Editing with Williams

1) "One of the new features with the online catalog, is the ability to update program and course information with the changes made by departments."
One new feature of the online catalog allows departments to update program and course information.

2)"Application for admission as a guest student may be obtained either at the student’s home institution or EMU’s Office of Admissions."
Guest students may obtain an application for admission at either the student’s home institution or EMU’s Office of Admissions.

3)"The purpose of this agreement is to ensure that students who complete a specified distribution of general education courses at a Michigan community college will have satisfied all or most of the general education requirements at signatory four-year colleges."
This agreement ensures that students who complete specified general education courses at a Michigan community college will satisfy all or most general education requirements at participating four-year colleges.

I made most of these revisions to eliminate unnecessary words, which Williams explains is a key component to keeping writing concise. In the first sentence, I wanted to eliminate "the ability to," because it seemed there must be a better way to express the meaning of that phrase. In the process, I was also able to eliminate the comma and make the new feature the grammatical subject that provides an action.
In the second sentence I changed the subject from the applications to the guest students. Since guest students were already mentioned, they are old information and should be moved to the front of the sentence so that new and more important information can come later. We also eliminate useless words like "as" and "be".
In the final sentence, I first eliminated the phrase, "The purpose of this agreement is." This is one of those phrases that is rarely needed because the subject's purpose is implied in the rest of the sentence. I also took out the word "distribution" because it doesn't provide any crucial information. I changed the tense in the verb satisfy from "will have satisfied" to just "will satisfy." This brings unity among the tenses throughout the sentence because the first verb, "complete," is now in the same tense as the latter verb "satisfy." Lastly, I changed signatory to participating because signatory is a word that may confuse some readers.