UC Santa Barbara's new website, The Current.
The UC Santa Barbara Office of Public Affairs & Communications (OPAC) has launched The Current, a new website that highlights stories from throughout the campus. It’s a site about UCSB and for students, staff, faculty, alumni, parents, prospective students, and the public at large.
“The Current will combine in-depth reporting on UCSB research and discoveries; profiles of faculty, staff, students, and alumni; coverage of campus events; and important campus announcements,” John Longbrake, Associate Vice Chancellor, Public Affairs & Communications, and George Foulsham, Director of News and Media Relations in OPAC, said in an announcement to the campus community.
The site, they said, "will enable the University to bring even greater attention to the important work of our faculty, researchers, staff, students, and alumni, and shine an even brighter light on the intellectual power of UC Santa Barbara."
The Current officially launched today, Nov. 20, with a special package of stories and videos commemorating the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas.
In “The Kennedy Presidency: What Was and What Might Have Been,” Andrea Estrada interviews UC Santa Barbara scholars, who examine President Kennedy’s accomplishments and the work left undone. In the “Remembering JFK” videos in the sidebar, scholars including Michael Young, Nelson Lichtenstein, Pierre Wiltzius, Eileen Borris, Gene Lucas, George Lipsitz, Jane Close Conoley, Maria Herrera Sobek, and Alan Heeger recall where they were and how they felt on that historic day 50 years ago.
In “Gettysburg Address: 150 Years Later,” videographer Spencer Bruttig records UC Santa Barbara students reciting one of the most famous speeches ever delivered by an American president, President Abraham Lincoln.
For more information about The Current, read the email to the campus community below.
November 20, 2013
To: Campus Community
Re: UC Santa Barbara Launches News Site
Dear Colleagues and Friends:
Today, the University is launching The UC Santa Barbara Current, a new Web site designed to share the important stories from our campus with our community, alumni, peer institutions, prospective students, and the general public, both domestic and international.
This news site (http://www.news.ucsb.edu) will enable the University to bring even greater attention to the important work of our faculty, researchers, staff, students and alumni, and shine an even brighter light on the intellectual power of UC Santa Barbara.
Featuring all the elements of the former UCSB Today and 93106, The Current will combine in-depth reporting on UCSB research and discoveries; profiles of faculty, staff, students and alumni; coverage of campus events; and important campus announcements.
In addition to presenting articles by writers in the Office of Public Affairs and Communications, The Current will promote links to sites across campus highlighting events and news posted by the University’s schools, centers and departments. It will also include headlines from the local news media — Noozhawk and The Independent — so readers can keep up with what is happening off-campus.
UC Santa Barbara students recite the Gettysburg Address in this video.To include student voices, we are experimenting with an undergraduate blog and will also be integrating social media channels to allow readers to experience more of the UC Santa Barbara community. In addition, the site will make greater use of video, photography, and infographics.
We expect The Current to be in a continual state of evolution and are already working on the next steps. The site will be fully integrated with the events and ticketing calendar currently being developed as part of the Operational Effectiveness Initiative. We are also in the process of developing what we hope will become a daily email that will bring a digest of the top news stories, athletic scores, events and campus announcements directly to you each morning.
Development of the site was a collaboration between the Office of Public Affairs & Communications, the College of Engineering, the Marine Science Institute’s Ocean o’ Graphics, and the Office of Development, with additional feedback from communication offices across the University.
We hope The Current will become your favorite site for news about the University and the campus community. We also hope you will share your thoughts about the site so we can continue to make improvements.
We look forward to hearing from you and reading about you.
John Longbrake
Associate Vice Chancellor,
Public Affairs & Communications
George Foulsham
Director of News and Media Relations
Office of Public Affairs & Communications