The SHSU CMS

Cascade CMS

SHSU uses Cascade Content Management System (CMS) by Hannon Hill to manage and publish web content across shsu.edu. Cascade is built specifically for higher education and is trusted by thousands of college and university websites nationwide.

Cascade operates on a "push" publication model: edits made inside the CMS do not appear on the live website until they are published. This keeps the live site stable and secure while content is being developed, eliminating the risk of unfinished pages appearing to visitors.

The university's setup is designed so that individual departments and units can manage their own content within a shared, centrally governed structure. This gives each area ownership over its pages while ensuring consistency across the broader SHSU web presence.

Hosting

SHSU's websites are hosted on Beacon, a professional hosting platform built to work specifically with Cascade CMS. The primary domain is shsu.edu, and Beacon supports the full subdomain architecture that allows individual departments and colleges to operate their own sites under the SHSU umbrella.

Web editors will not interact with Beacon directly. It operates in the background to ensure reliable, consistent site performance and delivers the shared design system that keeps all SHSU sites aligned with university branding standards.

This infrastructure — Cascade with Beacon — supports centralized management of web assets while enabling distributed content authorship across all divisions and departments.

Updated 6/15/26