n any institution as large and complex as the University, a network of departments, offices, councils, organizations, programs, and commissions are needed to carry out essential functions. Such an intricate bureaucracy is by nature hard to navigate, and I wouldn’t hesitate to wager that almost no one here at the University could name all or even most of these organizations. For example, Conference and Events Services is different from Meetings and Convention Services, there are at least 3 separate University websites for International travel, and student funding (though now under the umbrella site of the Student Activities Funding Engine) still involves a patchwork of different offices, commissions, funds, departments and programs. Arguing that we should streamline these services is not my point here, and would require a degree of specificity not likely to be achieved in 800 words. But streamlining access to these services can indeed be done and ought to be. The most direct way in which we can do this is by creating a more efficient system for navigating the insane number of University and university-affiliated websites. Currently, the University’s homepage maintains an “A to Z” list of websites which can be filtered according to 5 categories (Academics, Administration, Arts, Research, and Sports). On the A section alone, there are 66 websites referenced, linking to services as different from each other as Accounts Payable and Acción Puertorriqueña. This system is hard to navigate unless you already know the specific site you need (in which case you probably don’t use the A to Z list anyways), and if you don’t know where to go on the site, scrolling through the A to Z list involves scanning hundreds of individual sites, which is simply impractical. Instead, I propose the University should organize its site hierarchically, similar to the folder systems on everyone’s computer. This would allow visitors to browse for the site they’re looking for for a given service (e.g. “Where do I go to register an event with ODUS?”), instead of relying on Google or the archaic A to Z list. For example, the site map could start with the categories used and others (Academic, Administration, Extracurricular, Athletic, etc.), and then upon clicking on one of these categories, a flow-chart style listing of websites would appear which the user could further refine through sub-categories. This change may not seem important, but in fact it is one of the most basic steps the University could take to ensure students and others can take full advantage of all the services and opportunities available to them here. Especially for new freshmen, who don’t come in knowing about SAFE, the Integrated Course Engine, easyPCE and the myriad other useful sites like them, providing a more top-down, hierarchical organization to University websites makes ease of access more universal. For instance, before selecting their first courses in the fall, instead of relying on the chance they hear about easyPCE from an upperclassman friend or discover the residential colleges’ “Favorite Courses” sites, freshmen would be able to navigate through a hierarchical listing. This could include perhaps, Academics to Courses to Course Selection, which would list several sites like the Registrar’s Course Offerings page, easyPCE, the college “Favorite Courses” listings, the academic advising program sites and the sites of the college academic deans, among others. This would mean in practice that the full range of resources available to students would be utilized right out of the gate in freshman year and would help students make better decisions about their first classes to take by taking advantage of the full slate of opinions, reviews, etc. that could affect their decision. Presumably, these offices and services are there for a reason, and if they have a website they probably do some kind of public interfacing, serve “customers” (i.e. students, faculty, and visitors), or at least provide information useful to readers of the site. Thus the aim of having publicly available information and services is better achieved not by maintaining a loose, disorganized apparatus of sites across the University’s domain, but by having an easy-to-navigate folder-like system in which users can find the office whose service they need without having to already know it. This isn’t a column in which I’ll argue for a controversial or sweeping change to a fundamental way in which the University conducts itself. This simply is a recommendation for a simple fix to a small problem, that would make everyday life that much easier for students, faculty, and others without requiring much in the way of resources to solve. But small problems are worth fixing, because in this case it has an outsized practical effect in the lives of students. Many of the columns I and others write propose changes that simply will never come. This is not that type of column, but instead a moderate, legitimately-feasible proposal that would make life for students easier at minimal cost.
Ryan Dukeman is a sophomore from Westwood, Mass. He can be reached at rdukeman@princeton.edu.
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