A Digital Age Refresh for Ancient Truths

St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary

Client Info

St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, located in Yonkers, N.Y., stands as the premier Christian Orthodox seminary in the United States. Founded in 1948 with roots tracing back to 1794, they offer four advanced degree programs and maintain a significant global presence. Their decade-old website needed a complete transformation to support ambitious recruitment, education, outreach, and fundraising goals.

Industry

Higher Education

Top challenge

• The 10+-year-old website was dated and lacked the functionality and aesthetic appeal for effectively engaging with and encouraging prospective students, alumni, and donors to stay in touch.

• A fast, flexible platform was needed to allow for highly functional layouts that could be easily updated and changed as needed.

• The UX for mobile was not optimal—a significant drawback since 60 percent of visitors accessed the site from a mobile device.

• The site navigation was confusing. Visitors needed to spend a considerable amount of time just figuring out how to find what they needed.

• The site was not aligned with St. Vladimir’s goals for recruitment, outreach, growth, and fundraising.

Top solution

• Approaching the need for updating from multiple angles, Promet engaged St. Vladimir’s website team in a discovery session, implemented the refreshed brand guidelines, and developed a clean and inviting UX.

• Provus® allowed for drag-and-drop, no-code content editing, enabling flexibility in building and revising sections, along with functionality that allowed for the presentation of great lengths of content in a compact, approachable format.

• Upgrading to Drupal 8.9 created a UX foundation that functioned equally well on mobile and desktop.

• A sharp focus on content strategy, user journeys of distinct persona groups, and clean pathways streamlined navigation within a user experience that’s inherently more inviting.

• Navigation that’s better aligned with the needs of specific persona groups, along with more prominent calls to action have served to align the site with specific goals for fundraising, recruitment, connecting, and community building.

St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary academics page

The discovery and design phases were fantastic. The Promet team did an amazing job of bringing our new brand to life.

Sarah Werner

Chief Marketing Officer, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary

What We Did

We conducted a comprehensive two-day design workshop to align stakeholder requirements, then rebuilt their digital presence on Drupal 8.9. The solution centered on implementing Provus®, our drag-and-drop content management system, combined with refreshed brand guidelines and a mobile-first design approach. This created an intuitive, streamlined experience that respected their heritage while embracing modern digital needs.

Mobile-First Experience

With 60% of visitors accessing the site via mobile devices, we prioritized a responsive design that delivers an equally powerful experience across all platforms. The new mobile-friendly interface ensures seamless access to content, resources, and engagement opportunities for their global audience.

Provus®-Powered Content Management

The implementation of Provus® provided content editors with no-code, drag-and-drop capabilities to easily build and revise sections while maintaining brand consistency. This allows for flexible presentation of extensive content in an approachable format, without risking design integrity.

Strategic User Journeys

We completely reimagined the site's navigation and user pathways, creating clear routes for distinct persona groups—prospective students, current students, alumni, and donors. Combined with prominent calls to action, the new structure directly supports their goals for recruitment, fundraising, and community building.

The Result

The new digital platform transformed a confusing, dated website into an engaging, modern experience that effectively serves St. Vladimir's global community while maintaining their distinguished heritage. The mobile-first approach, intuitive navigation, and flexible content management system now properly support their ambitious goals for growth and engagement.

Strategy & Discovery

Stakeholder workshops
User persona development
Content strategy
Information architecture

Design & UX

Mobile-first design
Brand implementation
Navigation optimization
User journey mapping

Technical Development

Drupal 8.9 migration
Provus® implementation
Responsive development
Performance optimization

Content

Content migration
Component setup
Governance planning

Let’s start your project

Whether you're looking to honor your heritage while embracing modern technology, or seeking to empower your team with flexible content management, we can help. Let's discuss how we can help you achieve your goals.