Nick DeNardis of EDU Checkup reviews CMC.edu less than a month after their site redesign goes live.  How did Claremont McKenna fare?

Not great.

DeNardis criticizes:

• poor Search Engine Optimization as a result of empty coding, including empty title pages.
• the lack of specific information about their academic programs
• the superfluous use of PDFs when the information more easily viewed online

He does praise the overall look and feel of the site as consistent and forward-thinking, as well as the efficiency of some of the menu paths.

His Tip of the Day, based on CMC.edu:

If you want someone to read something don’t cut it off. This was the first time I had ever seen a site promote news but then cut the title off half way. I can see only displaying a certain number of words in the description but never in the title. The title should be the one line description of the article that pulls the reader in to investigate further. You cannot get your point across half way through a sentence.

So how did our own Pitzer.edu stack up against the new and improved CMC site?

When DeNardis reviewed our site in early August, Pitzer.edu scored a B-.  Not stellar, but the site has steadily improved since then, and those "Under Construction" notices that annoyed the reviewer so much have disappeared.  See the individuals scores and those from a small sample of other liberal arts colleges below:

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Read my take of DeNardis' review of Pitzer.edu here and read the original review here.

Yesterday, Patrick Atwater CMC posted an article to the Opinion section of the CMC Forum entitled ""Just Dance” Announced as Scripps Anthem".  It's a long, disjointed piece of writing, so here are the excerpts that garnered the most attention.

Citing the song as a timeless tribute to strong women everywhere, Scripps students voted unanimously for the new anthem. Incoming freshman Rebecca Draper was ecstatic at the news: “The song really speaks to me as a feminist. I think if we all took its message to heart and just had a little more understanding for each other, the world would be a better place.”

. . .

Personally, I’ve had enough. Enough of the ideology that lets girls plaster “You count. Calories don’t.” all over their walls one moment and then lets them play this childish game of hide the crouton. I’m tired of seeing fliers for “Wellness Seminars” next to girls with protruding collarbones. I’m disgusted at the pathetic show of friendship that Scripps girls show when they insist their friends are strong women whatever the reality. Mostly I’m disheartened because I fear that genuine acts of courage like Zoe Larkins’ will be lost in this sea of bullshit.

. . .

Consider the core of Scripps’ ideology: Feminism. I always thought the underlying point of Feminism specifically (and the civil rights moment generally) was that you are supposed to judge people on “the content of their character, not [arbitrary things like] the color of their skin.” Yet all too often at Scripps that ideal encapsulated in words like “Feminism” or “Freedom” is disconnected from its actual meaning and made to serve as a blunt reaction. If Scripps’ “Feminists” were really as committed to Feminism as it should be defined, they would be just as outraged at the discrepancy between the percentages of men and women going to higher education as they are about the wage gap.

. . .

Extolling the virtues of a healthy lifestyle and then having a carrot for dinner has no contradiction because that pronouncement had no ontological meaning. The declaration existed purely in the symbolic – a perfect breeding ground for this kind of hyperideology. Its principles – therapeutic wellness, female empowerment, etc. – are so structured, so crystalline that the actual meanings underlying them apparently are irrelevant.

Atwater finishes the piece by comparing Scripps College to Tyra Banks' "America's Next Top Model":

Can’t you picture Scrippsies doing the same song and dance, telling their friends to eat and be healthy, while simultaneously judging their every nutritional move in the cold war of calorie attrition? This weird ideology has claimed enough casualties. So I say enough of this mental Valium that they call wellness talks, enough of this femino-centric worldview, and enough of this cycle of bullshit generally.

The article, in my opinion filled with misplaced sarcasm, misogyny, and ignorance, has attracted more than 30 comments, most of which collectively demolished the article so thoroughly and so persuasively that I have nothing more to add.  Well done, students of the Claremont Colleges.  You should read the original article and its comments here.

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