In response to “CollegiateLink: The Weakest Link”

To the Editor:

Kudos to Adam Miller ’11’s article “CollegiateLink: The Weakest Link” (Opinions, September 28) for bringing this issue to the attention of the College Voice’s readership. The implementation of CollegiateLink has been directly detrimental to the welfare of student organizations at Connecticut College. The Office of Student Life does not have the staff or expertise required to effectively run such a system. Instead of creating a product that is useful and attractive for the students who would use it, Student Life has attempted to coerce the student body into registering on CollegiateLink by threatening to take away SGA funding and denying students the right to put up posters in Cro. No attempt has been made to increase the appeal or utility of CollegiateLink. Instead, the office has attempted to make its use compulsory. The infrastructure of CollegiateLink is buggy, confusing, and unnecessarily restrictive for its users. Unless you know the URL, it is difficult to access the site at all: it is not accessible from the Login page at conncoll.edu, nor is it to be found in the Campus Life section of the college website. Once you’ve managed to log in to CollegiateLink, it is still not immediately usable. Students cannot join groups without being approved by an administrator, so it is impossible to start using the site right away. Once you are approved as a member of the group, there is no next step – joining is all you can do as a member. Club membership on CollegiateLink is a mere formality for the great majority of its users. The only other feature provided by the site – the bulletin board featuring posters for upcoming events – is, as Miller remarked, almost entirely redundant. If a club has taken the time to design a flier for an event, then they have surely posted that flier around campus. As Miller correctly states, the student body has no need for a system like CollegiateLink. If the goal of the site is to assist and support the student organizations of Connecticut College, it has failed, and shows no signs of improving. It’s time to either fix the system or throw it out.

-Jamison Hermann ’11