Academic program information already existed within university systems, but marketing websites still needed program pages, archives, landing pages, and other content experiences built around that data. Maintaining those pages manually created unnecessary work and increased the risk of inconsistent information.

To address this, I developed a custom integration that synchronized validated program data into WordPress and represented each program as a native content type within the platform. Rather than treating program information as isolated pages, the system treated programs as structured content that could be reused throughout the website.

As new programs were introduced or existing programs changed, the system automatically generated and maintained program pages using Gutenberg templates and synchronized data. Institutionally managed content remained aligned with official university records, while editors could focus on the marketing and editorial content surrounding each program.

Because programs existed as native content within the platform, the same data could power archives, landing pages, featured content sections, and other content-driven experiences throughout NU Start. A single synchronization process maintained accurate information while reducing duplication and ongoing editorial effort across dozens of websites.

The Featured NGN Stories block began with a simple editorial challenge. Some campus teams wanted to feature stories from Northeastern Global News (NGN) on their websites, but keeping that content current often meant manually recreating and republishing stories across multiple platforms.

Rather than duplicating content, I worked with the NGN team’s lead developer to integrate directly with their public API. The goal was to surface NGN content within NU Start while preserving a single source of truth for publishing and maintenance.

What made the project particularly successful was not the complexity of the integration, but the foundation it was built upon. By leveraging the content presentation framework already established through the Dynamic Content Grid system, the integration required very little new infrastructure. Content could be retrieved from an external source, mapped into existing presentation patterns, and displayed through a familiar editorial experience.

Editors could add the block to a page, configure a small number of display options, and automatically surface current NGN stories without ongoing maintenance or manual content duplication.

The project demonstrated one of the primary goals of NU Start: invest in shared systems that make future solutions easier to build. What could have become a custom integration for a single use case instead became a reusable feature that continues to power content experiences across Northeastern websites.