Questions to consider:

• What role is the Future Student visitor cast in or expected to play?
• How is he or she cast in that way?
• What relationship is the rhetor establishing with the visitor and how?

Notes from Class

MSU-Moorhead Future Students page

Allows you to choose (user) roles for Future Students Get sense of how MSU get future students Asks parents to play a particular role How do you define self as student? What do you value? Role: explorer/learner

Freshman Page: style of writing--oral testimony/formal

• Character of student: prompt them to do these things--test, financial aid, housing, (sense of being talked down to?) Sounds like commands--do them or else

Question: do other future student pages do this? This casts the relationship between the rhetor and audience

• Top 5 postcard--voice of experienced student
  • borrows from pop culture--Letterman show
• Postcard. testimony menus on R & L sides of page--

lots of "Welcomes!" All-American city--anomalie? Values? shopping, restaurants Have to compare these to something to interpret them--

  Real Estate Sales?

Who's the Speaker (ethos)? Bars left out, bookstores, NDSU is next door, Why not NDSU instead of Moorhead? What does the person value?

Fast Facts-- Image gives viewer the role of the "newbie" Note that role keeps changing, son/daughter, welcome to come and play/live with us.

For this assignment, I'd like to use question #2 (96)as a beginning for interpretation:

• What impact might the rhetorical choices have on different audiences?
• Would the impact be the same for different people?

For a comparison, I want to look at Northland Community and Technical College's Future Students page from the perspective of a new faculty member, a parent whose elementary school son may attend there, and as a parent/grandparent of African American children.

It seems to me that in class we covered Description and Analysis of the Moorhead site adequately enough to begin Interpretation.

MSUM

I want to begin by looking at two subpages from the Moorhead site, PSEO and Transfer Students

The PSEO page is plainer than the other pages. There is no testimony, the only graphicss are the school dragon in the upper right corner and the school logo in the upper left. At the bottom of the page is a menu bar similar to the other web pages supplying links to other pages. There is also a menu on the right for admissions, academics, tuition costs, housing, faq, athletics, and the fargo/moorhead community.

The page is centered on explaining what PSEO is and why it came about. It tells high school students what they need to do to apply and offers a section to out of state students.

This page is obviously for parents and students who are serious and centered on higher education. This is written in the language of instructions, how to complete the process of beginning college classes while still in high school.

The lack of ornamentation speaks to the seriousness of the audience focusing on education/learning. Also it hits the fact they will be one to two years younger (at least) than the other students at the university. Parents of 15 and 16 year olds don't want to see the party life at a university their high schooler is going to attend.

This page is for serious students.

The Transfer page is similar to the PSEO page in the logo and dragon on the left and right upper corners of the page. The menu in grey is on the right, just as on the PSEO page, though underneath it is a transfer student's testimony why he transferred to Moorhead.

On the left are other links to set up visits, admission requirements, application, transfer connections, curriculum, courses offered, equivalency, FAFSA, transcript request form, scholarship forms, registration days.

In the middle column, there is a friendly sounding sales pitch and welcome to new students. Forty percent of the students are transfer students. They use the 40 instead of spelling out the number. I intrepret this to show students they aren't alone in transferring here.

Under this short welcoming paragraph is a picture of four students, next to the phrase "We have a place for YOU at MSUM," which is as tall as the students. There are two female, one male, one blank--outlined with dotted lines--for the transfer student to place him or her self in the picture. The students appear to be healthy--there's not a lot of excess body fat on them. One is black, one asian, one white.

There is also a NOTE, telling students they will have to complete a series of core requirements called "Dragon Core," to which they supply a link. This is in bold print, so the university is telling incoming transfer students there are specific requirements for graduation they will have to meet. When I went to the Dragon Core page, there were several pages that students would have to read through to see if their transfer courses would meet the Dragon Core requirements. It looks like a great place for a university to hassle students--lots of hoops to jump through. To me, this is a warning that there could be problems, so be sure to have things approved/lined out, etc. before spending much money.

Interpretation

As a parent:

I would be okay with my high schooler taking classes at this university. It seems to be serious about academics. There is also a cross section of race/male/female ratios (?) for my daughter/grandchildren.

As a student:

The school is being honest about academics, but throws confusion into the transfer process by their use of Dragon Core and multiple pages to explain the process. This would make me wary (perhaps this is more of my 'parent' voice & my student voice would blow it off if I wanted to attend MSUM badly enough).

Northland's

Future Student's page The top and bottom of the page are identical to the other pages on the web with the school name, logo, search, tabs on the top, with similar information repeated at the bottom, though the bottom has the address and phone numbers of the two campuses.

The title of the page states "Your Future Success Starts Now" underneath this phrase is an invitation to 'discover' what NCTC can do for you. Under that are five tabs titled "Welcome, Academics, Enrollment, Paying for College, & Visiting Northland."

Directly under these tabs is a photo of a white female walking with a black student who is wearing a Northland t-shirt. Both students appear to have a higher body fat content than in the MSUM photos. They are walking outside. In the background there are some trees with green leaves. The female is wearing a sleeveless shirt and carrying a book (?)

Underneath this is a welcome to the students and lists the typical considerations students must make prior to attending Northland. They sell the student choosing a school that "fits" them. They state they are inviting the student to look at their unique campus.

There is a link to right to know graduation and transfer out rates under this welcome.

On the right of the page there are three links, apply online, request more info, & schedule a visit. Under these are two more contact information links (one for each campus).

The PSEO information is found under the enrollment tab. The site lists five types of future students--new, returning, transfer, international, and PSEO. Each of these is a link.

This link answers four questions, What is PSEO, Who can apply, application deadlines, and contact information. These answers all seem to be in fine print, since the font is small (10 or 11). The language is simple and uncomplicated. The audience is obviously not as savvy as the audience at MSUM. It seems to be friendlier and aimed at a wider audience--that may not be as academically oriented or may be a first generation college student. The language is not imtimidating, and issues are made clear to students.

The Transfer page is to a different audience. The page announces OPTIONS for transferring to NCTC. There are four links--online app, campus visit, application, request paper application.

On the right is a photo of a black male with a red Northland t-shirt and a white female in a low cut t-shirt with straps, rather than collar or sleeves. She carrys some books.

There is a second Transfer Student Online app, and two other links to schedule a visit to either campus.

There is a second link to download an application, below which there's a second link to request an application be sent to the future student's home address.

Interpretation

What impact might the choices have on different audiences?

MSUM

As a parent, I would be impressed with the seriousness of the page. I would also question what they are hiding, since there is not much "student life" for the PSEO, but they are in high school, so maybe that's not a consideration.

As a parent/grandparent, I would like that different races are represented. I would not like all the hassle stuff about the Dragon Core and would most likely warn my children away from the school because it screams, "we are going to cheat you."

I don't know that the impact would be the same for different people. I have a lot of world-experiences and am familiar with colleges and universities. Not all of these have been positive experiences, so I tend to look at things with a jaundiced eye. I'm not sure that my daughter would look at them the same. I think that she would want to know more about the single-parent aspect of the campus--family housing, medical and food needs, and other nontraditional student concerns. Though neither site addressed a "single-parent" student as someone they were seeking.

 *Why? might be an intersting thing to think about.

NCTC

As a parent, I might like the page being simple compared to the MSUM page--the language is at a lower reading level and it's more of a "let me help you" rather than a sales pitch. NCTC's not advertising like MSUM on their page.

The PSEO page is more for high school students and parents who have not had much/any college. It's simple, friendly, and as nonintimidating as possible.

On the transfer page, it's got all the links twice, which makes it easy and inviting. Their tone is selling operator ease and friendly helper. No, I'm not sure that makes sense.

As a new faculty member who took the job at NCTC without having ever visited the campus, I used the webpage to see what kind of college it is/was. They changed the webpage since last year.

What I saw as a faculty new hire was a college that catered to more a blue-collar, working class student rather than an upper middle class student whose parents both graduated from college. The school is also a technical school, which means that its audience is not only working class, but skilled working class. This may not appeal to someone who is looking for a higher level of intellectual stimulation, though the humanities side of the college has that. I don't see it emphasized in these pages.