There is no direct way for students to access the information on our Middlebury website. Some of us start at the institutional homepage, some start with webmail, others have bookmarked pages, etc.

We need a single place for students enter the Middlebury website. There needs to be a place that has everything we, as students, need on one page from course catalog listings to dining hall menus.

Even better, make the entrance portal customizable (like iGoogle or MyYahoo) so that we can put the kind of information we want on it.

Many students already forward their Microsoft webmail to Google Gmail accounts. Why not just give students Gmail that is connected with their @middlebury.edu email addresses.

It's called Google Applications. Google provides email to the school and it is tied to our middlebury.edu addresses. You use the same Gmail interface but with all of Google's goodies -- ease of use, HTML, conversation view, tags, etc.

Here's how it works: http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/index.html

Students now fill out course and professor evaluations by hand during valuable class time.

Changing the format to be web-based would reduce the amount of time students spent filling them out and walking them to Old Chapel.

It would also save piles of paper.

Lastly and perhaps most importantly, it would allow the evaluations to truly remain anonymous since professors wouldn't be able to recognize students by their handwriting.

There actually isn't a single down side to it, now that I think about it.

Students want to organize groups to do projects, communicate internally, share documents. Let's make it easy for them to do so via the website.

Wouldn't it be great to have all the various ride boards both physical and virtual consolidated into one single ride board...

Our online calendar (http://cat.middlebury.edu/events/) sucks. Students don't use Outlook calendars and that online "Events at Middlebury" website.

We need a next generation, open-source calendar in which students can access the calendar in whatever way they want. Categories of RSS feeds (arts events, sports events, individual sports schedules, social events) should be available so that students can use it in Google Calendar, iCal, or any other popular online calendar or desktop software.

Furthermore, the calendar should be multi-media rich. Why not have links to buy tickets, photos, videos, and other content built right into the events?

Lets showcase Middlebury's beautiful campus to all those students who intend to apply. Lets incorporate Midd's beautiful scenery into the website's architectural layout. Our current website's images are small, dull and outdated. Also, lets update the online tour feature.

A school as small as Middlebury needs a website that showcases our best attributes, namely top flight academics, beautiful facilities and interesting people.

Check out Vassar's website.... honestly, our website needs a facelift. Also, lets get onto ITunesU: where universities post information.......Bowdoin has it!

Segue is the course management system for professors to officially interact with students. Course pages are built using segue and students most often post discussion/reaction papers this way.

Segue, while a great homegrown Middlebury-centric tool, is far too hard to use for both professors and students. Course websites need to move to a blog format where syllabi are posted as pages, schedules easily updates, and reaction/discussions take place in comment form. Media can also be added at will. Plus, blogs easily look good unlike Segue.

Blogs make professors and students interact more easily and efficiently online.

Example: http://blogs.middlebury.edu/21stcenturychallenges/

Be able to download a the new student portal type application to a mobile phone - iphone/blackberry to be able to check events, news, menus, etc.

Although I'm not a fan of Vassar's site, they do utilize white space effectively on the homepage.