So, I was a front end developer/designer for a university for over a year. I know the ropes. All I can say is, if your university is anything like the number of state agencies I've been with, goodluck with getting that raise. I was lied to a number of times about getting a raise. Left for another job with over a 20% pay increase. Everything is about money here and what that means to you is: the less they can pay you, the better.

Your boss is unfortunately the norm in these situations and not an exception. There are a number of people who have been with state agencies for way too long, have no idea what they're doing, and are just collecting pay checks because they literally can't be fired. They also feel like them being there longer means they know better and won't listen to you. So here are some tips to bring to the meeting:

• You'll probably want to stress how doing these updates now will affect the site long term in this situation. i.e. "We won't have to spend more time and money fixing it later if it's done now"

• Find examples of competing university websites. Are theirs responsive? Designed better? Skip over junky ones, find the ones that are attractive. Try to get some analytical data on your site vs. these sites. Show these and explain that how your university represents itself online is a huge part of someone's decision to come to that school. If you're looking at two similar schools and one has a website from 1998 and one is recent, it shows that they are modern/forward thinking/a place you want to be. Schools care about MONEY, and more people = more money.

Overall advice is: don't give up your weekend and don't kill yourself over this. State agencies are stubborn mules when it comes to technology and paying for it, but if you can appeal to the business sensibilities of it then they may come around.