The Multimedia Development Lab in Hunter is currently experiencing the highest volume of usage by students and faculty in the history of its existence. This growth is attributed to a general increased awareness of the Lab"s capabilities, as well as a number of faculty assigning key media-reliant projects to their students. The Art department has even created a course entitled "Digital Photography" in which students complete most of their assignments in the Lab. In addition, many participants of the second annual Whitman Undergraduate Conference will design portions of their presentations in the Lab. Increased academic activity comes as a sign that Whitman College as a whole is embracing multimedia as a legitimate format for communicating ideas and information.

Not all the activity is hard work and no play. Participants of Whitman"s Third Annual Film Festival have begun editing their films. Since last year"s festival, the Lab"s capacity for handling video has improved markedly, particularly with the introduction of the Digital Video based application Final Cut Pro. Entries to this year"s festival, which will be held April 10th, should bear a significantly more refined image quality compared to the previous year"s entries.

The MDL has been able to moderately Handel (and Bach) increased user traffic partially due to equipment upgrades. The end of Spring Break will see the installation of an entirely new Apple Macintosh 500MHz G4 station bringing the "station count" in the Lab to eight. Another G4 will replace the older G3 in the lab.

However, stations alone can"t support the work load. The MDL is pleased to welcome the addition of a second Multimedia Specialist, Katy Coddington ("99). For the remainder of the semester, Katy will be working along with David Sprunger. Sprunger, who has worked in the MDL since the fall of 1998, will be leaving Whitman this summer in pursuit of "other stuff involved with things".