Jordan Beck | Daily Press Bay College Digital and Web Tech Specialist Shawn Curtin shows the Bay College Board of Trustees an early version of the college’s redesigned website during its meeting Wednesday.

ESCANABA — Members of the Bay College Board of Trustees were given an early look at ongoing efforts to redesign the college’s website during its meeting Wednesday.

This presentation started with a PowerPoint presented by Vice President of College Advancement Kim Carne. Carne spoke about research collected by the college to prepare for its website’s redesign, including a survey of teenagers done by Ruffalo Noel Levitz in 2017.

“The number-one place that teens look for college (information) is still websites,” she said. She noted this includes both official college websites and search sites such as Google.

Carne is one of the three members of Bay’s core Web Advancement Team, along with Digital and Web Tech Specialist Shawn Curtin and Director of IT Justin Izzard. She said the goals of the team are to improve the user experience for visitors to the college’s website, to implement a mobile-responsive design, to incorporate accessibility compliance and Google Analytics, and to create a modern and consistent design for the website.

The college has purchased a content management system called OU Campus from the company OmniUpdate in the interest of achieving these goals.

“We actually were able to go with a higher ed partner who actually just produced websites for higher ed,” Carne said.

Later, Curtin showed the board an early version of the redesigned site. He noted the site’s new design emphasizes large images and clear messages.

Much of Curtin’s section of the presentation focused on the college’s redesigned home page. This page will feature a large, “attention-grabbing” background video showcasing Bay’s campuses, classes, and athletics program.

“(It) really gives the user a window into Bay College and helps them, hopefully, make the decision to come here and apply,” Curtin said. To cut down on data usage, this video will be replaced with a still image when the new home page is loaded on mobile devices.

Sections dedicated to college events, Bay’s Guided Pathways initiative, infographics, student testimonials, news, and social media will also be featured on the college’s new homepage.

Carne said the redesigned site is tentatively scheduled to launch on June 4.

In other business, the board:

– voted in favor of providing $17,108 to the city of Escanaba to support its legal fees for cases related to the “dark store” tax theory.

– named William Lake as its alternate trustee director to the Michigan Community College Association.

– voted to accept committee appointments for 2018.