Patches: Winter 2021

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Harcum Community News TWO PROGRAMS SAIL THROUGH ACCREDITATION Harcum College officials announced two significant accreditations in 2020: the Dental Programs and the Nursing Program. Following the official 2019 visit to the two dental programs (Dental Hygiene and Dental Assisting with EFDA), the Commission on Dental Accreditation delivered the news of a successful reaccreditation earlier this year, granting Harcum the highest possible accreditation status: approval without reporting requirements. The accrediting body for college-level nursing programs (ACEN) awarded Harcum’s program an unprecedented eight (8) year accreditation in recognition of the program outcomes and the high quality of a Harcum nursing education, according to Fran Schuda, Nursing Program Director. The Nursing Program also boasted its fourth consecutive 100% pass rate for the latest cohort of Nursing graduates, the Class of 2020.

COLLEGE LAUNCHES NEW WEBSITE While it’s always a beneficial idea for any organization to consider updating their website, it can be vexing to go from the consideration stage to the actuation stage. For some institutions, it can be a two-year process or longer. “After Google reported some ghastly page-load times from those accessing our site from mobile devices, and because sites are now expected to be mobile first, not merely mobile friendly, we had to execute a plan for redesign as quickly as possible,” said Gale Martin, Executive Director of Communications & Marketing. Regardless of advertising platform, the click-thru traffic responding to College advertisements appearing on the Internet hails from a cell phone 70 percent of the time. It was time to act to best ensure the traffic the College was paying for had the most user-friendly experience. Harcum approached Anthology for website design packages and chose the Blueprint Template. That option meant that the Communications & Marketing team would have to complete the bulk of the work themselves. Amy Shumoski, digital communications manager, and Martin had worked together on the 2014 redesign.

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WINTER 2021

“Amy had such fluency with the iModules platform, the predecessor to Anthology, I felt confident the team could pull this off without incurring the cost of any additional services they offered,” Martin said. The entire redesign took six weeks. Besides better backend functionality, it also brought the design and coding behind it into the new decade. The home page features a sweeping horizontal photo that could fully utilize the talents of staff photographer Jackie Pursell and the photos shared by the Photography Program. Besides a more contemporary and impactful aesthetic, harcum.edu offers a better user experience. New major pages were created under the Admissions tab, essentially fresh, best-in-class landing pages for all the pay-per-click traffic. Early analytics suggest the redesign has increased the length of time visitors are spending on the site and the number of pages viewed.


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