6 A&E
THE MOORING MAST
MARCH 15. 20]3
isn' ooking 0 1-vely LuteLife Student website loses fight against unpopularity By STEPHANIE BECKMAN Guest Writer MyLuteLife is joining the ranks of Boo.com, Kozmo.com and Windows Live Search in the Internet of yesteryear. The site will officially go dark on June 1 after being active in one form or another for a total of six years. The idea for MyLuteLife began in Student Life as a method for clubs and organizations to keep in contact with their members and attract new ones. Student Involvement and Leadership's (SIL) Lace Smith, as istant director for technology and social media, was part of the brains behind MyLuteLife's conception.
"[Before MyLuteLife] it was more like one person standing on a mountaintop shouting, 'I have this club, you should come to me,'" Smith said. To solve this problem for student organizations, SIL searched for a software system that would work. This search happened before Coogle released their education applications including Drive and Calendar. Pacific Lutheran University launched OrgSync in 2007, a system similar to MyLuteLife, and SIL conducted a survey to monitor how effective it was. Smith said the typical response they received was that students did not recognize OrgSync. It as another l og ..in to remember because it didn't use ePass, and it
[ My LuteLife's] ideal was very good in its premise, but we have better technology now that i more seamless, and we don ' t ha e to pay that price tag." "
Lace Smith assistant director for technology and social media
didn't have the same power and influence of other technologies at the time, such as Facebook. PLU then created MyLuteLife out of OrgSync in 2010 and it joined the ranks of Sakai, Cmail and Banner in the ePass accessible pantheon. PreViously, OrgSync had required a separate log in for access, which had relegated it outside the official PLU canon. Once MyLuteLife's code was scripted and the site was running, many organizations across campus began to use the technology, notably ASPLU, Tile Mooring Mast and the Diversity Center's Rieke scholars. Rieke Scholars had also volunteer documented their hours in the Diversity Center through MyLuteLife until the November switch. Princess Reese, a Rieke scholar diversity advocate, switched the Rieke scholars from using MyLuteLife to Coogle Docs. Reese said, "the process the Riek s went through to ÂŁill in their hours was too many steps, and many tudents were USing that as an excuse to not log in." Some clubs use MyLuteLife while others utilize different forms of commw1ica . n. Rachel Miller, cretary for the Queer Ally Student Union, said, "I honestly never really thought about using it [MyLuteLife]
because in my experience most people don't use it." Miller said her club instead uses e-mail, Facebook and Coogle Docs. Even though MyLuteLife will be leaving, its services are not. Smith said she is going to continue working with clubs and organizations to make sure they have the technological resources they need. "[MyLuteLife's] ideal was very good in its premise, but we have better technology now that is more seamless, and we don't have to pay that price tag," Smith said. MyLuteLife was found in the basement bathroom of Mordvedt Library in a pool of its own HTML script. A service will be held in June, and perhaps Sakai will offer a eulogy.
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My LuteLife Timeline Pre-Launch (2007) Found an appropriate third party provider, pros and cons of services and strategic planning
Year One (2008-09)
Pilot year with six organizations. Primary population: student government, small representative group of student clubs, Residential Life and one staff organization group
Year Two (2009-10)
Any interested student clubs joined
Year Three (2010-11)
VIDEO
COMPONENT ONLINE
Rebranded as MyLuteLife: all student chills and organizations, residential hall communities, Campus Safety, ISS, XCountry/ Track, Emerging Leaders and Student Body joined
'How I Learned to Drive' a story of empowerment Actors find balance portraying emotionally charged issues By CAMILLE ADAMS A c0E Writer KATELYNN PADRON Guest Writer The latest production trom Pacific Lutheran University dri ves home . tense messages concerning misplaced love and twisted family relationships. "How I Learned T Drive" is a play written by Paula Vogel focusing on a fa mi ly in the 19608 whose female members are obj ectified by every ne in their
The pol'lter for " How
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social spheres. The main conflict surrounds the juvenile protagonist Lil' Bit and her complicated relationship with her Uncle Peck. However, Lil' Bit's mother, aunt and grandmother also experience c nflict with the men in their lives and their perceptions of their own bodies. When preparing for the how, senior Jack Sorensen was fac d with the difficult task of portraying Uncle Peck, a character seen by m st as downright immoral. However, Sorensen, aided by
PHOTO BY JOSHUA PARMENTER
Learned to Drive," the theatre department's
contribution to the School of Arts and Communication Focus Series. The show closes this weekend.
a well-crafted script, skillfully presented a well-rounded character with human struggles that have stretched his moral boundaries. Sorensen said he "took extra note of times when Unde Peel is an emotional victim, essentially, when he is weak and just as I st as anyone else." Sorensen's po rtrayal allowed the audi nc to almost sympathize with ncle Peck and come closer to understandi.."1g how such reai life situations occur. On the other hand, junior Ali Schultz played to perfection a vulnerable, young female from the ages of 1 1 to 35. She presents Lil' Bit as a rational and intelligent young WOIllilD who can still be driven by an overwhelming need for love, leadIDg her to verlook questionable motives. The angle Lori Lee WaUace, the play's di rector and assistant professor of theatre, saId she would like the audience to perceive is how each woman refuses to see herself a s a victim and thereby embraces empowerment. While these uIldertones were present, they were predom inant in the main character and lacking in the rest of the female roJes. What the cast communicated beautifully was the raw human elements behind the morally confused actions of the characters. "In rehearsals, I wanted every scene between Uncle Peck and Lil'
"In rehearsal I wanted every scene between Uncle Peck and Lil' Bit to walk a tightrope." ,
Lori Lee Wallace associate professor of theatre
Bit
to walk a tightrope," Wallace said. 'lack [Sor�sen] and Ali [Schultz] did a great job of finding this balance:' "How I Leamed To Drive" deals with emotiona l ly charged issues and therefore poses a ehall enge for both the director and cast to tackle. The whole ensemble did it masterful job of protecting the audience from emotionaIoverd se through acted symbolism ilnd vo ice 0 ers, in inuating more
intense circumstaD!'es.
Ra ther than visually presenting m ments of sexual Violation, actions were merely ggested or represented without the use of p. ysical contact. Kait Mahoney, who portrays a number of roles, including Uncle Peck's wife and Lil Bit's mother, said "theatre is a shared experience with no screen to get in the way. Everything you project, you know it's hitting omeone _
somewhere, and you can't give too much or a wall goes up." The cast gracefully tiptoed around the deli ca te subject matter, preventing such a wall from rising while simultaneously conveying the emotion the plo t required. Vogel's eloquent aipt adds significantly to this emotiol1al weaning for the audience. "By the end of the how, we are emotio n ally ready and able to forgive Uncle Peck like Lil' Bit does.'; Wallace said. Although at times the nl essages of empowerment and forgiven 53 are indirect, the cast, script and on-stage direction articulated th veraIl content of the play well. "now I Learned to Drive," is a heavy but impactful viewer experience, The show, which opened last weekend, will continue to run tOnight, tomorrow and Sunday in the Eastvold Studio Theater.