Justin Barkhuff
Post

MyCLU

Short colored bars are scattered at every angle on the left. Moving right, they line up and point toward a single purple circle, and their colors settle into rings around it.

Our small team launched a completely redesigned version of MyCLU, Cal Lutheran’s app for students, faculty, and staff.

MyCLU

I’m a bit late, but I want to take a moment to celebrate a notable professional victory for me and a group of incredible colleagues at California Lutheran University.

Last month, we launched a completely redesigned version of Cal Lutheran’s app: MyCLU. This launch represents phase one of a long term plan to reshape digital experiences for Cal Lutheran community members. Our goal is to provide the best digital experience in all of Higher Ed, bar none.

MyCLU is easily the most ambitious project I’ve ever tackled, mostly due to scope. Cal Lutheran is like its own little city. However, unlike a traditional municipality, CLU is singularly responsible for all aspects of city life: academics, housing, dining, employment, recreation, security, health care, athletics, banking, mail, shopping, libraries, internet, phones, facilities management, philanthropy, etc.

For my life outside of CLU, I probably have two dozen apps to manage all that. It’s not reasonable to expect a single app to help me manage everything I do at Bank of America, Amazon, Starbucks, GrubHub, and the local library. Not to mention helping me pay my mortgage and manage my kids’ homework and soccer league.

However, somehow, it is reasonable for people to expect Universities to provide this do-it-all app. It is also reasonable for them to expect the quality of the digital experience to be as good as that offered face-to-face.

Building an app which does all of that well is incredibly difficult, and the process is fraught with technical and organizational challenges. Behind the scenes, CLU is powered by many different software systems, many of which don’t automatically play nice with each other. Those systems power a wide array of services and programs, with offices and staff physically spread out across CLU’s beautiful campus. It is not a trivial matter to consolidate all the data and features from all of those systems and services into a single app, optimized and personalized for each individual.

We spent the better part of a year designing, building, problem solving, and iterating. We solved countless problems along the way, including the development of new systems which will power future MyCLU features.

Of course, this isn’t done. These types of things are never done. If you find a bug, let us know. If the app is a bit slow during the first week of classes, be kind. I promise we’re working on it.

A huge thanks to the small, talented MyCLU development team. It is a great joy to work with you. I am very proud of the work we did on this initial release, and I am very excited for what is ahead.

MyCLU on iPad, under the heading Learn: courses and academic resources, with a student’s courses, advisors, and upcoming events. MyCLU on iPad, under the heading Engage: campus events and clubs, with upcoming events and club cards. MyCLU on iPad, under the heading Plan: campus life and financial resources, with housing, dining, and student account services. MyCLU on iPad, under the heading Search: find exactly what you need, with suggestions and results from across Cal Lutheran’s websites.