Union athletes participating in the Winter Olympics, a record number of applications for the Class of 2026, the possibility of athletic scholarships in men's and women's ice hockey, and the return of civil engineering were among the most popular stories on the College’s news site in 2022.
Union’s award-winning news site garnered more than 264,000 unique page views during the year, making it one of the College’s most popular sites.
The most-read news item on the site was a February piece highlighting the five athletes with a Union connection competing at the Olympic games in Beijing, China.
Next was a story on the record number of more than 8,400 prospective students who applied to join the Class of 2026. An August story welcoming the class was the fifth most popular story.
A preview of a vote by the NCAA Division III membership to allow all multi-divisional institutions to apply Division I rules to their Division I programs, including financial aid, was the third most popular story. This change would allow Union to offer athletic scholarships for its Division I men's and women's ice hockey teams for the first time. A story about the vote approving the measure was the 10th most popular of the year.
The announcement that Union will launch two new majors, in civil and environmental engineering, was the fourth most-read item. The goal is to make the offerings available to students who matriculate at Union in fall 2023. They would be the first new majors created by the College since Chinese was elevated from a minor in 2012.
The rest of the top 10 included stories on the Class of 2022 co-valedictorians, a talk by Robert Langer, a pioneer in the development of the mRNA vaccines used to help combat COVID-19, Commencement and the club lacrosse team winning a national championship in its first year as a formal organization.
On Union's official social media accounts, a post featuring the photography of Stephen Nadler '21 at the World Cup in Qatar was the most engaged on Instagram. On Facebook, a post highlighting 15 year-old Connor Hayhurst's wish to investigate an art theft via the Make-A-Wish Foundation was the most liked. On Twitter, students painting the U orange to bring awareness to gun violence in the U.S. garnered the most response.
Stories that originate on Union’s news site are frequently featured in national, international and local media outlets.
In 2022, faculty, students and staff were mentioned in major media outlets in the country, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Today show, Nature, Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Content on the site has been honored by the Council for the Advancement of Secondary Education (CASE).