at Pacific Lutheran University PLU

							FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                      Contact: Annika Carow
Feb. 13, 2011                                                              Phone: 360.259.3471
                                                                           Email: carow@plu.edu

                   PLU’s MediaLab Wins National Award for “Oil Literacy” Film

TACOMA, Wash.— MediaLab, the acclaimed multimedia program at Pacific Lutheran University
(PLU), has won a national 2011 Honorable Mention Award for the film “Oil Literacy” in the annual
Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Festival of Media Arts Documentary Competition.

“Oil Literacy,” which premiered Oct. 30, 2010 in Seattle, explores the roles of governments,
consumers, oil companies, workers and other stakeholders in North America’s oil industry. PLU
senior Communication majors Lorna Rodriguez and Kari Plog, along with junior English major
Elizabeth Herzfeldt-Kamprath, produced the film. PLU Communication professor and MediaLab
faculty adviser Robert Marshall Wells, Ph.D., served as the project’s executive producer.

“Being recognized for all of our hard work is very exciting,” said Plog, who worked as a senior
producer on the film. “What is even more exciting about this award is that the topic, which we
believe is extremely important, is receiving attention.”

The MediaLab team, which partnered with earth science graduate students and faculty at the
University of Calgary in Alberta, spent more than a year conducting research and traveling nearly
the width and breadth of North America to produce the film.

This represents the third year in a row that MediaLab has received a BEA Festival of Media Arts
award. The organization also won a 2010 award for the immigration film “Point of Entry: Migrating
to North America,” as well as a 2009 award for “Illicit Exchanges: Canada, the U.S. and Crime,”
which also received a college division Emmy Award that year.

BEA is a professional association for professors, students, and professionals interested in electronic
media. BEA’s annual Festival of Media Arts is an international exhibition of award-winning works,
including: audio, documentaries, interactive media, news, scriptwriting, sports, and video.

MediaLab, a student-run organization established at PLU in 2006, provides students with an array
of pre-professional opportunities in various forms of mass communication, such as videography,
journalism, photography, marketing, public relations, graphic design, and advertising. For more
information about MediaLab, please visit www.plu.edu/~ml.

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