CUC25 Highlights You May Have Missed and What’s Next for Cascade CMS

The 2025 Cascade User Conference brought together over 450 web and marketing professionals for three days of learning, connection, and inspiration from February 18-20.

This record-breaking attendance, our third consecutive year of growth, underscores the vibrant community that continues to form around Cascade CMS.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to all who made CUC25 exceptional: our dedicated speakers who shared their expertise, our engaged attendees who brought their enthusiasm and questions, our sponsors, whose support helped keep ticket costs affordable, and the entire Hannon Hill team whose tireless work behind the scenes ensured a seamless virtual experience.

Let's take a look at the highlights from this year's conference.

Workshop Day: Building Core Competencies

The conference kicked off on February 18 with two comprehensive full-day workshops:

Workshop Track 1: Intro to Development in Cascade CMS

Led by Rebecca Crow and Nate D. Sims , the workshop equipped attendees with foundational skills in Cascade CMS development. Participants learned to modify data definitions, update corresponding Velocity code, and master the essential "moving parts" that power content management in Cascade.

Workshop Track 2: Advanced Velocity Coding in Cascade

Elisabeth Hutzel and Fernando Blanco took experienced developers deeper into Cascade's powerful templating language. The session covered advanced syntax, logic, Cascade Velocity tools, code reuse techniques, and performance optimization strategies.

These immersive workshops provided the hands-on training many attendees sought to enhance their Cascade implementations.

Strategic and Technical Insights

The main conference on February 19-20 featured parallel technical and strategic tracks, giving attendees the flexibility to focus on their specific interests and needs.

Day 1 Keynote: The Cliff is Coming?

Dr. Carrie Phillips, Ed.D., APR from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock delivered a compelling keynote on "The Cliff is Coming: Strategies to Prepare." Her presentation provided a sobering analysis of the demographic shifts affecting higher education, noting that between 2025 and beyond, institutions face a potential $4.2 billion impact due to declining enrollment.?

Dr. Phillips outlined five essential strategies for marketing leaders:

1. Be the change agent on your campus by leveraging marketing's unique cross-departmental perspective
2. Build meaningful collaborations with key campus partners including admissions, advancement, athletics and academics
3. Develop strong branding that extends beyond logos to comprehensive messaging
4. Create personalized experiences that meet today's students' expectations
5. Consistently demonstrate the value that marketing brings to institutional goals

Her closing message resonated strongly:

"Remember your why. This enrollment cliff and demographic shift will be big challenges for our industry, and it's going to take people who care about the work to help us overcome what we're facing."

Day 2 Highlights: Product Roadmap and Recent Releases

One of the most anticipated sessions was the Cascade CMS & Clive Roadmap presentation by Kat Liendgens and Bradley Wagner .?

The duo shared their vision for the future of Cascade CMS, emphasizing several key themes:

• Faster content publishing processes
• Enhanced personalization capabilities
• Forward-looking technology integration, particularly with AI
• Actionable data reports that drive meaningful improvements
• Better guidance for contributors to produce optimized content from the start
• Powerful web governance tools and guardrails to ensure consistent, compliant websites

The roadmap revealed exciting developments including content tips for SEO optimization, AI-powered content suggestions, enhanced accessibility tools, and a new approach to updates focused on continuous improvement rather than major version releases.

The roadmap presentation was complemented by Graham Lewis 's Recent Releases session, which showcased newly implemented features in both Cascade CMS and Clive.

Highlights included:

• Advanced link validation tools
• JSON data integration for Velocity
• AI-assisted alt text generation for images
• Enhanced image handling with WebP support
• Custom email domains and Salesforce CRM integration for Clive
• Improved accessibility checking with WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 standards

These features demonstrated Hannon Hill's commitment to continuous improvement and responsiveness to user needs.

Day 2 Keynote: International Student Recruitment?

The conference concluded with an insightful keynote from Dayana Kibilds of Ologie and Hannon Hill’s CEO, Kat Liendgens, on "How to Attract and Convert International Students Through Your Website."?

The presentation offered actionable strategies for creating digital experiences that resonate with global audiences, emphasizing personalized content, enhanced SEO, intuitive navigation, and clear communication about ROI and support services.

In her closing remarks, Kat Liendgens emphasized the importance of authentic connection in digital recruitment:

"At the end of the day, our websites aren't just information repositories, they're relationship starters. By creating digital experiences that are welcoming, informative, and authentically representative of our institutions, we open doors for students from around the world who might never have the opportunity to visit campus before making their decision."

Technical Excellence on Display

The technical track featured outstanding presentations from both Cascade users and Hannon Hill staff.

Highlights included:

• Chris Halper's "Exploring Code Compression with Velocity" demonstrated innovative approaches to website performance optimization
• Sam Skinner and Bruno-Johannes Schuetze 's "The Database Mysteries of Cascade" provided rare insights into the architectural underpinnings of Cascade CMS
• Winston Churchill-Joell 's "Create Your Own Data Layer in Velocity" offered sophisticated solutions for managing complex data in Cascade
• Stephen Burns 's "College of the Canyons' Journey to Cascade" shared valuable insights on migrating from Modern Campus to Cascade CMS with a single-person team in just two months
• Brad Kazmer and Fernando Blanco's "Managing 100s of Sites with Global Templates, Blocks and BRICKS!" showcased scalable solutions for enterprise implementations
• Joe Macri and Paul Johnson 's "Building a News Hub: The Scheller News Engine in Action" showcased a powerful system for centralizing and customizing news content management, connecting content to faculty profiles, and streamlining content presentation processes

Program Discovery and Pathways

Several standout sessions focused on program discovery and student pathways:

• April-Nichole McIntosh and Karie S. 's "From Concept to Conversion: Crafting a Program Finder that Drives Student Inquiries" showcased Reynolds Community College's success in increasing student inquiries by 70% through a dynamic program discovery tool
• Jill Ormond Whitaker 's "From Program Finders to Degree Pages" provided valuable insights on the critical transition from program discovery to detailed program information
• Sandra Van Wyk-Fancher, PMP and Meghan Keen 's "Creating Meaningful Pathways" demonstrated how Mid Michigan College developed an innovative approach to guided pathways

AI Integration and Digital Transformation

AI and digital transformation were prominent themes throughout the conference:?

• Mark Lee 's "Enhancing Website Search with AI" demonstrated practical approaches to improving site search using AI technologies
• Sara Kelzer 's "Modernizing Higher Education Websites with AI-Driven Site Search" explored how AI can transform the search experience
• Ross Simmonds ' "The Role of Content Marketing Amidst Algorithms & AI" provided strategic insights for content marketing in the age of AI
• Brian Piper 's sessions on "How To Build A Custom GPT" and "Supercharge Your Content with AI and Data" offered practical guidance for leveraging AI in content creation and management

Insights on all the speaker and presentations, visits the CUC25 Speaker Spotlights:

• Meet the workshop speakers
• Meet the strategic track speakers
• Meet the technical track speakers

Community Feedback

The response from attendees was overwhelmingly positive. Comments included:

"I'm so excited!!! Thank you guys for such an awesome product, and working towards an even awesome-er product!!!"

"Your presentation invoked a roller coaster of emotions and a plethora of information! Thank you so much."

"We are in dire need of updating our program pages and this was very inspiring. I appreciate the details on the process, the needed buy-in, and what didn't work."

Looking Ahead

The 2025 Cascade User Conference demonstrated the vibrant and innovative community that continues to grow around Cascade CMS. The combination of hands-on workshops, strategic insights, technical expertise, and peer-to-peer learning created a valuable experience for all attendees.

Reminder: If you attended CUC25, you can access recordings of all sessions on-demand until May 20, 2025. Take advantage of this opportunity to revisit your favorite presentations or catch sessions you missed.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the success of CUC25. We're already looking forward to connecting with you again next year!