Student campaign leads to new translation options on WT website

CANYON, Texas (KFDA) - The WT website is now able to be translated to more than 130 languages helping students and parents more easily navigate it.

Allan Baltazar, a senior criminal justice and psychology major at WTAMU and secretary of campus community on the President’s advisory council of the WT Student Government Association, saw the need for families of current and potential students whose parents do not speak English.

“I’ve been on campus as a student at WT since fall 2018. Being here involved within the community, specifically minority led communities, shining a light on different necessities and different needs that students may kind of like seek for on campus. They speak with the different communities on campus specifically his or her Spanish speaking families, which is our growing population. We have been getting their input and it has guided me to start this and assist further families that are gonna have more students come to WT in near future,” said Baltazar.

WTAMU’s population is roughly 30 percent of its total population, and continues to grow.

“Our university is an HSI and our Hispanic population is growing every single semester. That is just like one way for us to specifically target those families and specifically, continue aiding our our growing populations on campus,” said Baltazar.

The formatting uses google translate and immediately translates the website into almost any language.

“It’s instantaneously translating everything on the current page,” said Eyoel Mengesha, Linux system engineer.

The addition to the website helps users navigate it, helping with admission questions.

“The goal was to reach Spanish speaking families. So a lot of times when we have students searching for schools and universities here on campus, a lot of times their families are the ones who are interested in the resources or things that may be provided to their students by the universities,” said Baltazar.

Mengesha shared personal knowledge on how this cam help many families.

“I coming from a country that is a non-English speaking country know that a lot of people like parents, the older generation might not speak English, this will be very helpful for them to go through it, things like cost and requirements for applications,” said Mengesha.

Users can click on box in the lower left corner of screens, which will immediately translate into Spanish. It will then give the option to translate the page into more than 130 other languages.

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