The primary objective of a university home page is to attract new students. I remember visiting www.ohio.edu while I was in high school, and while it may not have been the best Web site I've ever seen, it was enough to keep me interested.
Apparently that's nowhere near enough.
Monday night I typed in that familiar address, and I was shocked at what I saw. It appears as though Ohio University has opted to skip attracting high school students and is instead going straight for eighth graders. I felt like I was watching one of those annoying cell phone wallpaper commercials -Dial 'cool55' for the sweet spinning wheel wallpaper! Instead of a panoramic shot of our gorgeous campus, a few quick facts and some useful links, the new Web page displays scratch pads
Post-it notes and a cheesy mock-handheld device displaying messages like, wrd on D st vid and b a bobcat. I can't imagine a prospective student seeing text-message slang and sentence fragments and thinking, What a great place to spend money on a formal education. Nor can I imagine an employer checking out an applicant's school and being impressed by the wrd on D st... that Ohio is gr8. Ohio University is good enough to attract students without cheesy gimmicks.
Send an e-mail to webteam@ohiou.edu and end the embarrassment!
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