that could be accomplished.

Sure, there are some “internal” problems, but nothing that can’t be done by external experts– our staff is not capable of it. The whole thing needs to be redone.

I should also mention that I’ve heard from various students and administrators since this piece was published that the website is already being completely redone soon. Even so, I just don’t believe that it will be done in the next 12 (or even 18) months. And that’s way too long.

Michael Wilner

Thanks for writing this — you’re absolutely correct. From my discussions with people, the biggest problem has been acquiring the money for an overhaul. Life@CMC, for instance, cost the admissions office a ‘fortune’, but because they also considered it a major priority, they decided to channel funds from print marketing material into the creation of this key link, replacing the amateur Polaroid shots that we, as prospective students, just had to swallow hard. Still, a complete re-do is seen as expensive.

I see it as important because, as you said, not many people from back East are going to make the flight to visit. And after visiting, a website is the next best thing in determining the character, caliber, and feel of an institution. It’s similar to why the administration sees the Kravis Center as so important to the school — we need a gateway that does CMC justice. The site should be treated no differently.
Michael Wilner

Thanks for writing this — you’re absolutely correct. From my discussions with people, the biggest problem has been acquiring the money for an overhaul. Life@CMC, for instance, cost the admissions office a ‘fortune’, but because they also considered it a major priority, they decided to channel funds from print marketing material into the creation of this key link, replacing the amateur Polaroid shots that we, as prospective students, just had to swallow hard. Still, a complete re-do is seen as expensive.

I see it as important because, as you said, not many people from back East are going to make the flight to visit. And after visiting, a website is the next best thing in determining the character, caliber, and feel of an institution. It’s similar to why the administration sees the Kravis Center as so important to the school — we need a gateway that does CMC justice. The site should be treated no differently.
http://abhinemani.com Abhi Nemani

Thinking IT should handle the website is like thinking an artist should make his brushes, a baseball player his bats, or an alcoholic her glass. Using something well is usually much different than making it. For websites, engineers handle the later, designers the former. If that doesn’t make sense to you, think about it this way: how many times at work have you seen the IT guy well dressed? Style is always intelligent but intelligence isn’t often stylish.

That’s not to say that IT shouldn’t be a part of the redesign — just that they shouldn’t be the only voice, when it comes to the front-end or back. You ever wonder why the departments or institutes don’t update their sites often? Because it hard to, because the interface is cumbersome, and because the system isn’t built for growth, just maintenance.If you’ve ever used it, you’d know that the system is made to edit existing webpages, not facilitate the creation of new ones — which is exactly what a college site should do. We are making things all the time: papers, projects, events, etc. Publicizing them is the best publicity we could have, and at its most basic level, the site must be a publicity vehicle. So with its form, the site’s functionality must be updated. And again, the functional designers must know what students, faculty, and administrators do and need, which doesn’t means asking us how to rebuild the site — no, experts should answer that — but instead finding out who we are and then choosing the features and aesthetic that best let us say so ourselves.
http://abhinemani.com Abhi Nemani

Thinking IT should handle the website is like thinking an artist should make his brushes, a baseball player his bats, or an alcoholic her glass. Using something well is usually much different than making it. For websites, engineers handle the later, designers the former. If that doesn’t make sense to you, think about it this way: how many times at work have you seen the IT guy well dressed? Style is always intelligent but intelligence isn’t often stylish.

That’s not to say that IT shouldn’t be a part of the redesign — just that they shouldn’t be the only voice, when it comes to the front-end or back. You ever wonder why the departments or institutes don’t update their sites often? Because it hard to, because the interface is cumbersome, and because the system isn’t built for growth, just maintenance.If you’ve ever used it, you’d know that the system is made to edit existing webpages, not facilitate the creation of new ones — which is exactly what a college site should do. We are making things all the time: papers, projects, events, etc. Publicizing them is the best publicity we could have, and at its most basic level, the site must be a publicity vehicle. So with its form, the site’s functionality must be updated. And again, the functional designers must know what students, faculty, and administrators do and need, which doesn’t means asking us how to rebuild the site — no, experts should answer that — but instead finding out who we are and then choosing the features and aesthetic that best let us say so ourselves.
http://advomatic.com/julie Julie Blitzer

Abhi- so right. They need to contract out this work to qualified people (coughcoughalumatwebcompanycoughcough).

I’ve hated cmc.edu since I applied, all the way back in November 2003. And it doesn’t look much diferent today. When CMC is finally ready to redo this site the right way, I’ll be the first interested bidder on this project.

I’m pretty sure the CMC admissions office suffers because the site is so awful compared to other college sites.

Josh – Unfortunately setting aside 40-50k a year probably won’t cut it, even if you do a phased approach. This site needs the 150-200k up front to offset design and planning costs. But we could save CMC a ton of money by going open source, on a platform like Drupal: http://groups.drupal.org/node/1722/resources

Josh Siegel

Yes, I’m not saying CMC should “start saving up,” but should budget for it every year, not just scramble to find money for it once every x years (especially as x approaches 10). For now, CMC should throw as much money at it as is needed, which sounds like it would be in the $200k range.

As for using Drupal, I don’t think the cost savings justify the amateur, cookie-cutter approach. We are not an institution that should apply a one-size-fits-all, open source platform like Drupal– we have specific needs that are better custom tailored to (like an Ath videos site). While I realize that applications like Drupal and Joomla can be customized, the level of customization needed could cost as much as a custom built solution and still not be as impressive.

The advantage of a company like White Whale (and maybe some others) is that they have their own CMS (content management system) that is custom tailored to work for educational institutions. Because they do work on so many .edu’s, their CMS achieves economies of scale that might even be cheaper (and is certainly better) than customizing an open source solution to fit our needs.

I see that Amherst and some other lower profile .edu’s use Drupal, but their sites lack individuality, among other things.

That said, Drupal can probably work for political campaigns and stuff like that– much less is at stake and goals are generally short-term. I’m hard pressed to find a $1+ billion institution or corporation that effectively uses it as a backbone for their long-term main site, Amherst excluded.

Bidders?

It’s wishful thinking to believe that CMC would go out and get bids or look at a variety of companies. Last I heard, they were just going to hire some guy who knew someone who knew someone. Typical CMC administration…
http://inaturalist.org Sean McGregor

White Whale uses an enterprise CMS of another company, http://websolutions.opentext.com/. Skipping the technical reasons for why Drupal is preferable (economic arguments are more effective here), working through a firm using a closed source CMS makes us captives to the pricing and R&D of two different firms. Drupal is free, and benefits from the work of thousands of developers from around the world. Initial development would likely cost the same, but improvements would be cheaper/easier on Drupal.

Also, an open source solution would allow all ~23 departments/institutes to use the same source as cmc.edu. With that taken care of, a theme designer could change the look and feel for dirt cheap on a per department basis. This would also spread out the cost among the many institute/department budgets.

I might be dating myself here, but does anyone like Blackboard (commercial) more than Sakai (open source)?

http://advomatic.com/julie Julie Blitzer

Abhi- so right. They need to contract out this work to qualified people (coughcoughalumatwebcompanycoughcough).

I’ve hated cmc.edu since I applied, all the way back in November 2003. And it doesn’t look much diferent today. When CMC is finally ready to redo this site the right way, I’ll be the first interested bidder on this project.

I’m pretty sure the CMC admissions office suffers because the site is so awful compared to other college sites.

Josh – Unfortunately setting aside 40-50k a year probably won’t cut it, even if you do a phased approach. This site needs the 150-200k up front to offset design and planning costs. But we could save CMC a ton of money by going open source, on a platform like Drupal: http://groups.drupal.org/node/1722/resources

Josh Siegel

Yes, I’m not saying CMC should “start saving up,” but should budget for it every year, not just scramble to find money for it once every x years (especially as x approaches 10). For now, CMC should throw as much money at it as is needed, which sounds like it would be in the $200k range.

As for using Drupal, I don’t think the cost savings justify the amateur, cookie-cutter approach. We are not an institution that should apply a one-size-fits-all, open source platform like Drupal– we have specific needs that are better custom tailored to (like an Ath videos site). While I realize that applications like Drupal and Joomla can be customized, the level of customization needed could cost as much as a custom built solution and still not be as impressive.

The advantage of a company like White Whale (and maybe some others) is that they have their own CMS (content management system) that is custom tailored to work for educational institutions. Because they do work on so many .edu’s, their CMS achieves economies of scale that might even be cheaper (and is certainly better) than customizing an open source solution to fit our needs.

I see that Amherst and some other lower profile .edu’s use Drupal, but their sites lack individuality, among other things.

That said, Drupal can probably work for political campaigns and stuff like that– much less is at stake and goals are generally short-term. I’m hard pressed to find a $1+ billion institution or corporation that effectively uses it as a backbone for their long-term main site, Amherst excluded.

Bidders?

It’s wishful thinking to believe that CMC would go out and get bids or look at a variety of companies. Last I heard, they were just going to hire some guy who knew someone who knew someone. Typical CMC administration…
http://inaturalist.org Sean McGregor

White Whale uses an enterprise CMS of another company, http://websolutions.opentext.com/. Skipping the technical reasons for why Drupal is preferable (economic arguments are more effective here), working through a firm using a closed source CMS makes us captives to the pricing and R&D of two different firms. Drupal is free, and benefits from the work of thousands of developers from around the world. Initial development would likely cost the same, but improvements would be cheaper/easier on Drupal.

Also, an open source solution would allow all ~23 departments/institutes to use the same source as cmc.edu. With that taken care of, a theme designer could change the look and feel for dirt cheap on a per department basis. This would also spread out the cost among the many institute/department budgets.

I might be dating myself here, but does anyone like Blackboard (commercial) more than Sakai (open source)?

Josh Siegel

Clarification 7/17/09: There has been some finger pointing going on since this article was published, so I’d like to clarify that ITS has no role in the design of CMC.edu. I’m sorry if it was unclear in the article– I put that part in there because some people were placing blame in the wrong places– only Public Affairs is responsible for the design of the website.
Josh Siegel

Clarification 7/17/09: There has been some finger pointing going on since this article was published, so I’d like to clarify that ITS has no role in the design of CMC.edu. I’m sorry if it was unclear in the article– I put that part in there because some people were placing blame in the wrong places– only Public Affairs is responsible for the design of the website.
Annie Jalota

I couldn’t agree more! I deeply dislike the CMC website! It makes me go GRRR!
Annie Jalota

I couldn’t agree more! I deeply dislike the CMC website! It makes me go GRRR!
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