Dickinsonians have noticed significant changes to the way the college advertises events for extracurricular activities. The result is that events which were once advertised on The Compass are now on Dickinson Today. The goal of this change was supposed to be about improving the image of the college but unfortunately, Dickinson Today is a downgrade from its functional predecessor.

This change seemed to stem from a desire look more modern. While the Dickinson Today e-mails I get every morning look visually appealing, the weekly event listings in the caf and the SNAR looks downright awful. For one thing, the events are not grouped into days, unlike The Compass. For another thing, this listing also lacks an identity because there is no logo for the college and no sign of what entity is advertising these weekly events (I assume it is Dickinson Today). This listing is so visually unattractive that it looks like an assignment put together at the last minute. So much for the college trying to look like it is in the year 2014.

I think Dickinsonians could eventually get over the visual unattractiveness of the weekly event listing if it were a functional advertisement of events. However, that is not the case. I know about the dysfunction because I am part of two clubs that used to but no longer have their weekly events listed in the caf/SNAR or on Dickinson Today: Dickinson Christian Fellowship (DCF) and the Newman Club (the Catholic organization on campus). There are other clubs on the Dickinson Today e-mails but not on the event listings. There seems to be multiple versions of this problem, and this fact alone makes Dickinson Today all the more problematic.

I understand that these problems are typical of any new system. But if there were bound to be bugs, why did they still decide to make this change during the middle of the semester? Not only was a change made, but it happened during the worst of times. The college would have been better off doing this process during a break so that they can go through their own trial and error process instead of letting organizations bear the brunt of the bugs that exist.

What makes these bugs even more inexcusable is that Dickinson has likely shelled out a significant chunk of money in order to pay for redesigning . Based on the money spent by other universities who used the same agency as Dickinson (160over90) , it is probable that Dickinson spent considerable money for redesigning. With the sort of money that Dickinson is likely shelling out to 160over90, the problems which exist are inexcusable.

However, there was really no need to go through the problems of a new system in the first place. This was because The Compass one important feature that Dickinson Today lacks: functionality.