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Minnesota State University Mankato
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MNSU updates website interface University hopes to boost views and make site more accessible KARLY KAUFMAN Staff Writer By now, most of the university community has noticed a change to the school’s home page. It is a new interface that is hoping to boost the website’s views and make it easier for individuals to access what they need. Lindsey Beyer, the director for Web Marketing, stated, “Website analytics show us that over time, our numbers were changing slowly but steadily, and in the wrong direction.” This decline is partly due to the website having “a higher bounce rate,” which is “the number of people who land on [the] webpages and leave right away.” Beyer cites research done by Ruffalo Noel Levitz, a website that studies the management and enrollment of universities to connect students to a successful higher education. Their national survey research shows that Mankato was “missing some core functionality that current and future students have come
KAITLYN JORGENSEN Staff Writer
Photo courtesy of mankato.mnsu.edu
to expect and demand,” said Beyer. As a result, the university set out to make a beneficial change to the school’s website. “The new website system will be a step forward in helping us to manage, regulate, and organize our content,” said Beyer. What we see today is only the beginning. “It is the very first baby-step into
adopting not only a website redesign, but also a usercentered content strategy and a powerful technology system for communicating with audiences in the digital landscape,” she said. Ted Johnson, the Assistant CIO for Mobile, Web and App Development in IT Solutions, states that most of the feedback from students
and staff has been very positive, though with any new project, there will be challenges to overcome. One such issue includes students not being able to find specific information that might have previously been easy to access. As a result of
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MNSU students part of annual trip to Capitol Hill Student Association President Abdulrahmane Abdul-Aziz. “The purpose of this annual Washington D.C. trip
GABE HEWITT Editor-in-Chief Students United, a Minnesota State student advocacy group, went to Washington D.C. in early March to speak with lawmakers on topics such as DACA, textbook prices, and protecting Title IX. The group consisted of nine students, one from each of Minnesota State’s universities, including Minnesota State
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Over two days, students met with policy and lawmakers like Tom Emmer, Tim Walz, Amy Klobuchar’s
“Our visit provides them with perspective and puts a face to the students that legislators are impacting with their bills.” - Faical Rayani
is to advocate for Minnesota State university students at the federal level,” said Faical Rayani, Students United state chair and MNSU student.
staff and members of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee. “A lot of the people
we met did not know how students felt and had not interacted with students in their tenure in D.C.,” Rayani said. “Our visit provides them with perspective and puts a face to the students that legislators are impacting with their bills.” In November 2017, the Students United board passed a federal legislative agenda which included the topics they advocated about: Title IX, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the Federal Perkins Loan,
On Tuesday, March 20, the MNSU Environmental Committee hosted a series of speakers in celebration of the strides MNSU is making towards sustainability. The event, which took place in Ostrander Auditorium from 7-8:30 p.m., began with Dr. Paul Prew, associate professor of Sociology and co-chair of the Environmental Committee, who gave a brief introduction, and the honored guest speaker, James Jacquart, an MNSU alumni, who hosted an interactive speech entitled “Maverick Sustainability: Where Do We Go from Here?” Karen Anderson, head coordinator of the Community Engagement Committee worked together with Dr. Prew and the Emeritus Louis Schwartzkopf to bring Jacquart to MNSU for this event. Jacquart has a B.A. in history from MNSU and a master’s in Counseling and Student Personnel from Western Illinois University. He became head of the Office of Campus Sustainability and Residential Initiatives at UMass Dartmouth in 2012. Jacquart’s office has achieved the following distinctions for University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth: named a “Leading by Example” institution by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection in 2008—the only
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News Editor Alissa Thielges alissa.thielges@mnsu.edu