Brown

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Rating the Web Sites of the Nations Top Universities With Particular Attention to the Ivy League


Now that I have gone through 10 of the top technical/engineering colleges in the United States rating their website, I think it only fair to continue on to the Ivy League colleges, except Cornell which got included in my previous post, plus four other prestigious colleges and see how they did.

So, why not start with my Alma Mata.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Home Page – “C-“ Well, Harvard beat the previous high of 5 frames, it has six! Things which do not belong on a home page which Harvard put there anyway: Social Media, News From Around Harvard, Multimedia and Events. Harvard is far from being alone in putting such errata on their home page but they really need to come to grips with the concept of less is more and in this case, a lot less. Every bit of information a prospective student needs access to can be found at the very top, in slightly small font, of Harvard’s home page.

Second Level Pages – “A-“. I would have given them an “A” however I think the most highly endowed University in the United States does not need to put two headings which alumni and other institutions have interest, “Give” and “Campaign.” Overall these second level pages are exactly what you want to see. Little to no scroll needed to find desirable information.

YALE UNIVERSITY

Home Page – “C+” If Yale would only remove all the graphics plus the “YaleNews” section it would be perfect. Oh, is YaleNews truly a single word or is there a missing space? But Yale beat Harvard in that it had only a 5 screen scroll on its home page. My big question is: Why did Yale find it necessary to put Martin Luther King, a graduate of Crozer Seminary and Boston University, at the top of the page? The picture seems incredibly out of context. A prospective student or parents must wonder why. Please trash this page and start over!

Second level Pages – “B+” I would have given Yale an A straight up but I had to see the “Admissions” page. What did it say to me? “Let’s show the world just how difficult we are to get into. We’re so good you probably should even consider us!” The rest of the pages were all business as they should be and very informative.

BROWN UNIVERSITY

Home Page — “A-“ If only Brown had left out the “events” and social media sections it would have been perfect! Otherwise, a very good page. Also, the font at the very top of the page is several sizes too small. They have some very important headings there which need to been more easily seen.

Second Level Pages – “A” Brown did it right, completely! Mostly single screen pages which are concise and quickly lead to lower levels as desired.

Overall, Brown has one of the best designed websites I have reviewed thus far. Kuddos!

DARTMOUTH UNIVERSITY

Home Page – “A” Dartmouth would have gotten my first A+ except it felt it necessary to include an “events” calendar on the home page. I would have a header called “events calendar” upon which someone would click and be taken to a lower level. One other thing, there is a row of items at the very top of the page in a very small font. Of the 7 items listed at least 2 are extremely important to the prospective student so why not bring them into better view.

Second Level Pages – “A+” There it is, my first A+ and well deserved. For everyone else who is trying to do it right, look at Dartmouth, they know how.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Home Page – “A-“ I would have given Princeton an A+ if only because you cannot scroll their page plus all the necessary top level information exists there. But the layout itself leaves a lot to be desired. The home page looks like an undergraduate class project. Lose the “News at Princeton” and “Featured Events” first. They belong elsewhere. And the picture of four students look out the rear of a Land Rover left me saying “Huh?” This picture belongs in one of Princeton’s particular schools and not the home page. How about a picture of the campus? That always looks nice.

Second Level Pages – “A+” Very nicely done. I especially like that the left hand menu stays in place as you move through those pages. Good design!

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Home Page – “A+” Wow! Talking about doing it all in a limited space, Columbia did it in spades! Perfect, what else is there to say?

Second Level Pages – “A+” The perfect website! What Columbia started on its home page it continued to its second level pages. Lots of information can be gathered with a minimal amount of clicks. This is absolutely as good as it gets!

UNIVERISTY OF PENNSYVANIA

Home Page – “A-“ I would have given Penn an A but I had to make a single scroll and if you have been reading what I have said previously, I hate scrolling on a home page. The W.E.B. DuBois picture bothered me only in that it reeks of political correctness of some sort. There is a place for such things, just not on college home pages. Otherwise, a very nice looking home page.

Second Level Pages – “A” A couple of the pages need a little refining but still each is very informative and easy to navigate. The “Academics” page could use a little tightening up but still, pretty good.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

Home Page – “F” The only thing this home page did was say “look at how ingenious we are with the use of graphical presentation.” First screen is a whole lot of nothing. Second Screen, more of the same, lots of nothing. Third screen, so you do have a group of schools! Who knew? Fourth Screen, only the four blocks at the bottom hold any meaning. Fifth screen, this is how we brag. Sixth screen, and just to put a point on the 5th screen, here are our bragging rights. If JH paid an outside company for this they should demand their money back. If it was done in-house, shame followed by firings. This is by far the worst home page I have come across.

Second Level Pages – “F” When I first wrote code in the early 1980s we called these “stubs.” It was a place holder where additional information and coding would be grown. Why would there be a bunch of stubs at the second level? Beats me. I decided I wanted to see what the Krieger School had to offer and clicked on a “balloon?” And what to my wondering eyes should appear, two nursing programs! I thought I had seen a nursing school on the previous screen and upon further inspection, sure enough, there is was. What I wanted to see was things like history, social studies, psychology, etc. My mistake was I clicked on the first of two buttons and chose the wrong one.

Well, Johns Hopkins, you do wonderful research and turn out fabulous students, but is the first test for entrance the ability to navigate your website? Those lower levels are an absolute maze of disconnected thinking. Hey, don’t you have a program which studies exactly that?

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Home Page – “A” Nice layout, very well designed.

Second Level Pages – “A-“ I would have given Chicago an A here as well except that it put admissions and aid under the same header. Admissions is one thing, aid another, and each deserves its own page. These pages are very easy to navigate and are the epitome of obvious, which is exactly what you want in good web design.

DUKE UNIVERSITY

Home Page – “B-” Why is there a picture of the tobacco industry at the bottom of the home page? It needs to go! Wait a minute, you want Students Visitors Alumni Staff and Media to smoke Lucky Strike cigarettes! That is, after all, who you have listed in the light blue upper portion of that screen. Duke should have concluded its home page after the first 2/3 of the present page because everything the prospective student needs is right there. And everything after that belongs elsewhere, if anywhere at all. That Luck Strike picture just defies explanation.

Second Level Pages – “B+” Why do I have to go through a pull down menu to get to a second level page? Makes no sense! When I click on Academics I should be taken there. I should not have to make a second selection just to get to my first choice. However, upon arriving at the desired page I found them to be well-done and very informative.

Why do major universities find web design so difficult? Overall, the Ivy Colleges did very well, better than their technology counterparts. Must be that “attention to detail” they harp upon. But the rest, what a mess!   Too much glitz and glamour and not enough nuts and bolts.

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The Truth About Political Debates


There was a time, long ago, when candidates were forced to go to open air venues to have their debates in public places so people could take their measure.  In the early 20th century, a man named James Michael Curley burst upon Massachusetts politics.  At the time, 1910, he was simply trying to become a U.S. Representative for the 10th district, a seat no Democrat in anyone’s memory had ever held, and no one expected that to change.  But the 10th district had a heavy Irish population and other new immigrant groups.  Curley was a charismatic Irishman who had grown up poor but had worked in the wards under the bosses of the day.  He was an excellent speaker, never at a loss for words.  Curley was anything but a household name but at those debates he skillfully used his opponents own words against him.  He could turn a phrase and get his audience to identify with him.

The Brahmins of Boston, the well-entrenced Republican establishment, were outraged.  In  a later election when Curley ran for mayor of Boston, he said that on his first day of office he would turn the Boston Common into a parking lot.  Of course this was only a slap at the landed gentry who still failed to recognize the trials of the working class.

But it was not until 1960 and the Kennedy – Nixon debate, sometimes referred to as “the checkers debate,” that politics embraced television, and it has been downhill ever since.  Political parties write the speeches, figure out how to portray political positions, and dictate how any given answer needs to be given.  These are not debates at all but well-scripted advertisement.

I have a pretty good sense of who Barack Obama is and who Mitt Romney is, having lived in Massachusetts during his governorship.  I also have a pretty good idea of who Scott Brown is but, sadly, I do not have much of an idea who Elizabeth Warren is.  Something that is very important to me, family, seems to have been avoided by Warren making me very suspicious of her, and pushing me, a Democrat, into the position of likely voting for her Republican opponent.

It was during their last so-called debate that I came to this decision.  I found both of them to be rather disingenuous.  Each seemed to be responding to questions with very well-scripted answers that seldom properly responded to the question on the floor.  Frequently each simply side-stepped the question and said whatever they felt was important rather than simply answer the question at hand.  But this is our present state of politics at the national level.

It is my firm belief that when these politicians speak we are not hearing what they really think but rather what their handlers, those nameless people behind the scenes, want us to hear and nothing more.  The question on every American’s mind when they hear a politician in one of these so-called debates say something that appears to exactly reflect their views, ask yourself if they are simply playing up to you and in reality have another agenda entirely.  I suspect, regardless of party affiliation, the latter is closer to the truth than the former.  We need to go back to the days when two guys would stand on a stage, say their peace without anyone prompting them as to what is proper and what is not.

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Is Massachusetts Turning Republican?


Twenty years ago such a question would be laughable.  Even today some might scoff at it considering the makeup of the Massachusetts legislature is overwhelmingly Democrat.  I am, and always have been, a registered Democrat.  But I suspect that like me, many of my fellow Democrats in this state are rather fed up with the arrogance shown by the state’s Democrats.

Massachusetts has elected the occasional Republican to state-wide and national office, Edward Brooke and William Weld in the more distant past.  But they were more the exception.  State politics has been large dominated by Democrats since the FDR administration, and to some degree prior to that with James Michael Curley.  But recent events where Democrats have been accused and convicted of felonious acts has given the state’s voters reason to question their elected leaders.  The worst thing they have done, which is not a crime but a betrayal of faith, has been the arrogance of the party leadership in the state.

Two national offices are being heavily contested in the state right now, that for a U.S. Senate seat, Brown vs. Warren, and US Representative seat, Tierney vs. Tisei.  And in some sense, Mitt Romney too, although I view him as truly a Michigan native rather than a Massachusetts resident.

In the case of Brown vs. Warren, we have a very affable Republican in Brown who is the state’s Republican US Senator being opposed by a very cerebral and professorial sounding Warren.  And that is her biggest problem.  She claims to come from blue-collar America but sounds anything but.  If anything, she comes across as preachy and professorial.  She is difficult to identify with at much of any level.  Brown, quite simply, comes across as entirely middle-class.  He is a middle-class veteran that I can more easily identify with than Warren’s academic persona.  If history teaches us anything, it is that people vote for who they best identify with which does not necessarily mean who is best qualified.  In this case, however, I cannot say that Brown is not best qualified to both serve and properly represent me.  That, it is my guess, is the question Warren needs to respond to more than any other and which, I doubt, the Democratic leadership of this state will come to terms with.  In the end, I expect Brown will be re-elected.  And even though I cannot say for certain right now, he may well get my vote.

Tierney is a case of absolute arrogance.  I do not, for a second, want Tisei to win this race however I feel he has an excellent chance of doing exactly that.  Not so many years Thomas Finneran had the same arrogance being displayed by Tierney.  As it turned out, Finneran was guilty of, at the very least, comprising the public trust for his own personal ends.  I think Tierney is guilty of the same thing.  It is difficult to believe that a man, as intelligent as he is, had no idea of his family’s involvement in illegal gambling activities long before it became public.  I have to admit that my distrust of Tierney pre-dates that.  It goes back to the mid-1990s when he was opposed by a man named Peter Torkilson, a Republican.  I voted for Torkilson back then on a gut feeling that he was simply the better man.  Unfortunately I am no longer in that district so I cannot have any say in that election.  I do not believe, however, that the state’s Democratic leadership has properly and fully addressed the charges leveled against Tierney by the Republican party.  It simply and arrogantly believes he will get re-elected because you have to go far before anyone’s memory to find a Republican being elected from that district.  The thing is, I know that district to be more conservative than party leaders tend to believe.  It would not take much for more conservative Democrats, like myself, to turn the present election in favor of Tisei.  And that is exactly what I believe is going to happen.

Right now probably few people in Massachusetts believe that Mitt Romney will carry his declared home-state in the presidential election.  The last time that happened was when Al Gore failed to carry his home state of Tennessee.  And as likely as it is that Obama will carry Massachusetts, it should not be taken for granted.  And yet that is exactly what Democratic leadership is doing.

In the latest round of political debates, Warren, Biden, and Obama each lost their respective debates.  Tierney and Tisei will not have any public debate forum although they should.  The point is, Democrats seem to be riding on their laurels thinking they have the upper hand.  They do not, by any stretch of the imagination.  Since those debates, each of the Democrats has lost their lead in the respective race to their Republican opponent.  That is extremely significant because it shows a reversal of fortunes.

I think most Americans find it difficult to believe much of anything politicians say, even those they vote for.  You frequently hear them state they are “voting for the lesser of two evils.”  How can that ever be a good thing?  I noted in the debates that when asked direct and simple questions, those question largely went unanswered.  The politician being asked did a tap dance around the truth, but seldom gave what was a clear and simple answer.  Would it not be refreshing to hear a candidate just once say, “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”

I do not think Massachusetts is suddenly going to become a state in which Republicans rule the roost.  But I do believe, at least in the two contests mentioned, that Republican will prevail.  I think it good that Republican should have more of a say in this state’s politics.  It makes the Democrats more honest, or possibly honest in the first place.  But maybe, just maybe, it will knock some of the arrogance from the state’s Democrat Party.