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.’” Advice for first-year Lutes: “My best advice to any incoming first-year is to get involved; that’ll make your time at PLU much more meaningful. Find purpose in everyday life, whether it is a random act of kindness for someone in your dorm or singing up to be a volunteer for Relay for Life, get involved! The four years go fast, and you want to be like, ‘I lived my four years of college up.’ Try and wear as many hats as you possibly can. PLU builds leaders for life through different opportunities to

academic journey filled with inquiry, challenges and the pursuit of vocation — grounded in the values of Lutheran higher education. But the learning won’t end when graduates walk across the stage the night of May 25. Roughly 700 students will gather to celebrate their achievements, and more importantly the next step in their lives of service and leadership, as they embark on new careers, graduate school and volunteer opportunities. Outgoing Lutes will carry the university’s mission with them into their

learning model you use. How did you start down this particular path as an educator? I started with my physics students, creating lessons online on a learning management site and having them complete assignments within a window of time. This was great, because I knew students could take more ownership of their learning and self-manage their progress. I wanted to be able to give them more personalized feedback. I didn’t want to limit their learning with a deadline or with grades, I wanted them to be able

hard to know when somebody is missing class, or sleeping through exams, or struggling in ways Mitchell doesn’t see. Beginning this academic year, PLU launched the Student Care Network, a system that’s giving Mitchell more information about her residents who may need extra care. The Student Care Network, or SCN, is an online case-management system designed to connect students to resources, help them navigate higher education and increase care for Lutes across campus. The system uses care forms

a positive impact on learners and on teachers.” The moments of impact may seem small, but they can be significant in the microcosm that is a classroom. Aarsvold’s teaching partner, Fransina Samuels, has begun to lead staff meetings, and next year, she will be speaking at a regional summit to share her learning and growth in classroom management. And just recently Fitzgerald heard that on a walkthrough Lionel Samuels observed Kainamses doing a differentiated small group lesson. Last summer, it

he’d be able to engage his passion so completely.“It’s been a lot of time and energy, but its also been really rewarding,” Ojala-Barbour said. Someday, he hopes to combine the land management skills he’s learned outside of the classroom, with what he’s learned inside the classroom, and work to better preserve what native land remains. This fall, Ojala-Barbour will be in Ecuador, as a Fulbright Fellow, studying small mammals and the environmental impacts on them. He calls it another chance to get

Scandinavian studies from PLU in 1982. Then, she eventually earned a master’s degree in archives and record management from the University of Washington in 1987. In her time as archivist, Ringdahl was responsible for massive amounts of cataloguing and collecting university history. She started the Scandinavian Immigrant Collection, which includes pictures, artifacts and interviews from 280 Scandinavian immigrants. Ringdahl also was an early member of Northwest Digital Archives, partnering PLU with larger

how his experience on the PLU Football team helped shape his approach to business leadership. How would you summarize the work of the Northwest Seaport Alliance? Our mission is built around creating economic wealth and opportunity for people throughout the state. We do that through the management of our properties and partnering with private sector businesses to create jobs and economic activity here in this region and throughout the state of Washington. There is a lot of detailed work that drives

faculty have been a driving force behind change,” she said. Ray Orr is one of them. Orr, associate vice president for facilities management, says accessibility upgrades are a priority at PLU, even when funds are limited. Institutions across the country struggle to comply with requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, amid aging buildings and a lack of funds to address all the needs at once. PLU is no different, Orr said. “Everyone’s trying to catch up and do what they can,” he said

concerns for the first time during an already difficult period of transition. Amid those staggering statistics, Riano said she wishes the Counseling Center was used more broadly by students at PLU. She urges all students, with struggles of varying degrees, to use the valuable resource. Counselors are available to listen and address chronic mental illness, while a campus psychiatrist provides medication management. “There’s no way that somebody is going to get through four years of college without being