College of the Atlantic's website, launched in Sept. 2015, is a CASE 2016 Circle of Excellence gold medal winner.College of the Atlantic's website, launched in Sept. 2015, is a CASE 2016 Circle of Excellence gold medal winner.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – College of the Atlantic is a 2016 Circle of Excellence gold medal award winner for its new website.

COA beat out 77 other colleges and universities in the running for the top spot, with judges finding the website innovative, visually captivating, and joyful. The award was bestowed by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).

“College of the Atlantic is a website that immediately invokes a smile. There is so much about the website that is intentional and a connection to who they are,” judges said. “They don’t need to tell you they are different, they show it.” 

College of the Atlantic's website is the CASE 2016 Circle of Excellence gold medal winner.College of the Atlantic's website is the CASE 2016 Circle of Excellence gold medal winner.The COA website was created by White Whale Web Services, who worked closely with the COA community throughout the 2014-2015 academic year to build a site that would reflect the interdisciplinary, experiential academic philosophy of the school. It was launched in Sept. 2015.

Among innovations created by White Whale, the website breaks down the wall between external and internal audiences, offers an intuitive, serendipitous navigational experience, and creates a unique sense of place with tide and moon phases, meals, weather, daily class schedules and changing graphics from day to night on the front page.

“When you arrive on the site, and throughout the navigation, the user is presented with a sense of place. They use video and animation to reinforce that message. There are small unique touches like the tide calendar and events calendar, which includes classes, giving a sense of what a day at the school might be like. Lastly, the course catalog is a complete joy to use,” the judges said.

The architecture and innovative functions of the site were built by White Whale, while COA dean of admission Heather Albert-Knopp led a small team of COA staff and faculty to create the content. The team included director of creative services Rebecca Woods, professor of physics and mathematics David Feldman, admissions counselor Nina Emlen, assistant IT director Sean Murphy, and communications director Rob Levin.

Coa.edu was further recognized by judges for being responsive to all platforms, audience-centric, and providing a consistent embrace of the COA brand. The site appeals to emotion, tells a good story, makes a clear call to action, integrates multimedia, and conveys COA’s unique value among higher-ed institutions, judges found.

The CASE Circle of Excellence competition honors outstanding work in advancement services, alumni relations, communications, fundraising and marketing at colleges, universities, independent schools and affiliated nonprofits.

CASE judges said of coa.edu, “They don't need to tell you they are different, they show it.”CASE judges said of coa.edu, “They don't need to tell you they are different, they show it.”The competition received 3,356 entries for consideration in nearly 100 categories from more than 713 higher education institutions, independent schools and affiliated organizations located worldwide. More than 350 entries were considered for the CASE Platinum Categories, a collaboration between CASE and its eight districts to recognize outstanding work worldwide.

Peer professionals at schools, colleges and universities as well as professionals from outside of education judged the entries and awarded 331 awards to 197 institutions as follows: 97 bronze; 113 silver, 78 gold and 17 grand gold. In addition, CASE recognized eight platinum winners.

“Our Circle of Excellence judges tell us that they are impressed with the outstanding work happening at institutions across the globe. The value of these winning entries to the advancement profession overall is significant,” said Brian Flahaven, senior director for advocacy at CASE.

CASE was founded in 1974 and maintains headquarters in Washington, D.C., with offices in London, Singapore, and Mexico City.

Today, CASE’s membership includes more than 3,670 colleges and universities, primary and secondary independent and international schools, and nonprofit organizations in more than 80 countries around the globe. This makes CASE one of the world’s largest nonprofit educational associations in terms of institutional membership. CASE serves nearly 81,000 advancement practitioners on the staffs of its member institutions and has more than 17,000 professional members on its roster.