A new home for Warren and Moore
Vanderbilt’s newest halls of residence opened to students in the fall of 2014. Warren & Moore Colleges house approximately 330 upper class students, and each college is led by a faculty director and two graduate students in residence. Web Communications worked closely with these faculty directors and students to bring the College Halls site to life. The main goal of the faculty and staff involved in the project was to give students the opportunity to make the site their own as the communities within the College Halls begin to grow and evolve throughout the year.
The process began with a series of Google hangouts with student volunteers who offered input and design suggestions for the site. The common themes were that students were looking for a site that gave them easy access to information, a way to find out about events both in their buildings and on campus, and an opportunity to discuss and engage with their communities. After these brainstorming sessions, it was decided that the best way to meet all these needs would be to create an OmniUpdate site for the main College Halls page. The faculty directors and graduate students with some student input would maintain this main site. In addition, Web Communications created a my.vanderbilt.edu blog for College Halls. This blog is a place where students and faculty can communicate and collaborate together.
The design of the site was influenced by the Warren and Moore colors that had been selected by University Creative Services. They were incorporated into various areas of the site, from the main graphic to the sidebar and navigation bar content. Each color represents one of the four halls contained within the two Colleges (the halls are Smith, Delbrück, Rice and Elliston).
The long-term goal for the site is to allow the students who live within the halls to dictate the content and growth of the site in order to revisit it in a few years to see how things have changed. Web Communications will continue to partner with College Halls in the future as the site evolves.
