For students in the University of West Alabama’s Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) and Creative Arts Enterprise (CAE) programs, a portfolio website offers more than a mere class assignment. Think of your portfolio as a long-term career investment, the place where employers, clients, directors, curators, and grant committees go to decide whether you deserve a callback.
IMC students: Your site showcases your writing, graphic design, photography, video production, web design, social media strategy, and campaign work. Courses such as Web Design, Social Media Management, Video Production, and the IMC Capstone give you the raw material. Hiring managers want proof you can plan, create, and measure results, and your portfolio delivers the proof. You have more than a piece of paper and a portfolio of shiny things. Employers can see how you think, not just what you’ve done, through curated case studies.
CAE students: Your site showcases your art, whether visual art, music, theatre, creative writing, or animation, alongside the business know-how to promote, sell, and fund creative work in the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. Courses such as Web Design, Social Media Management, Events Management in Philanthropy, Philanthropic Grant Writing, and a 135-hour nonprofit internship teach you to treat your talent like a business. Talent alone rarely pays the rent. Talent plus a smart online presence gives you a fighting chance.
All undergraduate and graduate IMC students and all CAE undergraduates must build and maintain their portfolio websites with WordPress.org on UWA’s designated hosting server, UWAHost.com. You must also purchase a personal domain name for four years.
We set both requirements on purpose. We want you to gain professional website experience, spend less money, and build an online presence with value long after graduation.
Here’s why.**
Despite similar names, WordPress.com and WordPress.org take very different approaches to building a website.
WordPress.com, a commercial hosting service operated by Automattic, bundles hosting, security, maintenance, and support in one package. Convenient? Sure. But the service runs in a managed environment with restrictions on plugins, server configurations, and advanced customization.
WordPress.org, also developed by Automattic, provides free, open-source WordPress software you install on an independent hosting server. You get far more control over design, themes, plugins, e-commerce, and functionality.
WordPress.com has expanded its capabilities significantly. Since October 2026, WordPress.com allows third-party themes. Since April 2, 2026, every paid plan, starting with the Personal plan, supports most WordPress plugins, while the free plan still blocks plugins. Advanced tools such as SFTP/SSH access, WP-CLI, and staging sites stay limited to the Business and Commerce plans, and no WordPress.com plan includes cPanel, the most popular backend site manager. Even on the top plans, you never get the server control available through independent hosting.
IMC students: Agencies and in-house marketing teams expect you to install plugins, connect analytics, adjust SEO settings, and fix a broken page without filing a support ticket and waiting two days.
CAE students: Artists need tools a locked-down platform may not allow: high-resolution galleries, audio players for your recordings, video reels, show calendars, booking forms, and donation buttons. WordPress.org lets you choose the tools your work demands.
UWA maintains a WordPress hosting environment supporting approximately 300 websites, including student portfolios and some commercial websites.
A shared environment gives every student a consistent learning platform with plenty of creative and technical room. You can experiment with professional themes, portfolio galleries, page builders, search engine optimization tools, analytics, and other approved plugins.
IMC students: The setup closely resembles the WordPress environments you will meet in advertising agencies, marketing departments, and corporate communications offices.
CAE students: The setup closely resembles the systems behind galleries, theatres, music venues, arts councils, and nonprofits, where one staff member often runs the website on top of five other jobs.
Our objective goes beyond teaching you to build a website. We want you to learn how to manage a professional digital presence. As a bonus, UWAHost.com eliminates the need to buy a separate commercial hosting subscription.
The arrangement carries limitations.
Hundreds of websites share the university’s server, so you must follow hosting policies and security requirements. UWA may restrict a plugin or theme if the software creates security risks, hogs server resources, or interferes with other sites.
Independent hosting offers more freedom, though no host on earth offers unlimited resources.
