Ten Sites, One University, Years of Trust: Our Web Work in Higher Education
Over several years embedded at a leading Ivy League research university, More Canvas built ten sites across a single institution — managing a major WordPress-to-Drupal migration, four ensemble websites, a rapid-response COVID communications hub, and six faculty personal sites, all within strict institutional compliance and accessibility standards.
A university website isn't just a digital presence. For an academic department or ensemble, it's the primary way students, faculty, collaborators, and donors understand who you are, what you do, and whether you're worth their time. Getting it right requires more than technical skill — it requires someone who understands academic culture, institutional compliance, brand standards, accessibility requirements, and the particular complexity of building consensus among faculty stakeholders who all have opinions.
Over several years of embedded work with a leading Ivy League research university, More Canvas has built exactly that kind of expertise. What began as a communications engagement with a single academic department grew into a sustained web presence partnership spanning ten sites, dozens of stakeholders, and every dimension of what website work actually involves — from vendor selection to site build to the handbooks that keep it all running after we're gone.
What makes university website projects different from commercial ones?
Academic web projects are different from commercial ones in ways that matter. Institutional compliance requirements shape design decisions. Faculty governance means more voices at the table, longer feedback cycles, and more nuanced consensus-building. Accessibility standards are non-negotiable. And the people who commission the work are often experts in their artistic or academic fields — not in web development — which means a good partner has to bridge both worlds fluently.
Over the course of our university engagement, we encountered every version of this challenge: a major platform migration requiring a formal RFP process, four ensemble organizations each needing a distinct identity within shared institutional guidelines, an urgent interim solution needed while a larger build was underway, and six individual faculty and directors who needed personal sites to support books, recordings, and artistic projects. Each required a different approach. All of them required deep familiarity with the institution and its people.
How does More Canvas approach web projects at a large research university?
Our web work at this institution unfolded across several interconnected streams:
Rapid-Response Communications Hub: When COVID-19 created an immediate communications need — updating protocols for classes, student and faculty activities, and critical announcements in real time — the university department's existing website was too unwieldy to respond at the pace the situation demanded. More Canvas proposed and built a dedicated Squarespace information hub as a rapid-response solution: a clean, navigable space where students, faculty, and staff could find timely, accurate information as protocols evolved.
Enterprise Website RFP & Project Management: When the same department needed to migrate its website from WordPress to Drupal — a significant institutional undertaking — we led the RFP process to identify and select a qualified web development vendor. We then served as the communications and project management lead throughout the build, providing structured feedback from a communications perspective, coordinating stakeholder input across the department, and ensuring the final product met both the department's needs and the university's technical standards. We concluded the engagement by producing handbooks for the incoming communications staff to carry the site forward independently.
Four Ensemble Websites: We led full website builds for four university-affiliated performing ensembles, each requiring its own distinct visual identity, narrative voice, and digital presence — while remaining compliant with university brand and accessibility guidelines. Each site reflects the personality and programming of its ensemble while functioning as a professional, credible home for the organization's public-facing work. All four sites are live and actively maintained.
Faculty & Director Personal Sites: Drawing on relationships built through our university work, we have designed and built personal websites for six faculty members and artistic directors — supporting book launches, music releases, performance portfolios, and professional profiles. These engagements are a direct reflection of the trust built over years of institutional work: when the people inside the university need something built for their own careers, they come to us.
What does a long-term university web partnership actually produce?
Across ten sites and counting, our university web work demonstrates something more than technical capability. It demonstrates what becomes possible when a partner is deeply embedded in an institutional environment — familiar with its culture, fluent in its compliance requirements, connected to its people, and trusted enough that the work keeps expanding.
The four ensemble sites are live and serving their communities. The interim hub served its purpose and the department's primary site launched successfully. The faculty sites support the careers of artists and scholars working at the intersection of performance, scholarship, and public engagement. And the relationships that produced all of this continue.
For any academic department or university-affiliated organization considering a web project — whether that's a refresh, a migration, a new build, or simply figuring out where to start — we bring something most agencies can't: we've already done this work, in this environment, for this community. We know what it takes.
Already working within a university environment? We know the compliance requirements, the stakeholder dynamics, and what it takes to build something that lasts. Let's talk about your department's needs.
