This isn't just your average new school year for St. Louis University High, a Catholic, Jesuit college-preparatory school for young men. This year marks the bicentennial year since the school was founded. Ben DuMont, Director of Communications, recently shared how the school is using new Finalsite tools on its website to celebrate such an accomplishment.

Founded in 1818 as the oldest high school west of the Mississippi River, St. Louis University High School is celebrating the bicentennial through the end of 2018. "Our primary anniversary theme is gratitude," said Ben. "It ties in well with our Jesuit identity and provides great opportunity to not only reflect on our proud past but also to look ahead to the promise of our future."

To promote the milestone, Ben and his team created a new campaign called "#2Centuries2Words," where they have asked their students, faculty, parents and alumni to submit their thoughts about the school. But there's a catch: is it has to be summarized in just two words. They made the decision to implement this campaign using Finalsite Posts. Finalsite Posts is our newest module that is ideal for blogs, news and teacher pages, but our schools are using it for sharing all sorts of content due to its versatility. To contribute content to Posts, users don't need an admin login, which opens up the window of opportunity for all constituents with a login to contribute — something St. Louis University High took total advantage of.

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Incorporating Community-Driven Content with Posts

"One of our goals for our bicentennial is to provide opportunity for our constituents to share their stories, recollections and what makes them grateful to be part of the SLUH community," said Ben. "Our digital solution was Finalsite Posts because it allows contributors to write or post as much content — such as text, photos and video — as they'd like."

Bringing Mosaic Design Alive for Website

The school's campaign carries a theme of gratitude for its school community. According to Ben, Posts has allowed them to bring this theme onto the page through a "mosaic design," while also "providing exceptional functionality for both the viewer and user." While St. Louis University School did work with our design team to implement some enhancements (like the hover effect), the page's overall "mosaic" layout and structure is a result of the flexibility of Finalsite Posts.

As one of the top trends in web design, mosaic and similar grid layouts have enabled a new way of thinking about the web design canvas. The interface easily appeals to their website viewers today scanning the page, as opposed to reading lengths of content from top to bottom. The posts also have a nice hover effect, where individuals can read additional information the constituents share other than the two words.

"This structure allows users to scan the digital mosaic, explore further various elements as they wish and even share elements simply by clicking on them," said Ben. "Posts allows us to feature a mosaic-like framework. Thus, we've aptly named a special section of our Bicentennial site 'mosaic,' in which each particular element, dynamic and consistent with the unique blues of our brand, allows those in our community to share their stories in a spirit of gratitude. Posts have been instrumental for this campaign. Posts are here to stay at SLUH, perhaps for another 200 years!"

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephanie brings a fresh new marketing perspective with her background in social media, communications, and radio broadcasting. She is a co-producer for the FinalsiteFM podcast network and is passionate about helping schools stay ahead of their marketing goals by tracking new trends and developments. She is also a practicing singer/songwriter and loves to expand her creativity in DIY projects.