The multi-site survival guide: Component-driven architecture for scalable campus ecosystems

Managing a university's digital footprint often feels like a choice between two extremes: a rigid, centralized "monolith" that frustrates creative departments, or a "wild west" of fragmented, inaccessible sub-sites that create a security and branding nightmare. As higher ed moves toward more complex CMS environments (Drupal 10/11 and headless WordPress), the traditional "clone and tweak" multi-site model is no longer sustainable. In this session, we will move beyond the initial migration and focus on the developer experience of maintaining a massive ecosystem. Drawing from Hounder's experience architecting enterprise-level systems for major institutions, we will explore how to implement a component-driven development workflow. We'll dive into how "atomic design" principles allow developers to build a single, robust library of accessible components that can be shared across hundreds of sites while still allowing for unique departmental identities.