InterVarsity's StudentSoul.org

Would you like to meet the team that’s pulling this new website together? This dedicated bunch works (and plays!) behind the scenes to bring you a great place to explore online. We have high hopes for the continued growth of this site and hope you’ll join us by contributing your questions and ideas for future interviews.

—Jeff Yourison, StudentSoul,org Editor and Director of InterVarsity’s Campus Web Ministry

StudentSoul.org: First tell us a little about yourselves. Where did you grow up, and what college or university did you attend? How did you intersect with InterVarsity?

Nathan: I grew up in southern Illinois and attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. I got involved with InterVarsity during my junior year as a small-group leader.

Tim: I consider myself a native Coloradoan since I was born at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Sadly, though, my family moved to the Midwest when I was nine. Just kidding. I’m very proud of St. Louis: the greatest baseball town in the nation. Go Cardinals! I attended Washington University in St. Louis and got involved with InterVarsity as a freshman. New Student Outreach is where I first crossed paths with InterVarsity. Now I work at the national office. Some call me the webservant. I like to call myself the webminion.

Shelley: I was born with a good-natured, smiley-face personality, so no one knew how depressed I was when I started college in Duluth, Minnesota. InterVarsity brought light to my darkened spirit, and I loved being a part of the group. After college, I moved to Madison to work in InterVarsity’s national office and I’m still there many years later. I’m overly blessed but trying not to feel guilty about it. My husband and I have raised four children and our youngest just finished her freshman year in college, but she’s not depressed.

Ryan: I grew up in the hippest city in the Great Plains, Wichita, Kansas. I went to Wheaton College as an undergrad, then UW-Madison for my Master of Fine Arts. While there, I joined the InterVarsity Graduate Christian Fellowship, and I liked it so much I married the chapter president.

Grete: I grew up in Pennsylvania—Pittsburgh for elementary school and the Philadelphia area for middle and high school. I went back to Pittsburgh for college, got a BFA in communication design from Carnegie Mellon University in ‘05. (As we say it there, I was a CD in CFA at CMU.) I was involved in the CMU InterVarsity chapter as a small-group leader, and as publicity, prayer and Urbana 03 coordinator various years, although my life intersected with InterVarsity long before that. My parents and grandparents were not only involved when they were in school, but are now on staff with InterVarsity—making me third-generation staff.

Lydia: I grew up in the coastal Carolinas, mostly Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and attended the University of South Carolina. I stumbled into InterVarsity when I spotted a former high school drum major at a New Student Outreach event my freshman year. Throughout my undergrad, I was in various InterVarsity leadership roles, mostly as a small-group leader. After graduation and a not-so-brief period of unemployment, I moved to Madison to work as a Web Developer for InterVarsity.

Jon: I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, and got involved with InterVarsity at the University of Michigan where I was an undergraduate history major. (Hey, how come my answer is the boringest?)

StudentSoul.org: Can you tell us a little more about your role in the production of StudentSoul.org?

Tim: I’m the “chief” web designer, which really just means I’m stuck between the artsy folk and the nerdy folk. I spend most of my time tweaking the stylesheets and HTML templates that display all of the exciting content. And for those techies out there, I’ll just say one thing about the site: it was designed entirely using CSS stylesheets combined with <div> tags. We’ve never “willingly” used a table where it wasn’t semantically correct to do so.

Grete: I am working on the design and navigation with Tim, making the icons, color decisions and visual effects, developing the identity and logo with Ryan, and designing or coordinating the design of the illustrations for each article in the long term.

Nathan: I did the technical design, which basically means that I designed how each page gets built every time you view the site. I also help out with the information architecture and graphic design.

Lydia: I implemented some of the technical features of the site—that is, laid down code to gather the proper content from the database. I am the “middlewoman” between Nathan’s information architecture design and Tim’s HTML design work.

Ryan: I’m the one who comes up with the ideas that make the other ideas look good. And I am the Photoshop master.

Shelley: I am a writer/editor who tries to find some great stories to fill our website. This is not as difficult as it seems because the InterVarsity staff and students who keep the ministry alive are creative and gutsy and care deeply about building the kingdom of God on campus, and there are some amazing things happening. I had fun collecting Some Dirty Stories. It’s trashy.

Jon: I’m authorized to have opinions. :) I guess I bring to the project my background in editorially driven web projects at Britannica.com, as well as an ability (most of the time) to understand what the heck both the editors and the developers are talking about.

StudentSoul.org: What do you like best about your work? What are the greatest challenges?

Shelley: I like a good story. And I like telling InterVarsity’s stories (see above). God likes a good story, too (see the Bible). I think he’s pleased when we talk about what he’s doing in the lives of college students.

Ryan: It’s fun trying to come up with something new for the web, where just about everything has already been done.

Jon: I love it whenever we make the most of our available resources, especially when seeing a small adjustment to implement can make a big difference in getting something done. I love it when smart is cool. I love it that we get to love Jesus with our efforts in Web technology. The greatest challenges involve watching to make sure all the moving parts (and people) in a complex project move together.

Lydia: I get great satisfaction from working behind the scenes to build things that web publishers can easily use to publish or read content. Also, I really love that I get to listen to music while I work. :)

Nathan: I love it when I get to make things work. Sometimes it is a challenge to do things in the best possible way. It is difficult to keep up with the best practices for building websites.

Grete: I like the creativity of doing different illustrations for each article, and the freedom that comes with designing something brand new and really useful, informative, and long-term. It’s a challenge to come up with a new identity and a large website from scratch!

StudentSoul.org: How has it been working as part of this team?

Jon: It’s been a blast; despite a tight schedule we’ve been able sync up our vision and efforts.

Shelley: I get to work with extremely talented people who are very good at stuff I can’t do, like having vision for what a new website will look like, and knowing the technology to construct it, and making the graphics and layout look artistic and appealing. And they’re cool people, too.

Tim: Hmmm… I’ll be frank.

All: Hello, Frank!

Tim: Ahem…. The greatest trial for me is working on a team. My web notions are constantly challenged and pushed by my teammates, which is great because it helps me grow as a designer. I really enjoy the process because in the end, God brings all of our skills together for a great final product. If we can help students wrestle well with God on some tough life topics, I’ll be more than pleased with the site.

Ryan: To quote Sam the Eagle (my favorite Muppet), “You are all weirdos!”

Lydia: It’s cool to work with people who are really good with their own skills (content, designers, technical design). We all bring a unique piece to the project, and are respectful of each other gifts and contributions.

Nathan: It has been frustrating at times, especially with the deadline looming quickly upon us. We each want to do the best possible job we can, but are limited in time. This combination leads to a bit of stress. On a more positive note, I have enjoyed the freedom we have had to question the status quo and try new things. It as also been very nice for me to be more of a team member, not responsible for the project management.

Grete: This is a great team. I’ve worked with the Web team—Tim, Nate, and Lydia—before and I really enjoy it. Jon is a perceptive and knowledgable project manager—and super smart. I anticipate Jeff (the guy doing this interview) and Shelley being fun and relatively easy-going as partners and clients over the long term, which will let this job be a creative outlet for me. And I’m very grateful to have Ryan—with his mad photography skillz—along for the ride, too.

StudentSoul.org: What do you hope will result from your investment in this new site?

Tim: My greatest hope is that the content found here will challenge students in their faith and that as a result, they’ll grow in their relationships with God. If you grew up in a Christian context, that probably sounds a bit cliché. But it’s a serious matter and I’m excited to see how this site will accomplish those things.

Lydia: That it’ll be a comfortable/relevant/useful site for those who are curious about Christianity, or are wrestling with various aspects of their faith and how it intersects with their lives.

Nathan: I hope that the site will function so smoothly that people won’t even notice the technical stuff behind it. I don’t want any technical problems getting in the way of people reading the great content.

Ryan: I hope to see students and faculty transformed, campuses renewed, and world changers developed. I thought that up myself. [We’re not so sure.]

Jon: I hope students meet Jesus, meet one another, see their campuses, classmates, and professors in a new way, and feel both challenged and encouraged to live as real Christians.

Grete: I want to see this site used! If it were print, I’d wanna see it tattered and covered in coffee stains. I want it to be relevant, authentic, helpful, and informative. I want students to be encouraged in disipleship—as disciples of Jesus and as they disciple each other.

Shelley: I hope everyone who clicks into our website will send chocolate. Also, wouldn’t it be great if this new website transformed students and faculty, renewed campuses, and created world-changers?

StudentSoul.org: Anything else you want to add?

Tim: Fantasy baseball is fun, but beware of its addictive nature!

Jon: Jeff has the best moustache on the whole team.

Shelley: I’m serious about the chocolate.