Dear Katie,
I want to say a huge thank you to you and your team for all of the hard work put forth to making this website re-design a success. It takes a lot of optimism and trust to uplift an organization and point it in a new direction, but I think we can confidently say, "We did it."
This process often forced us take a moment to stop and look at the paper with new eyes. We were always asking questions like, "Well, why do we even need that," or "What would make it easier for the user?"
That's what I love about this new website. Every decision that was made came from the intention of making it easy and enjoyable for the reader, and ultimately The Miami Student body as a whole.
We were faced with the challenge of having to design a website that could live through an abruptly changing executive board. As I graduated, you prepared for your senior year, and many of the section editors entered their last semester. We realized that this website would be one of the only sources of stability The Student would be left with.
Our decisions to have the site hosted in-house with Miami IT services and published through the CMS platform, Wordpress, were both made because they stand the test of time and are able to grow and evolve with our ever-changing organization.
I am so proud of what the new website has to offer and I can't wait to see it continue to evolve over the year. The new website offers features that will make our readers have a seemingly effortless, but exciting experience. It is completely responsive, retina ready, and compatible across all Internet browsers.
I hope to see the Miami students take advantage of the new opportunities opening up from this new site. We now need digital marketers, social media marketers, photographers, videographers, writers, etc. With the larger window for producing both print articles and multimedia open, there are gold mines of opportunities just waiting to be claimed.
We both continually credited the knowledge we had learned from our IMS classes throughout the process. The Interactive Media Studies department allowed me to discover where I offer the most value to the technology field. They challenged me to believe I could create my own opportunities, and I am proud to say that my position was created through our recognition that we could do better. We knew we could make a website that could produce, function and look better and when the opportunity arrived, we jumped in to take over. If I were to give any advice to incoming freshman, it would be to sign up for an IMS class; you'll thank me later.
It's been a great year and I am so thankful for having been given the amazing opportunity to develop this website. Your dedication to The Miami Student is undeniably obvious and I couldn't imagine anyone leading at this time but you. You understand what it takes to make a difference in all aspects of the paper and I know the future of The Miami Student has your time and dedication to thank.
To the Miami Student team: enjoy your new website, I know you guys will rock it! A special thanks to Drew Davis, Brad Koby and Miami IT services for all of your help, we couldn't have done it without you!
Best of luck in the coming year!
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Sincerely,
Brielle Pearson
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