A Message from the Webmaster
While visiting family in Ohio over the winter, I spent some time with my nephew, Joe. Joe is 8 years old and from the time he was approximately 2 ½ to 3 years old he has been surfing the net. I remember watching him while he typed in the letters of his favorite sites as my sister spelled it for him. He knew where he wanted to go and how to navigate his sites.
I explained to Joe what my job was and how I was in the process of creating a new site. I asked him if he’d like to help me by surfing the site and seeing how things looked and flowed. Joe was very excited and immediately took his job seriously.
In his first communication to me via email, he suggested that we keep "computer stuff" in the subject lines of our emails each time. Joe went on to point out broken links and other areas that were left unfinished. I would give him two 
different ways to show information on a page and he would be specific about what he liked and why. He was also the one that suggested a separate, and as he put it, more formal contact page.
I shared my emails and his suggestions with the other members of the web committee. Needless to say they were also impressed with Joe’s work and enthusiasm. Eventually when we were stumped as what to do in a situation, we would decide to “run it by Joe” and see what he thinks.
Now with the site up and running, we can also say without a doubt, that this site is kid tested and approved by Joe. To show Joe how much his hard work meant to us, the committee had a Certificate of Appreciation prepared and signed by everyone. I had the pleasure of presenting the certificate to Joe recently and I'm sure you can see how pleased he was!
On behalf of the web committee, and Joe, we welcome you to our newly designed website. We didn't just transfer existing pages to the new template, but we created a whole new section to our site showing how teaching, research and extension in Agricultural and Resource Economics can help you find SolUTions. We’re excited about our new site and hope that it shows.
Feel free to contact me if you have any comments of suggestions. If I can’t find the answer right away, I'll run it by Joe.