Change has its discontents

Change is sometimes a necessity for items or ideas that don’t seem to be adequate for a situation. Change can bring about great outcomes; however, it can also be redundant and hinder more than it helps.

Recently, CSC has changed their website to look new and improved. The crumpled paper background can possibly portray a student’s anger towards the loads of homework they have, or it can show the frustration student’s now have trying to navigate the website.

On this revised website, all of the links most used by students (EagleMail, Sakai, and MyCSC) are in the Current Students section. They used to be listed separately on the top of the page, easily readable and accessible. It does make sense to put them there, but why was it necessary to change it in the first place?

Daniel Binkard, graphic design artist, was the man in charge of the design of the new website. He collaborated along with College Relations to come up with the blueprint. The result, according to him, is modern and still effective.

“We have a lot of services to put on the website so it was hard to fit it all on the homepage. That is the reason for putting student links under Current Student,” Binkard said Tuesday.

Before this new website and the one before it, the same three links were under Current Students. Therefore, students just got used to the change of having the links being separate at the top of the page, and now they have to start all over. Some may say that this complaint is a sign of laziness, but those seconds spent clicking on multiple links to go between EagleMail and Sakai are important when trying to finish homework on time.

At first glance, the home page looks very organized and packaged as different ideas are grouped together on the page. However, the look of the boxes has some similarities to (some say) restaurant menus.

CSC also recently proposed three ideas for a new college logo. Even though the winner hasn’t been picked, the new logo will change much. Gear that students wear and documents that faculty use will be different, and the town will have to get used to it as well.

“We are in a new century, the school just celebrated its centennial birthday so the new logo and website add to that new change,” Binkard said.

The symbolism of the new century and new changes for Chadron are not a bad idea; however, the changes’ effectiveness should not be  subordinate to a desire for flashy style and appearance.