The summer of 2019 was an eventful one for Marlboro College, with important gains made towards the goal of finding potential strategic partners that would support the college’s mission. It was also a period of significant progress in the area of communications, with an exciting new website launched in July and an updated suite of admissions materials developed over the summer, thanks to a generous $250,000 grant from The Endeavor Foundation.
“Marlboro has been working hard at re-imagining the curriculum over the past year, to respond to the evolving needs of students and recent graduates, and it was important for this to be accurately projected in our communications,” said Kevin Quigley, Marlboro president. “Our dynamic new website and eye-catching admissions materials communicate the college’s relevance and value to our core audiences.”
Both new communication tools give prime placement to the Marlboro Promise, three specific, transferable skills that come with a Marlboro education: the ability to write with clarity and precision; to lead an ambitious project from idea to execution; and to work, live, and communicate with a wide range of individuals. Although these skills have long been supported by the Clear Writing Requirement, Plan of Concentration, and community governance, the Promise has reaffirmed their support and importance across the curriculum.
Through the college’s participation in the Endeavor Foundation’s “Dialogues,” a series of workshops with similar small colleges, Marlboro was able to connect with White Whale, a website developer specializing in higher education. White Whale played an important role in providing a communications perspective to faculty as they grappled with the challenge of re-imagining Marlboro’s curriculum a year ago. Their work rolled right into the website project last spring, followed by the suite of complementary admissions materials.
“We’ve worked to empower content creators around campus to take charge of their own content,” said Jason Pontius, president and creative director of White Whale. The new website was designed to be more dynamic, incorporating a wider variety of perspectives on the Marlboro education, from student-made videos to faculty blogs. “Websites should be gardens, not paintings; I’m looking forward to watching this one grow.”
“We are so grateful to The Endeavor Foundation for supporting this critical project that reflects the re-imagined Marlboro, and for all the ways the foundation champions small—even tiny—liberal arts colleges,” said Hillary Twining, director of foundation relations and stewardship. “The website and admissions materials are important communication tools in an increasingly noisy world, and we believe Marlboro will be represented well by this work.”
