The Spire

Matt Nickerson ‘24

Chief Features Editor

In February, College Marketing & Communications and Information Technology Services (ITS) expressed plans to overhaul the school website, holycross.edu, and better the school’s communication services and digital tools. They held two open informational sessions on February 21st and 23rd, the former in Hogan Suites B/C and the latter on Zoom, which was recorded and is now available for community members to watch. Over break, I interviewed Jeremy Thompson, the Vice President for Communications and Marketing, and John Hill, the Chief Communications Officer, to better learn more about what these developments are and how they will impact students.   

Looking at the project as a whole, Hill stresses the importance of modernizing the College’s digital properties and services because it has become clear that the current website is not up to date. As he relates, it contains too much information, has too many pages, is difficult to navigate, and fails to properly communicate what makes Holy Cross special– when it should serve as “a window to prospective students, alumni, and the general public”– in other words, external. Internal refers to resources intended for students, faculty, and staff of the College.   While the internal communications ecosystem and holycross.edu are very strongly linked, trying to use a website to serve all internal and external audiences prevents it from serving as an effective tool for everybody. “4 out of 10 of our most visited pages are internal facing, but they’re intended to be external,” Hill reveals. Thompson adds that the “accessibility standards for digital tools are regularly updated to keep pace with new technologies that have outpaced the several year old current website. As we work to redevelop the website and introduce the intranet, we are committed to ensuring that both properties are fully compliant with WCAG standards (https://www.w3.org/) and that we maintain these standards going forward,” such as aiding members of the community who are blind and / or hard of vision. As Thompson relates, the college’s heavy reliance on email means that images can be inaccessible for those with different tools for digital interaction. “We need to ensure [these tools] are up to date, for future members of the community as well,” Thompson says.  “The tools on our roadmap will be better able to ensure accessibility.”

One of the situations the office has proposed is creating an “Intranet,” separate from holycross.edu, which will provide community information and other links to resources such as Canvas. Hill talked about how there was lots of discovery work involved in the initiation of the process, to discover student input on internal communications. The office conducted conversations, surveys, and interviews with SGA, OSI, and other student groups. Due to the changing audience, the interviewed students were asked to summarize their understanding of the website from when they were prospective students. The website does not give “a sense of the feeling of being at Holy Cross,” says Thompson. “It doesn’t do a good job of telling a story, or showcasing the College’s community.” Important information is provided on it, but feedback has shown the College that people aren’t understanding the people which make up the heart of Holy Cross from the website. “Students are interested in the website more clearly showing the people and stories which make up the stories of our community,” Thompson adds. “We want to enliven the human part of Holy Cross.”

Ben Lepper ‘25 was one of the students contacted by the office. “They just emailed me since I had worked with them in the past for a [Holy Cross Magazine] article and mostly asked how useful the site was for current students,” Lepper said. “A few of us were there, and we mostly were all in agreement that the website was more geared towards prospective students rather than current ones, and we wanted that to change. They also asked us what the school’s logo was, and nobody had any idea, so I’d suspect they made it more prominent. Overall they were a super professional group, and I feel like we are in good hands.”

Students should be glad to hear that the school is very aware of the abundance of emails that students receive, and are looking to change that. Besides Thompson’s comments on the accessibility difficulties email presents, there is simply an understanding that the mass amount creates a sense of ambivalence, and causes people to miss important information. The Intranet will allow for more focused communications, as the office knows that the student experience is different from that of faculty or staff and will tailor the Intranet accordingly. “The Internet is any web property,” Thompson explains. “Intranet was very common fifteen years ago, but it adapted and changed, and in the last five years it reemerged. It’s a piece of web property for a defined, finite audience, which is already engaged with an organization. In other words, it’s a closed environment for critical members, and it will relay the day to day business, campus events, and campus communications. The Intranet will grant users the ability to “opt in” and “opt out” of information, such as athletics info. Shifting that information to the Intranet as a “second website” for the internal community will clean up the primary website and make it more effective for its intended audience: prospective students, alumni, and the general public. 

In regards to the general public, the digital developments are also a part of the College’s Aspire plan, which includes further engagement with the Worcester community. To target Worcester residents, the website will offer an improved events calendar so they may come to activities, cultural events, and athletic events. For potential faculty and employees, the improved website will better show the community we have and why they ought to join it. The Intranet will give everyone a more focused experience and will serve as a reliable experience with information tailored to each user. Hill compares the experience of the Intranet to an Instagram feed, which Thompson reinforces: students and faculty will be granted more agency in their interaction, and will more easily find groups, student organizations, and people with other interests.  

Now, students may be wondering: what will be the fate of websites such as MyHC? Will they be retired? The plan is for the Intranet to be both a platform and a portal: a resource that will utilize navigation tabs and AI assistance search to “drive” users to the correct web pages. MyHC will still be in use and the Division of Student Development will continue to manage this platform to support core functions and student-centered work. The Intranet, however, is intended to offer a communications network and resource for all campus members. While certain websites and properties currently used may be retired, websites such as MyHC are still important to SGA and the whole student government division for its registration and payment functionality. The project’s focus is more to integrate digital platforms, and connect digital tools which were not previously talking with one another. Hill and Thompson use the term “cross-pollination”: with the different tags and categories that can be selected, you won’t “have to go to 5 different properties to figure out what’s on and get info.”

The digital development process is inspired by numerous other schools and workplaces, such as the Jesuit University of San Francisco and Stanford. Although the team was inspired and sought advice from other institutions, they made sure to highlight the things specific to Holy Cross. Deemed a leader in the field of digital vendors, Simpplr was selected after a wide search across vendors. As its website proclaims, the California-based company recognizes that “leaders need an employee experience platform designed for the modern workforce” (Simpplr). With the vendor’s help, the Intranet will have its own unique name, branding, and mobile app. Hill notes that this will increase accessibility beyond the browser and desktop experiences, as many Holy Cross employees are bilingual, and that students in particular will appreciate that given that they “want to make sure that everyone feels like they belong” on campus. With a nicer, freer website, and an impactful Intranet for use by current students, both the external and internal communication experience at Holy Cross will be made vastly superior.       

The communications office is just about to kick off the implementation phase of the Intranet, which is a 16-week process from beginning to launch. It will occur over the summer and then be ready for the fall semester. The website itself is targeting a finish date of January 2025, although that may shift. Hill stresses that though the deadline to launch is important, it is expressly not a completion date: “Any digital property maintained is a living animal: it’s not created, published, then left to languish on the vine. It requires ongoing upkeep, not just on up-to-date and accurate content, but functionality, serving student’s needs, studying analytics, engaging in testing, and adjusting and updating how the properties work. The general user may not see it as obvious, but it’s all part of it.” With this awareness, the College can adapt the website constantly and avoid a trap of higher education as a whole: not maintaining the website so it is easy for users to search for information. 

Copy edited by Lauren Backstrom