By Kaylen Ayres ’25
The Blue Ridge Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) recognized Roanoke College with two awards at the 27th annual Summit Awards. Roanoke received silver Summit awards for community partnerships and for the new Roanoke.edu website.
The College’s partnership with Habitat for Humanity has spanned more than 30 years, most notably with R House. This project introduces students to community service in the surrounding Roanoke Valley by building new homes for families in need. In 2023, the 18th R House was dedicated. Roanoke College also arranged a special event to host Habitat for Humanity International CEO Jonathan Reckford, who was invited to speak through the Bishop Crumley Lecture Series.
The website award recognized the 2023 Roanoke College website redesign. The website was renovated to improve its navigation pathways and search engine, prioritize mobile, elevate degree programs and ensure the site could more easily support the college’s enrollment marketing in other channels. The project was accomplished by an in-house team of only two staff members on a short timeline.
The new website has been a resounding success, receiving praise from the campus community and showing signs of stronger engagement from external audiences. Compared to 2022, during the first period of 2023, from Aug. 23 to Nov. 1, site visitors increased from 442K to 553K (+25%), with new users increasing by 35%, and the percentage of engaged user sessions per active user has increased dramatically, from 131K to 184K (+41%).
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