2008 Woodie Awards
Do you have the Clarkson Gene?
Aaron Fetterman
Issue date: 2/25/08 Section: Opinion
This past week, Clarkson rolled out the new website, which has an all-new design and some new content. The most notable changes are that the pages are much wider, and feature more photos and videos.
The website somewhat follows in the trend of recent marketing pushes from the university - "Defy Convention," "Do You Have the Clarkson Gene?" and "Combined Ingenuity. Now that's genius" show prominently on the front page.
What worries me about the website, and what has nagged students about all this marketing, is that the university of the marketing materials isn't the university that we go to.
My favorite part about the website is this game: go through the pages, and try to find out where all the pictures were taken. There are pictures from Market St. in downtown Potsdam, the University Bookstore, and Campus Safety and Security's garage.
I'm struggling to say which is more ridiculous: these pictures, the low-quality-iPhone-like frames they're sometimes housed in, or the completely random photo groupings from the last website (will they now tell us why there was a picture of popcorn on half the pages?).
Speaking of low-quality: it's a good description of every graphic, except the photos and the logo. Am I supposed to be able to see the JPG artifacts in the random-envelope-navigation? Is that a test?
Let's go back to the front page, and the difference between actual Clarkson and marketing Clarkson. The top of the page has the aforementioned three zen koans. It asks an important question: Is a Mini-Baja car a classroom? Even students here know that it's a club. At a glance, it says nothing about the school.
Now scroll to the bottom and pull out your magnifying glass. In the left: "Is Clarkson right for you?" with a mighty good list. On the right: we have a 98% job-placement rate, and are among the top business schools.
Do video widgets that don't always work represent an engineering school? What about links that don't work? Pages without any content? It doesn't seem to me like any of these aspects of the website reflect well upon us.
Some of the videos are useful. Two examples are the virtual campus tour and Tony Collins' intro. Others are bone-shakingly horrifying, like the "Why I defy" videos.
There are tons of reasons why Clarkson is a great university, and why it is very attractive to students. We have a good faculty that cares about the students, friendly people all around, innovative interdisciplinary programs, opportunities for careers and research, and tons of skill-building clubs for people of all majors.
The new website is full of flashy graphics, but not the heart of Clarkson.
The website somewhat follows in the trend of recent marketing pushes from the university - "Defy Convention," "Do You Have the Clarkson Gene?" and "Combined Ingenuity. Now that's genius" show prominently on the front page.
What worries me about the website, and what has nagged students about all this marketing, is that the university of the marketing materials isn't the university that we go to.
My favorite part about the website is this game: go through the pages, and try to find out where all the pictures were taken. There are pictures from Market St. in downtown Potsdam, the University Bookstore, and Campus Safety and Security's garage.
I'm struggling to say which is more ridiculous: these pictures, the low-quality-iPhone-like frames they're sometimes housed in, or the completely random photo groupings from the last website (will they now tell us why there was a picture of popcorn on half the pages?).
Speaking of low-quality: it's a good description of every graphic, except the photos and the logo. Am I supposed to be able to see the JPG artifacts in the random-envelope-navigation? Is that a test?
Let's go back to the front page, and the difference between actual Clarkson and marketing Clarkson. The top of the page has the aforementioned three zen koans. It asks an important question: Is a Mini-Baja car a classroom? Even students here know that it's a club. At a glance, it says nothing about the school.
Now scroll to the bottom and pull out your magnifying glass. In the left: "Is Clarkson right for you?" with a mighty good list. On the right: we have a 98% job-placement rate, and are among the top business schools.
Do video widgets that don't always work represent an engineering school? What about links that don't work? Pages without any content? It doesn't seem to me like any of these aspects of the website reflect well upon us.
Some of the videos are useful. Two examples are the virtual campus tour and Tony Collins' intro. Others are bone-shakingly horrifying, like the "Why I defy" videos.
There are tons of reasons why Clarkson is a great university, and why it is very attractive to students. We have a good faculty that cares about the students, friendly people all around, innovative interdisciplinary programs, opportunities for careers and research, and tons of skill-building clubs for people of all majors.
The new website is full of flashy graphics, but not the heart of Clarkson.
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