New MSU website launched

University Communications would like to thank you for your patience and support as we brought the new MSU website online last Friday. As you have probably noticed, this huge change is not without its challenges. But now, three or four days into the process, things are calming down. We're getting the speed back up to an acceptable level, lost pages are being found and relinked, and business is getting done once again on the MSU website.

But it's a different sort of business than that which most of us have become accustomed to seeing on our site. The new Murray State website is almost exclusively devoted to recruiting new students -- the recent and imminent high school graduates who have embraced the web, mobile communication and social media and made it their own. It is these folks who are driving the market for faster, ultra-integrated, and ever-more-slick devices and applications. It is these 17-23 year-olds who have no time for long-winded, buttoned-down "welcome" messages from some administrator they may never even meet. They want us to talk to them (and they want to talk back) using their methods and in their own language. They want to know one thing at a time. And because they are always connected, they can always come back later for more.

To that end, all internal campus business -- from webmail to promoting your faculty luncheon or alumni dinner -- should be conducted on myGate, raceralumni.com, Banner, RacerNet, or one of our other internal web sites. The new website -- www.murraystate.edu -- has been redesigned to deliver information succinctly and appeal foremost to prospective students. The look of the website has been given a long-overdue refresh. We've moved beyond blue and gold as the only colors in the MSU marketing spectrum. We aren't abandoning our traditions, we're making new ones. We're changing with the times, and we're sure there will come a day when we will need to do it again. And again. And again.