Custom Creations:
The Future of Liberal Arts Tech with Rollins College
Custom Creations:
The Future of Liberal Arts Tech with Rollins College
Tucked against the banks of Lake Virginia, Rollins College stands as an academic oasis basking in sunny Winter Park, Florida. With a history steeped in liberal arts, Rollins places a premium on facilitating personalized learning experiences, promoting responsible leadership and empowering students. This philosophy also shapes the college’s approach to technology.
For years, Rollins operated a homegrown student portal as a repository for various links and third-party applications. Recognizing the need for a refreshed, interactive digital student experience, Rollins launched Pathify’s Engagement Hub, leveraging Flow — Pathify’s proprietary middleware — in creating a Rollins-specific, streamlined campus journey. Jacob Potter, a Programmer/Analyst in the College’s Information Technology (IT) department, shared how his team successfully built widgets using Flow.
Preparation, Polls and Portal Training
After identifying Pathify as Rollins’ vendor of choice, the team engaged in preliminary campus research to craft a more personalized experience. “We polled students before launching for an understanding of what information or data they wanted to access,” Potter stated. “From there, we developed an internal list of widget concepts using student feedback.” The team also solicited various campus departments, ensuring offices such as the Registrar, Finance, Marketing and Communications provided input on the look and feel of Rollins’ dashboard.
From a technical standpoint, the team enjoyed multiple training sessions with Pathify’s Flow experts. Potter believes these trainings got the team up to speed quickly and efficiently. “Flow is a complex and powerful system,” he remarked. “If and when there were questions or issues with Flow, Pathify support always provided an answer.”
The Power of Customization
Armed with student and staff opinions and platform knowledge, the team went live with its Pathify portal — MyRollins — in August 2023. Now, the digital student experience no longer involves sifting through pages of links — instead landing on a dynamic, personalized dashboard filled with relevant information.
It’s a welcomed change — and Potter acknowledged Rollins’ custom Registration Hub widget as a prime example. The widget displays holds and registration links during peak season and shows students’ personalized registration information — “a major communication improvement,” he said. “Before, students consulted a chart based on their class year, cohort and academic standing,” Potter reflected. “Now, they see information based on all those factors right in their portal.”
Rollins also developed custom widgets for print balances (integrating with PaperCut), student account balances (integrating with Transact) and staff paid time off (integrating with Ellucian Banner). Additionally, the College migrated new student onboarding checklists into Pathify Tasks, allowing students to view and complete timely action items within the platform. When students must complete action items, they log into one place — “or, more commonly, open the app on their phone,” added Potter — creating a space where the entire campus remains connected, informed and engaged.
Less Burden…and a Happy Surprise
Post-launch, it’s been smooth sailing for the Rollins IT team. “We’ve received fewer ‘where do I find this link?’ questions from students,” Potter observed. For faculty and staff, Pathify Pages provides a lightweight content management system, while Communities facilitates communication at scale, allowing the creation and management of personalized content and outreach.
Another positive outcome involves surfacing lost information, with several staff members discovering unused funds in their staff dining accounts. “They hadn’t logged into the vendor’s website in years,” said Potter. “They saw the balance when it appeared in their MyRollins app. Free — or previously paid for — lunch!”
Looking Ahead
The work on custom widgets and Flow isn’t done yet. “We’re exploring several custom widget ideas — both expanding our existing integrations and adding new ones,” Potter said. These include adding meal plan swipes to the dining balance widget and integrating additional campus checklists into Tasks. Above all, Potter and the team remain impressed with Pathify’s role in modernizing the student experience — on the front and back end. “Pathify enhanced our development process, offering simplicity in code management, deployment and integrations,” he concluded. “We’re also simplifying the user experience for a student at Rollins. It’s now more a more social, interactive, and engaging experience.”
About Rollins College
Located on the banks of Lake Virginia in Winter Park, Florida, Rollins College is the state’s oldest recognized college. Since 1885, Rollins has stood for excellence in the liberal arts offering education across the arts, sciences and business. The college educates students for global citizenship and responsible leadership, empowering graduates to pursue meaningful lives and productive careers. With over 60 academic degree programs across undergraduate and graduate studies, Rollins services approximately 3,300 degree-seeking students annually. For more information, visit rollins.edu.
“Pathify enhanced our development process, offering simplicity in code management, deployment and integrations. We’re also simplifying the user experience for a student at Rollins. It’s now a more social, interactive and engaging experience.”
Jacob Potter
Programmer/Analyst, Rollins College
