So I just got poked by my good friend, cribbage nemesis, and class agent/secretary Zach who reminded me I hadn’t given to Williams this year yet. To get my attention, he actually joked that I earmark my donation for everything David Kane decries, and furthermore said he’d specified his go towards restoring the Odd Quad to its pre-Neighborhoods glory. Unconventional as it may seem, he got my donation . . . but when I popped over to give2.williams.edu I got to thinking . . .

As I sat there for an inordinate amount of time wondering which digit to put in the ones column, I came up with an idea that I’d really like to see implemented on the giving site: live-updated, humorous, cleverly chosen giving levels based on my intended gift. If you’re into fundraising, web development, or just (self-proclaimed) cool ideas, read on!

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Williams has a festive banner for today! I have never seen this before. Of course Google has been doing it for years. I find it a nice touch.

According to an article in the NY Times, even Cornell understands that the appearance its website is important, if not crucial.

“Today, a Web site is the face of the university,” Mr. Cohen said. “It’s often the first way that high school students see Cornell. Not all administrators understood that.”

The university redesigned the Web site and the view book more than a year ago, and the students think the new versions are more traditional and more elegant.

So why are we still stuck with the current fugly purple-and-gray faux-Amherst circa 2002 garbage? Obviously, because either (1) our administrators DON’T understand the importance of the appearance of www.williams.edu, (2) because they negligently don’t care about how hideously ugly and generic it is as long as it’s functional, or (3) because they’re blind and/or don’t look at what other colleges are doing, so they don’t see it as hideous.

Either of those three reasons is impermissible (except for actual physical blindness, of course). We demand better! This problem is obvious, the need to address it is pretty close to unanimous judging by our comments from the entries on this topic, and pretty damn easy to accomplish compared to all the other things we complain about here on EphBlog.

So why hasn’t it been fixed yet? Will we have to drop to #2 or #3 before this gets changed? Let’s hope not.