naropa
Naropa University
A university's website, academic catalog, events, and publications, all on WordPress. There's a new catalog every year, so this project has no end date.
- My role
- CTO / Director of Engineering. Architecture, audits, and technical direction.
- Stack
- WordPress, Elementor, Pressable, GitHub Actions
(enlarge) The starting point
In 2022, Naropa changed vendors. The site we inherited was recent, but it had performance and usability problems, even in the dashboard. We audited it and proposed moving it to Elementor in an orderly way.
What we did
The whole site, again
In about four months we rebuilt and restructured the entire site: sitemap, templates, menu, staff directory, and the migration of events, people, and posts. It launched in December 2022, and then we trained their team to edit on their own.
(enlarge) A catalog that renews every year
The catalog stayed out of the rebuild, by Naropa's decision. We maintain it each academic year: from 2022-23 through 2026-27, every edition gets updated and published.
(enlarge) Events without double entry
The university's calendars live in SharePoint. We built a process that brings them into WordPress as drafts, so editors can review them before publishing.
(enlarge) Changing hosts
In early 2025 I proposed moving the site and catalog to Pressable, and reviewed it with Naropa's IT team. The cutover was in May, with a content freeze and QA comparing staging and production.
Accessibility
We worked on touch targets, mobile text, and images. The Silktide accessibility score went from 61% to 92%.
A living site
We keep expanding the site with Naropa's team: a new home page, the 50th anniversary section, the online magazine, the graduation program on the web, and a program finder.
(enlarge) By the numbers
- Active relationship since 2022
- 400+ tasks completed
- 5 catalog editions
- Accessibility: from 61% to 92%