Lyndon gets new site

Amidst the many changes buzzing around Lyndon State, the www.lyndonstate.edu website is no exception.

In some capacity, the website changes daily, but there is no set schedule for a complete makeover like this one. The last time the site was redone was almost four years ago.

The new website went live the morning of Feb. 22, while students were on their winter break. A message on behalf of Keith Chamberlin, the director of communications and marketing was sent to all students on Feb. 25 announcing the change.

The timing of the new site, which Chamberlin and Webmaster Takuya Shimamura worked on together, was no coincidence. The project began in October 2010 and was launched at the beginning of recruiting season for prospective students for the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 school years.

"The site is designed to work for prospective students," Chamberlin said. "There's no direct need for students, faculty, and staff on the site after that."

With the capability to see how often, how long, and for what reasons people visit the site, Shimamura and Chamberlin knew what parts of the site needed to be improved and enhanced.

The toolbar now highlights options for the Lyndon community, alumni, and prospective students, combining information for current students, faculty, and staff under one tab. A new feature highlighting 13 messages can also be viewed on the main page of the site, emphasizing  what "Lyndon is"; the arts, your future, opportunity, acclaimed, hands on, flexible, great teachers, friendly, modern, community, NCAA, Vermont, and value.

New features on the main page also include non-admission events and news available to community members looking for campus news and events, for example.

So far, there haven't been any unforeseen problems with the website.

 "There were a few broken links, which is to be expected with a transfer of this much information," said Chamberlin. "But there are relatively few glitches."