University website goes under revision

~Administration calls for feedback from students

Southeast Missouri State University is beginning to rebrand its image, starting with its website.

Diane Sides, assistant to the university president, said that Southeast is looking to update the website's content management system to something more advanced. Sides said that the administration wants the new website to be able to handle video and other multimedia elements and to be able to be updated quickly.

"[The staff] has all known that it was time for a redesign," Sides said. "Obviously, with the web and social media and that sort of thing, it has to be changing constantly. By the nature of the beast, it cannot be static."

The university also hired a consultant to assist with rebranding and marketing. The consultant spent two days on campus talking to various student and administrative groups to help determine how the university could improve its brand.

Dr. Kenneth W. Dobbins, president of Southeast, also has asked students to email him any feedback they may have about the website.

"We're really going to take this input to heart because we really do want to know what the students want in a website," Sides said.

Student Government Association is also involved in the feedback process. SGA will gather feedback on the website from students and then write a report for Dobbins on what they have found.

Benny Dorris, president of SGA, said that he has heard several complaints that the website has a bulky appearance and some information is not easily accessible.

"[Our generation] likes things very streamlined, and I've heard that's it's been hard to find things on the website," Dorris said.

The university also is waiting to hire a new executive director of communications, after former director of marketing Karen Grebing recently took a job in Florida. Sides said that the new executive director will report directly to the president and will be directly involved in the website redesign. The job is expected to start being advertised in a week.

The university also is still in the process of hiring a web design firm to handle the project.

"I don't know how long it will kind of take them to know us and to figure out what it is that we need from the website," Sides said. "So, I think there will be a lot of back and forth."

Currently, there is no timeline for the release of the new website.