Minnesota State University hopes bold colors, a modern look and professionally produced video will turn its Web site into a must-surf site among prospective students.
The new site, launched quietly last week, aims much more pointedly at the demographic most important to the university’s future: the shrinking pool of available high school students.
“It’s designed to be very appealing to prospective students, so it integrates our school colors, bold images, and video and audio in a way we think students will like,” said Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Scott Olson. “It stresses some of the things that make us most proud, like the quality of our academic programs, and the personalized feeling students get here as they work with our faculty.”
The Web site’s look was first unveiled publicly at MSU President Richard Davenport’s annual convocation. The response was a definite “oooh” and “ahhh,” which MSU officials say is about the same reaction they got when they tested it with high schoolers.
“Literally all of them praised it,” said MSU spokesman Michael Cooper. “They called it a page they’d be interested in and would go back to.”
Attracting students in the next decade is going to be challenging for colleges and universities in Minnesota. The number of high school graduates is expect to shrink dramatically before coming back up again.
Adding extra pressure is Davenport’s announcement last year that he’d like to push MSU’s enrollment toward 20,000 over the next decade or two.
Communicating with the younger generation requires a college or university to have a relevant Internet presence, and being relevant in the YouTube age means having video.
The new design offers this, as well a tighter focus on the key audience. The old design was a “portal” style site, meaning everyone — students, faculty, alumni, etc. — was served. Everyone can still use the new one, but the priority is on attracting new students.
“In most media, things can look dated pretty fast,” Olson said. “The special effects in a movie just a few years old can look chintzy, for example. And this is probably more true of the Internet than any other medium. A Web site we did just three years ago can look out-of-date.”
Right now just the main MSU start page follows the new design. Eventually, more pages with the new concepts will launch.
Cooper said the new site is a sort of combination of good ideas from other college and university sites.
“Once students have been attracted to us by our Web site, once they come here to campus and see what a great community Mankato is, then we know they will want to study here,” Olson said. “But the key is getting them interested to begin with, and that’s where this new Web design will do a great job.”
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