Duquesne Website Achieves Top 10

The awardees were chosen from around 4,500 higher education websites powered by Modern Campus CMS, which is the only content management system purpose-built for higher education. The winning websites were selected based on effectively providing students with informative content and engaging user experiences, driving conversions, maintaining interest and improving enrollments.

“We know the website is the front door to Duquesne and that it plays a vital role in driving student enrollment and converting prospective students,” said Patty Swisher, assistant vice president of marketing and communications, who led the DMC-CTS team on the University’s web redesign project. “Our primary goal was to create an engagement machine.”

Additional factors that Modern Campus CMS considered for its top 10 list include engaging website design; easy navigation with clear calls to action (CTAs); mobile friendliness of the website; integrated catalogs with up-to-date career data; personalized experiences; and brand consistency across subdomains.

Duquesne’s site was touted for its bold, boxy, beautiful and functional design. The judges stated the website is “aesthetically pleasing…the design doesn’t just look beautiful; it’s also highly functional, offering persona-based navigation…and easily findable site-search.”

Swisher emphasized the collaborative benefits of the University’s website redesign.

“This success is a testament to the support we received from campus partners across every level at Duquesne, from cabinet leadership, administration and faculty, content editors, tech-support to our student workers who helped us cross the finish line,” Swisher said.  

See the full list of the Modern Campus Top Ten Higher Education Websites of 2023, with screenshots and insights into the factors that make them truly excellent.