Coppin State University

Background

A proud HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) since 1900, Coppin State University (Coppin) inspires students from Maryland and beyond to achieve greatness.

Coppin contracted with Mindgrub Technologies to reimagine their web presence, providing prospective and current students—and their families—with an improved digital experience that emphasizes academic and career growth.

Our Services

Content Strategy
Design
DevOps
Quality Assurance
Strategy
System Integration
UX
Web Development

Our Approach

We started with a comprehensive discovery phase to better understand the Coppin community and the five presidential priorities around recruitment, enrollment, and retention. After a thorough review of Coppin’s brand, campus-wide survey results, and the existing website’s structure, user experience, and content, we developed and presented a project roadmap to guide the Coppin and Mindgrub teams through each aspect of the website redesign.

Employing a modified agile project management style, we relied on user experience and content design strategies to create the site map, content plan, user personas and journeys, and, ultimately, wireframes and visual designs. We then used finalized project assets and specifications to build a robust frontend and backend of the new Drupal site.

New landing page wireframes from the UX process

Directory wireframes from the UX process

Several highlights of the UI design for the website including feature blocks and stats

UI design for the First Year Experience page on the website

We have built a solid infrastructure on which we can do great things, things that we had never imagined that we could do on the previous website.

Dionne N. Curbeam, Interim Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer

A Truly Collaborative Effort

At every step of the way, we worked with—and incorporated feedback from—both Coppin State students and key university stakeholders in every major department, including admissions, marketing, financial aid, academic affairs, and the President’s office. Together, we innovated through collaboration to create a site students felt like they could connect to while ensuring Coppin’s content reflected not only their legacy, but their vision for the future.

A collage of student photos from the project's photoshoot

Content Capture

Our team also orchestrated and participated in campus photo and video shoots to capture Coppin’s culture for the website. Pairing these components with Coppin’s unique story, we crafted a narrative that allows people to visualize themselves at the university, and as part of the community.

We were really pleased with Mindgrub’s work, their energy, their ideas—they felt like they were Coppin...They were in it as much for us as we were for ourselves, so we were really happy to have them on board.

Melissa Rigby, Lead Digital Apps Development at Coppin State University

Results that Matter

By simplifying Coppin’s complex site structure, implementing clear user journeys, and making it easier for staff to host and share content with their diverse audience segments, we helped Coppin gain a competitive advantage in the market and position themselves as leaders in teaching innovation. The new site serves as a digital framework that fully supports Coppin’s core goals of increasing student enrollment and retention, boosting graduation rates, and advancing institutional research.

We provide Coppin with ongoing web maintenance and support services to ensure the continued performance of their site, particularly as new trends and needs arise. Looking ahead, we’re also working on a plan to implement additional avenues that will help to connect prospective students to their majors of interest, all while highlighting the student experience at Coppin.