When Montgomery County Community College’s Manager of Digital Usability, Angela Cavaliere, attended the annual HighEdWeb Conference held in Little Rock, Arkansas, this year, she received some acknowledgement she was not expecting for her presentation on MCCC’s web portal. 

“The attendees rate you on you as a presenter and the content of your presentation, and I won the Red Stapler Award,” she said, adding the category was ‘Best in Track for Educational Tools and Strategies.’ “I was surprised because the Convention Center had some tech issues, but I managed to get through the presentation speaking off the cuff and they were pleased with how I handled it.” 

Held at a convention center in October with about 100 attendees, Cavaliere discussed various aspects of MCCC’s student portal called "Montco Connect."

“I discussed why we did it, how we did it and how we keep engagement going and know if it’s successful,” she said. “The success with the portal is that people are able to get to where they want to go quickly, and they tell us they are pleased with it.” 

The new portal went into effect in 2020 and has since received the 2020 NASPA Virtual Innovation Award and the 2020-2021 League Innovation of the Year Award due to the work of these MCCC innovators: Mary Beaver, Angela Cavaliere, Holly Ann Clayton, Amelia Fox, Kasey Golding, Molly Hafner, Amanda Hall, Michael Harcum, Sean Hutchinson, Joe Mancini, Natalie Palmer, Andrew Rosner, Sarah, Schenk, Tyler Steffy, Robert Vogel and Tiffany Webber.  

Cavaliere said MCCC typically stands out for their positive contributions at the conference that serves as an opportunity for attendees to share and learn. 

“A lot of people go to these conferences looking for solutions and Montco is typically ahead with technology compared to other institutions” she said. “We are very innovative, and we have been voted one of the top community colleges in the country for technology.” 

Previous locations that Cavaliere has traveled to for the annual conference for college websites have included Sacramento, California, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She shared the benefits of attending.  

“We attend to get new ideas and to validate things we do here,” she said. “I get a lot out of seeing what other schools are doing, so I can bring it back here to improve our processes.” 

Over the past eight years that Cavaliere has managed digital usability at MCCC, a highlight has been working with the students enrolled at the College. 

“I manage a student board who the College compensates every semester to give us feedback on various subjects through focus groups, usability testing, and surveys,” she said.  

Students interested in joining the Board of 12-13 members apply through a listing Cavaliere posts. 

“We make sure we have a diverse representation of students,” she said.  

Cavaliere discussed some positive contributions from the Board with whom she interacts every other week. 

“They named the portal ‘Montco Connect’ and chose the colors,” she said. “They were also very instrumental in the messaging that was sent out and testing the process of migrating student email from Gmail to Outlook.” 

She has found that having actual users involved in her department’s work has proved invaluable. 

“When I started here, we would just make decisions on behalf of our users,” Cavaliere said. “I advocated for student involvement my second or third year when I was looking at user experience and now we ensure we have student feedback in every decision we make with our digital technology.” 

Today, Cavaliere’s Red Stapler Award sits on her desk and serves as a reminder of MCCC’s accomplishments in the field of tech.   

“It’s an actual red stapler I can use,” she said. “I just have to get some staples for it.”