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Riding the digital stream back to campus

By David Gonnerman '90
April 14, 2007

It used to be that the only way to reconnect with life at St. Olaf College once you graduated was to return to campus for Homecoming. The web now gives parents, alumni, employees, students, neighbors and friends an instant portal into the various events and news items that make life on "the Hill" so unique. Even better, the college's website recently added live audio and video streaming of events that can be seen and heard in real time by anyone, anywhere with a broadband connection.

"This content -- ranging from daily chapel to concerts to lectures, to important college ceremonies -- represents the best of what our students experience every day as part of their St. Olaf education," adds St. Olaf President David R. Anderson '74. "We are pleased to be able to share it."

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O'Donnell
"We've received numerous comments from people around the world about how the experience really makes them feel a part of life at St. Olaf," says Sing For Joy Producer and Music Director Jeffery O'Donnell '02, who also is a facilitator for the new streaming services. "Most have commented on how good things sound and how much the video feed adds to the experience."

A family in Maine wrote to the college about how they "huddled in front of the computer screen" for an hour and 40 minutes of a recent concert. "We loved it. It's a wonderful thing for us being so far away." Another concert listener was impressed with the sound quality. "It is often very difficult to create an audio balance between the brass, woodwinds and strings. Adding the piano and organ elements adds to this complexity. The audio technicians hit that balance perfectly."

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A scene from the Boe dedication service that is archived online (see text for link).
Associate Campus Pastor Jennifer Koenig '87 talks about the significance of knowing that what she and others say during chapel and Sunday services is being broadcast and heard worldwide. "I love how it makes the kingdom wider," she says. "When I'm praying I'm not thinking only about St. Olaf students -- I'm thinking about those in home offices, at home computers and St. Olaf students traveling abroad." Koenig also notes the importance of getting feedback from her global audience. "The setting that I'm addressing is bigger [so that] I'm able to get responses from those other settings and learn how what's relevant here becomes relevant in their setting, in their day -- whether that's in Norway, Tanzania, Vietnam or Chicago."

Future plans
O'Donnell says the college wants to expand "webcasting" in a variety of ways. "We'll be streaming special academic events and lectures, such as portions of the upcoming Science Symposium." Commencement activities also likely will be webcast. "And we are exploring the possibilities of having regular class lectures available via a live stream, download or podcast," he adds.

St. Olaf also is expanding the college's bandwidth capacities to support more simultaneous listener-viewers so that events such as February's Boe dedication service don't "max out" the system and prevent people from participating. "This is an exciting problem to have," says O'Donnell.

An addition to the numerous upcoming spring performances that will be streamed (including the St. Olaf Choir concert May 13), the college hopes to offer "on demand" downloads of its Sing For Joy radio program and selections from the extensive St. Olaf Records library.

With reporting by Sarah Meyer '08.

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.