The double major in accounting and finance was invited to join one of three teams competing in the third annual Augsburg Entrepreneur Cup, better known as the Auggie Cup. Each team of one MBA student, two undergraduate business majors, and two graphic design majors assesses and supports a business venture that professionals and Augsburg faculty judge during a Shark Tank-style event in December.
Donors fund prize money of $3,000 per student for first place, $2,000 per student for second place, and $1,000 per student for third place.

“We partnered with , which offers AI-powered, culturally tailored ‘Navatars’ that walk people through the colon cancer screening process. Navatar doesn’t conduct screenings, but the platform works to reduce obstacles like confusion, fear, and language barriers to improve screening rates and, ultimately, save more lives,” Harvey said. “That reality makes the learning process more meaningful, and the experience gave us confidence and skills we can carry forward.”

During the fall, Harvey led a financial analysis of Navatar’s efforts to transform how patients are engaged, educated, and guided to act. Through interviews with health care professionals, Harvey and fellow business student, Jacob Henry ’26, learned that tens of thousands of Americans die from preventable cancers, even though screening is available, covered, and recommended. Navatar Health estimates that nearly one-third of eligible Americans remain unscreened, largely due to a lack of trust and understanding.

So, graphic design majors, Alanna Franklin ’25 and Bri Mccutchan ’25, helped the company execute its creative vision to offer user-friendly scheduling and custom Navatars who provide information in many languages. Jacqueline Zimmerman ’26 MBA led the team’s work, keeping the group organized and on track with research and marketing during the four-month project.

Harvey said the project became their passion: “We spent time outside of class on Zoom calls, worked through challenges together, and held one another accountable. Everyone on the team stepped up and did what was needed, and that commitment was present in our final presentation.”

The payoff

At an event in December, the Navatar Health team won first place in front of a crowd of nearly 150 students, faculty, staff, entrepreneurs, and donors. Dr. David Perdue, founder and principal of Navatar, was present to congratulate the students.

“They took this as seriously as if they were on my payroll,” said Perdue, who was a gastroenterologist for 16 years before starting Navatar in January 2024. “Our business students interviewed leaders at large health care organizations, including UnitedHealthcare and Blue Cross Blue Shield. They synthesized those interviews and thoughtfully integrated the insights into a business plan that reflects how decisions get made in health care. That level of initiative and real-world engagement is not easy, even for experienced professionals. The design students applied next-level design thinking, and Jacqueline managed the project with energy, insight, and expertise.”

The most valuable outcome, Perdue said, was the clarity students brought in, recognizing Navatar’s “friction points,” or where the company could pivot to enhance its reach and impact. Working with start-ups, he added, gives students a fresh perspective.

It was Perdue’s first partnership with Augsburg, and he would “absolutely do it again.”

“I was a little apprehensive at first, wondering how much of my time it would take,” Perdue admitted. “Those concerns were quickly belayed. I met with the team, gave them information about the market, helped make some business contacts, and talked to them about the business for about 30 minutes. They took it from there.”

Success builds momentum

Augsburg business professor George Dierberger, who started the Auggie Cup in 2023, said he is delighted but not surprised to hear these and other positive outcomes from the competition event.

“Students continue to impress with their professionalism, creativity, and work ethic. It’s more than a project for them. They come to care deeply about these partnerships and their very real-world outcomes,” said Dierberger, who is the inaugural Thomas ’72 and Karen Howe Endowed Professor for Entrepreneurship and chair of the Department of Business Administration and Economics. “It’s inspiring as we think about the importance and the impact of experiential learning on the trajectory of students’ careers and on the businesses we serve.”

In three years, the Auggie Cup has partnered 45 students with nine companies—awarding $90,000 in prize money to students. Its success led to the inaugural Augsburg Baby Shark entrepreneur contest in Spring 2025. The competition invites graduate and undergraduate students of any major to pitch a business venture that addresses a social problem. Submissions are due by April 1, and winners are announced during a celebration later that month.

“The final 10 teams present a 15-minute slide deck to a panel of ‘sharks’ (from the school’s Business Advisory Council) for the chance to win thousands in donor-funded prize money,” said Dierberger, who is also director of Augsburg’s MBA program. “Baby Shark has engaged more students in the entrepreneurial space, and students can use the prize money to start their business or pay for additional research.”

An innovative mindset

Dierberger has dedicated his life to the business sector. He led multi-million-dollar sales initiatives during his 25-year tenure at 3M before launching five companies. Teaching for the past 16 years at Augsburg has enabled him to inspire the next generation of business leaders through engaging, relevant experiences like the Auggie Cup.

Jeanne Boeh, director of the School of Business, said Dierberger is not unique among Augsburg business faculty in his professional experience: “Every one of our professors has worked in their field, and that influences their teaching and expands networks for our students.” Many universities offer entrepreneurial experiences, but it’s rare, she explained, for undergraduate students to partner with graduate students, alumni, and business leaders across industries.

“We don’t tell students how to apply their learning; we walk alongside them as they apply that learning through classes and extracurricular activities. And we are blessed with many donors, alumni, and friends who invest in our students with their time, gifts, and expertise.”

Boeh said the school’s Business Advisory Council is an active partner in fostering this synergy between campus and community connections. The group provides external perspective, reviews curricula, and advocates for the school’s programs and strategic direction.

“We constantly assess and reflect on how we can improve, and our Business Advisory Council and other partners are integral to that continued evolution,” she said. “We push entrepreneurial, hands-on learning because it prepares our students for practice and connects with Augsburg’s overall mission to apply learning to community needs.”

‘I want to provide that direction to others’

Kyle Wheaton ’99 joined the Business Advisory Council in October 2024 with a goal of helping students make connections and discover their path as early as possible.

“There’s a huge difference between passively listening to lectures about abstract business concepts and actually going through the process of building something,” he said. “It wasn’t until my junior-year internship that everything clicked, and I gained clarity about my direction. The guidance and preparation my boss provided had a profound, lasting impact on my career trajectory, and I want to help provide that direction for others.”

Wheaton said internships and experiences like the Auggie Cup “build real-world skills, confidence, and perspective that classroom learning alone can’t provide.”

He returned to campus in 2024 to offer guidance as part of Augsburg’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s Innovator Series, which features six speakers each academic year. Wheaton’s talk stressed the importance of internships and networking.

“Do as many internships as you can and use them to figure out what you truly want to do. Then, build a clear plan to get there and work the plan relentlessly,” said Wheaton, who founded Victory Innovations, which pioneered a cordless electrostatic sprayer. “Reach out to professionals in fields that interest you—ask about what they love about their jobs, what they don’t like, and how they built their careers. Those conversations provide invaluable insight.”

Augsburg now requires an internship course to ensure each business major gains guided real-world experience before graduation. Students journal to reflect throughout the course, as they work alongside professionals in their chosen field.

A relevant, industry-driven education

Newer competitions and courses complement the school’s longstanding focus on applied learning and entrepreneurial partnerships. One such program is Innovation Scholars, in which scholars work in interdisciplinary teams, much like the Auggie Cup, to create business plans or specific deliverables requested by early-stage companies and the Mayo Clinic. Jacob Enger, assistant professor of business administration, is the Augsburg contact for this six-month program, which provides each student with a $1,500 stipend upon completion.

Jeff Clement, assistant professor of management information systems, teaches the department’s senior capstone, Information Systems Projects, which partners student teams to tackle the technology challenges of community organizations. Recent projects have included improvements to the cybersecurity and accounting software of the West Bank Business Association and the document management system at Luther Seminary.

“Students act as consultants—leading the project, defining the problem, and developing practical recommendations for solutions, vendors, or software that fit the organization’s goals and constraints,” he said. “A former student in her first job after graduation shared that one of her first work assignments was to develop a workflow diagram, which was something she did in her capstone project. She was able to confidently engage, ask good questions, and get started right away. She told me it helped her make a strong impression early on, and that’s exactly the kind of outcome these hands-on experiences are designed to create.”

Clement was also involved with revision to the MBA Business Analytics course to incorporate hands-on experience using a range of AI and data-driven methods to solve real business problems. “Because our MBA students are all working professionals, many bring in problems from their own organizations,” said Clement, who previously worked as a scientific adviser for a digital health startup. “The goal is that the project isn’t just an academic exercise—it’s something they can take back to work, use immediately, and ideally leverage to make an impact and advance their careers at the same time.”

Lori Lohman, professor of marketing, has taught Marketing Research and Analysis since 1990. From the beginning, Lohman said, the course has focused on completion of an applied research project with a real client.

“I am a strong believer in learning by doing, as it’s the best way to experience what working in this field is really like. It’s easy to lecture about how to conduct marketing research and easy to take a test on the major concepts, but it’s a lot harder to apply those concepts in an actual workplace setting. Not even simulations can replicate the dynamics of what happens between a student group, a client, an instructor, and survey respondents.

“For example, students have to learn how to approach a client and ask to do a project for them, to initiate and maintain communication with them and with their instructor, to design and distribute a survey, to interpret the findings, and to make a formal presentation of the results.”

Students do this while handling the messiness that can happen in the real world, such as missed deadlines, poor communication, repeated survey edits, and slow response rates.

“It’s a win-win for everyone involved: The students gain experience, and the clients save at least $5,000 or more, which would be the cost of hiring a research firm to do a comparable study,” she added.

One of the most memorable studies her entire class conducted was for a division of a $6-billion Japanese company that was interested in introducing a new product in the United States. The company flew its CEO in from Japan to meet the students and hear their final presentation: “It was an experience the students will never forget, and the company went ahead with the product introduction,” Lohman said.

The class has also conducted research for the NCAA, Metro Transit, many of Minnesota’s professional and non-professional sports teams, and a wide variety of local businesses and nonprofits. In addition to creating products and change in those sectors, the findings have been presented at academic conferences and published in academic journals.

Many students use the findings from the course to inform the marketing plans they develop in Marketing Management, an upper-level course that also engages a real-world client. The focus on practical application is woven into the curriculum across the school, Lohman said.

An embrace of the humanities

Many of the business school’s faculty share an appreciation for disciplines outside the school. Success in business, Lohman said, requires a broad understanding of economics, sociology, psychology, writing, communication, art, and history.

“I actively encourage my advisees to take courses in the humanities and social sciences because the best businesspeople are often those with a solid liberal arts education, as opposed to those students with only a narrow business focus,” she added.

Boeh said Augsburg’s transition in 2025 from two large divisions to five schools has fostered organic collaborations across the university, which has extended interdisciplinary innovations into the community. She meets weekly with the leaders of the arts, health, natural sciences, and the humanities and social sciences.

“We are just getting started,” Boeh said in an article about the new structure, “but it’s an exciting time to be an Auggie or to partner and dream with us.”

Dierberger is also an advocate for cross-campus collaborations: “My wife is an artist, and I took a theater class in undergrad that brought theater to life for me. I still enjoy the stage and love to read and experience the arts to expand my world and perspective,” Dierberger said. “I push my students to embrace a holistic education and say ‘yes’ to new experiences. It enriches their lives and improves their ability to connect and adapt.”

Each semester, he introduces MBA students to Dave McClellan, who served as CEO, board chair, and executive chair of Cargill—America’s largest private company—from 2013 to 2023. McClellan, who earned an English degree before graduate studies in finance, stresses the importance of liberal arts to build critical thinking, sharpen persuasive communication, strengthen empathy, and deepen ethical judgement. Dierberger said it’s one of the students’ most powerful memories.

“He comes in all by himself and tells the students about his nontraditional path to the C-suite, and then he spends at least an hour answering their questions about leadership, service, and life,” Dierberger said. “He reminds us that the humanities make leaders, not just managers. [Humanities disciplines] don’t compete with a business education; they complete it.”
Harvey agrees. The Auggie Cup sharpened his transferable skills and applied his liberal arts education to evaluate evidence, make reasoned arguments, solve unfamiliar problems, and adapt to new expectations and environments.

“The experience showed me that I will not shy away from unique opportunities or challenges, even when they may seem difficult or outside my comfort zone. The competition reinforced the idea that saying ‘yes’ and being willing to try something new can lead to growth and unexpected opportunities that positively shape your career,” he said. “Communication, collaboration, and empathy are critical skills that have helped me secure multiple internships and a full-time role after graduation.”

Harvey came to Augsburg to play football, but he stayed “even after that chapter ended” because of the fulfilling, community-focused learning that has shaped him as a person and professional. After graduation in May, Harvey will move to Florida to work at Cherry Bekaert as a risk advisory associate.

Top image: Gesturing to a slide on further financial steps, Augsburg students share their ideas with an engaged crowd. (Photo by Courtney Perry)

The post Turning ideas into impact appeared first on Augsburg Now.

Dhruti Panchal couldn’t imagine spending the next five to seven years writing articles and logging data, but most doctoral programs she found focused on research and publishing clinical psychology rather than practicing it.

“Having worked in community mental health, I wanted to positively contribute to health and well-being while going to school,” she explained. She kept searching until she found a practitioner-scholar model that empowers students to apply research to social justice and mental health efforts in local contexts.

Panchal found Augsburg.

During orientation for the Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology program last fall, Panchal learned the university had shifted the structure of its academic programs from two large divisions to five schools focused on the arts, business, health, humanities and social sciences, and natural sciences.

Provost Paula O’Loughlin explained how the five-schools model aligns Augsburg’s organizational structure with the university’s core values and its goals for the future: “The schools serve as smaller academic neighborhoods where students have closer ties with peers and mentors, greater support for career exploration, and a deeper sense of belonging—all of which empowers them to succeed in their professional lives and as leaders in their communities.”

Interprofessional and community-centered education

Panchal liked the sound of five schools, but—as a student—she didn’t anticipate noticing the effects of a structural shift. As the semester progressed, however, she witnessed various disciplines working together “to gain a better understanding of the complex and interdisciplinary nature of health care,” she said.

The School of Health invited Panchal to help launch its Interprofessional Clinical Education initiative later this spring, which will facilitate students’ professional development and collaborative practice skills. Panchal said this and other interdisciplinary projects have deepened a sense of shared identity among the school’s departments, which also include nursing, social work, and physician’s assistant studies.

“As part of the initiative, we are creating a virtual telementoring program that allows students to build and exercise skills as they work through real-world problems,” she said. “This telementoring will play a big role in furthering and facilitating community by bringing together students, faculty, community partners, and alumni for professional development, resource sharing, and interprofessional education.

“By learning to work with different disciplines to solve real-world health problems as a team, students are better prepared for practica, internships, and jobs.”

Director of the School of Health Vanessa Bester said she and the other four school directors are eager to build partnerships and foster dialogue. “The five-school model has created a platform for us to work together, with outcomes driven by our collective energy and dedication to each other, our students, and our communities,” she explained. “It’s been exciting to be a part of that momentum to foster collaborative, inclusive, and transformative education.”

The School of Health held a fall retreat for faculty and staff to celebrate, connect, and plan. From the retreat, the school formed working groups focused on five areas: shared operational resources; interprofessional education; grants and funding; community and alumni relations; and student success.

In less than three months, Bester said, the School of Health is on track to centralize student onboarding, establish a graduate student government, and build a database to support future funding opportunities.

Lori Brandt Hale, director of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, worked closely with department chairs last fall to identify opportunities for collaboration among this school’s 36 undergraduate majors and two graduate programs, all deeply rooted in experiential education and social justice.

“Many productive conversations emerged from our work together, including hands-on discussions, which opened up opportunities to collaborate, cross-list, and advise students to take appropriate classes in other departments. We ensured classes were being offered across all time slots and sequenced appropriately,” she added. “We want to create a habit of this kind of robust, collaborative work.”

Brandt Hale will facilitate a school-wide retreat in the spring to amplify and leverage opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration and curricular innovation in the new school structure.

Strengthened community connections

That collaborative work and spirit extends beyond the confines of each school. The five school directors meet weekly to share and discuss, and Hale said those university-wide connections may lead to the new model’s most innovative outcomes.

“Each director brings a unique disciplinary lens to important conversations regarding university-wide or community issues,” Hale said. “As members of the faculty, we have a clear sense of the needs and challenges of the departments and programs under our direction.”

Jeanne Boeh, director of the School of Business, said school directors act as translators between disciplines within their schools as well as with other directors and university leadership. That deeper understanding of their school helps directors better advocate for and identify opportunities across the university and in the community.

“This model,” she said, “makes us collectively stronger and more agile. We can do more and be more.”

A stronger sense of identity and purpose, Boeh added, helps faculty and directors better communicate with external stakeholders. For example, she said, “It’s easier to approach a community partner and say you are the School of Business rather than the Division of Professional Studies. They know what a School of Business is, so the five-school model makes more sense to people outside of the university. It gives them more direct access to decision-makers.”

With deep ties in the community, the School of Business will explore ways to expand signature programs, including the Augsburg Entrepreneurship Cup, a competition for student entrepreneurs, and the Innovation Scholars program, which engages students in the business development of medical innovations.

“We are just getting started,” Boeh said, “but it’s an exciting time to be an Auggie or to partner and dream with us.”

A clear approach

Ben Stottrup, director of the School of Natural Sciences, said he is proud of the way Augsburg has responded to its natural growth. “University leadership is constantly reflecting on how we can best serve our students and the community,” he said.

“The shift to five schools is not a critique of what was, but a demonstration of Augsburg’s commitment to personal, hands-on learning and experiences that prepare students to lead.”

The previous Division of Arts and Sciences, he said, supported 50 majors and managed nearly 100 full-time faculty. Division-wide meetings were few and far between, and faculty were not always clear about whom to approach with ideas—an opaque complexity that could stifle creativity and collaboration. Requests for reports and data collection pulled faculty away from teaching, research, and service.

“The five-school model reduces layers of structure to provide faculty, staff, and students with a more direct link to administrators,” Stottrup said. “Each director has a seat at the table and can take on much of the work to plan and create efficiencies for administrative tasks and reporting.” The new structure, he added, has also revealed ways to eliminate redundancies and create more user-friendly processes, which gifts faculty more time and energy to prepare students to be critical thinkers, informed citizens, and thoughtful stewards.

A deliberate evolution with philanthropic promise

Stottrup said he and his fellow directors have benefitted from the thoughtful and transparent formation of the five-school model, a process that began in 2019 with an interdisciplinary, campus-wide task force that explored ways to adapt to Augsburg’s growth and institutional goals.

In April 2023, Augsburg announced the creation of the John N. Schwartz ’67 School of the Arts. Established through an estate gift from a visionary alumnus, the school houses 12 undergraduate majors in narrative, performing, and visual arts, as well as master’s degrees in music therapy and creative writing.

O’Loughlin said that the collaborations and efficiencies that emerged from the creation of the Schwartz School spurred conversations about expanding the school-based model across disciplines. Augsburg faculty unanimously voted to approve the shift to five schools in Spring 2024.

The Schwartz School also opened Augsburg’s eyes to the fundraising promise and power of more connected, focused communities of practice. “Putting a name to a school,” O’Loughlin said, “furthers a sense of pride, history, and connection across generations.”

Schwartz School Director Christopher Houltberg said it’s been a privilege to create student learning and experiences that demonstrate that “we can do so much more together than we can separately.”

In late January, the school came together to participate in the Great Northern Winter Festival, which engages the Twin Cities in 10 days of outdoor activities, live music, art, dining experiences, and community conversations. Houltberg said “Expanding Landscapes & Impossible Futures” invited the public into a multisensory experience to explore physical and psychological shifts of climate change.

“In response to our external environment, humanity’s own internal systems and senses have adapted, evolved, shifted, and sometimes even faltered,” Houltberg said. “This event showcased the range of artistic output among the school’s 10 undergraduate majors, two graduate programs, five performing ensembles, three art galleries, multiple annual theater productions, and the Design & Agency trans-disciplinary design studio.” Citlali Flores ’25, a studio art and art education major, said the shift to five schools has created more visibility for her work and major.

“Since the formation of the Schwartz School, I’ve seen more resources for our art department, and it feels bigger,” said Flores, an aspiring elementary school art teacher. “It’s also been fun to see more non-art majors taking art classes because they want to try different mediums of expression. It gets us all out of our bubbles.”

Hearing students and even community members reflect on visible progress, Houltberg said, encourages the schools to continue toward creative and bold outcomes.

Panchal said she and other students are proud to know the university is continually learning, as they are, about the best ways to move through and impact the world. Rather than data entry, her next five to seven years will be a brave experiment for all she can accomplish within a close, imaginative, and driven campus community.

“I didn’t settle and kept looking for a university that shared my vision to positively contribute to the health and well-being of my community,” she said. “I’m now laying the groundwork for a project that will positively impact students’ learning experience, including my own, and I look forward to engaging in all the collaborative efforts that will come from more focused schools of learning and service.”

Slideshow: Expanding Landscapes & Impossible Futures

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Top image: Â̲čÖą˛Ľ’s inaugural five school directors gather on campus. Left to right: Lori Brandt Hale, Jeanne Boeh, Ben Stottrup, Vanessa Bester, and Chris Houltberg (Photo by Courtney Perry)

The post The Structure of Us appeared first on Augsburg Now.

“Each person is directed to learn, work, and serve with faith-filled purpose,” said McCormick. “At the same time, vocations are not singular or set in stone. They don’t always come with a paycheck. And they may feel ordinary.

“Sometimes the things we are most called to do in life are the most difficult or mundane, but over time, we often find many moments of joy and love, even in those difficult or routine parts of our callings,” she said.

McCormick didn’t have an “aha” moment on a hilltop. Discerning her vocation was a slow process that came into focus at Â̲čÖą˛Ľ, which invited McCormick to intentionally and systematically consider her life’s purpose. Classes, extracurricular activities, and volunteer roles blended faith, learning, and service as a way of life—and it stuck.

“I love Augsburg’s focus on holistic, hands-on learning,” said McCormick. “My urban studies and youth and family ministry classes helped me grow in my understanding of faith, religion, community organizing, and more. My participation with Campus Kitchen, campus ministry, and residence life gave me practice planning, leading, and coordinating events. I developed language skills through my Spanish minor and enhanced my capacity to work cross-culturally through my study and internship abroad.”

An unwavering commitment

Augsburg President Paul Pribbenow loves hearing alumni share stories about their vocational discernment, which is “at the heart of the Augsburg experience.” Other universities may integrate the spirit of vocation into their missions, he said, but Augsburg is distinct in its unwavering commitment to help students discover and live out their mission to serve others.

“We call it a three-dimensional education: educating students to make a living, make a life, and build community,” he said. “This combination of experiences means that students gain the education and skills they need to get a job or pursue a profession, and they also learn how to discern the other roles they will play in their lives, all the while learning that everything they do must be done alongside others in community.”

During her freshman year at Augsburg, that emphasis on collaborative, community-focused work inspired McCormick to help establish Campus Kitchen, which is a hunger relief organization that serves Minneapolis and is part of the national Campus Kitchens Project. These and other opportunities to “be the change” helped her realize she could make a difference. McCormick translated skills she gained in event planning and promotion, relationship building, grant writing, and more to other roles on campus and to her work and life after graduation.

“My college experience has so many profound and meaningful memories, and many of them center around people believing I could achieve good things and supporting me through the process,” said McCormick, who was named a “Neighborhood Hero” by the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency in 2005 and won the first annual Sodexo Stop Hunger Award in 2007.

Pribbenow said Augsburg’s focus on vocation encourages students to see themselves in the possibilities.

“We live in a world marked by scarcity, transactional relationships, and loneliness. Our understanding of vocation runs counter to each of these challenges,” he said.

“We encourage students to see the world through a lens of abundance, to see relationships as meaningful and mutual, and to seek to build community wherever they go. That is the sort of world we want for our students, and we believe vocational discernment is the means that will help them build it.”

Mentors matter

As the Bernhard M. Christensen Professor of Religion and Vocation, Jeremy Myers is among those guiding the university’s vocational mission to “serve our neighbor.” Myers also serves as the executive director of Augsburg’s Christensen Center for Vocation, which works with partners across and beyond the university to create innovative ways for individuals and communities to discern vocation in a range of contexts.

He is among the faculty who teach required classes that challenge students to explore vocation, diversity, and the role of religion in society.

“At Augsburg, we talk about vocation as the unique ways each person, institution, or community is compelled, equipped, and empowered to make the world more just and sustainable through all the various roles they play,” explained Myers.

“This is incredibly important right now because students are looking for a sense of belonging and meaning in their lives while also pursuing a degree they hope will guarantee a good career. We want them to know that meaning, purpose, belonging, and vocation aren’t elusive ideas hiding in their future, but are available to them right now.”

James “Bear” Mahowald ’13 said he would not have discovered his vocation had it not been for Augsburg faculty mentors—including Myers, Matt Maruggi, and James Vela-McConnell—who modeled what it is to live your truth and vocation.

“When I came to Augsburg, I was less than a year out of rehab and incredibly guarded. But these and other leaders at Augsburg took me as I was and nurtured and guided the good in me,” he said. “They held me accountable in both my schoolwork and in being a human in a complicated world, which allowed me to get to where I am today.

“I’m not sure there is a place outside of Augsburg where my experience was possible.”

Mahowald was part of StepUPÂŽ at Â̲čÖą˛Ľ, a nationally recognized residential collegiate recovery program. The Minnesota native pursued a dual major in sociology and religion while attending mandatory meetings in a sober living community.

“To say my time at Augsburg was life-changing would be an understatement. There is rarely a day that passes where something or someone from my time at Augsburg doesn’t show up in my life. It was my time at Augsburg that taught me that my vocation was more than just a job I might get one day, but a way in which I live my life. It’s about how I show up for others.”

Today, Mahowald shows up for others as a husband and uncle; as a manager with City Year, a national service program; and as a doctoral student in educational policy at Wayne State University in Detroit. He works with students who are “victims of the school-prison nexus,” and he uses his life experiences and lessons to guide them and policymakers.

“My vocation is a combination of living as my true authentic self and using my experiences and the lessons I have learned from mentors to help guide young people,” he said. “I am not sure you find your vocation so much as it is revealed to you through following your heart, your soul, and exposing yourself to a variety of experiences and reflecting on them.”

‘Everyone deserves the opportunity to consider their why’

Writer and activist Chris Stedman ’08 is among those who teach core courses that challenge students to reflect and explore life’s meaning and purpose. Since 2020, he has taught Religion 200: Religion, Vocation, and the Search for Meaning II, which builds on an introductory course of the same name that explores vocation, pluralism, and diversity.

Stedman said he challenges students to consider how they can find vocation, self, and purpose through the stories they tell themselves. The final project is an expression of how each student’s gifts intersect with the needs of the world.

“Each final project is unique, with students sharing how they’ve come to understand what matters most to them and why, as well as their aspirations for how they want to show up in the world and relate to others, considered through the lens of what their communities need,” said Stedman, the author of two books that explore these themes: “Faitheist” (2012) and “IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives” (2020).

The projects have taken many forms, including a 35-page graphic novel, a 15-minute short film, original music, and poetry. Students decide on the format to best express their vocation and story, with the understanding that it can—and will—likely change throughout their lives. Stedman pushes students to consider the application of vocation across cultures and differences.

“The concept of vocation is not exclusively Christian, but some students come into my classroom with assumptions about who it’s for. I try to drive home the idea that everyone deserves the chance to consider their ‘why,’” said Stedman, who also serves as research fellow at Augsburg’s Interfaith Institute. “I am upfront with my students that I’m a queer atheist with a strong sense of vocation and deep, enduring ties with Augsburg. I hope that my perspective helps drive home that all people, whether religious, nonreligious, or unsure, can benefit from having the opportunity and space to consider life’s big questions.

“My hope is that students finish the semester with a deeper understanding of their values and worldview. These things are of course always evolving, but we can learn a lot about them when we come together across lines of religious difference and explore these questions together.”

Stedman keeps in touch with students who have found their purpose during his class. One student who had intended to “just go where the money was” shifted her focus after Religion 200.

“By the end of the class, she realized she wanted, in her words, ‘more than that,’” Stedman explained. “Now she is a development coordinator for a nonprofit that funds abortion access. Her final project, specifically, shifted the way she understood the world and changed how she saw herself in it. We continue to keep in touch, and it’s awesome to see her living such an inspiring, examined life.”

The student becomes the teacher

The required classes about vocation also made a tremendous impact on Rosie Benser ’13, who appreciated the time and space to reflect on her self-worth and purpose. In high school, Benser was among Minnesota’s estimated 13,000 youth who experience homelessness. She slept on friends’ couches while she attended school—or not.

She “managed to graduate,” and then, “on a whim,” applied to Augsburg. Religion, Vocation, and the Search for Meaning was among her first courses at the university, and it “flipped her understanding of purpose.” Her parents hadn’t attended college and thought vocation was a person’s job.

“I realized that our purpose in life is to apply our greatest skill to the needs of the world, and that no skill or job is any better than another. I am about to become a mom, and it’s a good reminder that some of our most important work is not tied to a paycheck.”

Benser fell in love with school at Augsburg but was still uncertain about her specific role or career. She applied to a few graduate schools but didn’t receive an adequate financial aid package, so she enrolled in AmeriCorps for a year. She discovered her gifts as a teacher and ultimately enrolled in graduate school to study sociology at Syracuse University. As a doctoral student, Benser researches the intersections of poverty and addiction.

“I used to think I needed to be boots on the ground [in service work] to make a difference. I see that through my husband, who is a social worker. But I am good at teaching, and teaching is a need in the world. Through my teaching, I hope to educate and create awareness about important issues. That is meaningful to me. That is my vocation.”

Her time at Augsburg, and specifically the religion classes, taught her how to be “an adult and community member who thinks more globally” about her impact and how she engages with others.

Pribbenow is adamant about that broad interpretation of vocation: “It reflects the multiple ways in which we respond to external forces. It may be a profession, and it also may be roles as parent, sibling, neighbor, citizen, and so forth. In fact, I believe for most people, our vocations reflect multiple intersecting roles that we play in the world.

“Personally, I am an educator by profession—and I am also a parent and sibling and spouse and citizen. I live out my vocation at the intersections of those various roles.”

The Christensen Center for Vocation: Where theory meets practice

The Bernhard Christensen Center for Vocation helps guide this holistic understanding of vocation and its application through learning partnerships and creative initiatives that address pressing needs.

The Christensen Scholars Program is a community of 10 upper-level Augsburg students who spend a full academic year together in a seminar-style course. Christensen Scholars engage in a deeper interdisciplinary exploration of Christian theological reflection and vocational discernment related to their personal lives and the social realities of the world they live in.

The Confluence is a weeklong, on-campus experience held each summer, during which high school students practice vocational discernment, intentional community, spiritual practices, self-reflection, theological inquiry, and experiential learning.

The Riverside Innovation Hub is an incubator for people and communities to explore the public church in the neighborhood. Along with the learning communities, the Hub is launching two additional projects: a book that amplifies young adult voices to the church, and the , an online network where people can learn from and support one another in their work to connect with their local communities, know their neighbors, and become public church.

Top image:ĚýJeremy Meyers speaks at the Christensen Symposium, 2022 (Photo by Courtney Perry)

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Sociology professor Joel Torstenson ’38 stood in front of the Augsburg faculty in January 1967. The kind-hearted, suit-wearing Minnesotan urged colleagues to join him in transforming the institution from a college in the city to a college of the city.

Torstenson had spent years researching and observing relationships between institutions of higher education and their surrounding communities. He critiqued institutions that isolated their campuses and intellectual endeavors from the realities of urban centers, and he was convinced Augsburg’s urban setting positioned it to engage students in addressing the complex challenges of “the modern metropolis.”

“Such a study of school and society is, of course, not a new one,” Torstenson told his colleagues that day. “The relationship between learning and living has been a matter of interest to philosophers, historians, social scientists, and educators for ages. Neither education nor society can be adequately understood without examining the interactive relationship between them. In fact, the very expansion and development of universities were in large measure a response to the rapid increase of the range of activities for which literary skills became essential in growing urban communities.”

Torstenson’s passionate address celebrated Augsburg’s growing focus on community-engaged scholarship, research, and service before concluding with 11 recommendations. The list called for departmental advisory boards of alumni and area professionals, city-campus programs, interdisciplinary field experiences, an expansion of student employment within the neighborhood, and more.

Nearly 60 years later, Â̲čÖą˛Ľ President Paul Pribbenow said Torstenson’s speech reads like a roadmap to Augsburg’s full embrace of its location as a classroom within the context of community. It was a critical turning point in Augsburg’s 150-year history, as Torstenson’s words honed Augsburg’s focus on relevant, responsive education for service.

“Professor Torstenson was instrumental as Augsburg embraced its urban setting and commitment to teaching students at the intersections of place and mission, location, and vocation,” Pribbenow said. “His radical ideas for the time set into motion programs, partnerships, and perspectives that made a lasting mark on the Twin Cities and beyond.”

Capturing that legacy

Pribbenow joined with Augsburg faculty members Katie Clark ’10 MAN, ’14 DNP and Timothy Pippert as well as former Sabo Center staff member Green Bouzard to write “Radical Roots: How One Professor Changed a University’s Legacy.” Published in November 2023, the 175-page book documents Torstenson’s legacy on the evolution of higher education for the public good and shares innovative models of experiential learning developed at Augsburg.

The authors hope these examples and lessons learned during the past 60 years bolster Auggie pride and inspire those engaged in place-based learning and service.

“Torstenson believed deeply in the power of returning to the roots of systems to equip individuals to shape their own destinies and the communities in which they lived,” Pribbenow wrote in the book. “His vision for education was about expanding horizons of learning and scholarship by equipping students to engage fellow citizens in the work of democracy. We think he would be proud of how Augsburg has lived out those bold ideals.”

The book begins with a look back, weaving the origins of Augsburg’s founding by Norwegian Lutherans alongside Torstenson’s formative years in rural Minnesota during the Great Depression. It chronicles his transition from teaching in a one-room schoolhouse to a fateful day during his senior year at Augsburg, when Torstenson was asked to step in as a teacher.

“(Augsburg) President George Sverdrup died unexpectedly, and Professor H.N. Hendrickson became acting president,” the book explains. “Hendrickson asked Torstenson to take over teaching his European history course, which ultimately led to Torstenson pursuing his master’s degree in history with a minor in sociology at the University of Minnesota.”

In his memoir, “Takk for Alt (Thank You for Everything): A Life Story,” Torstenson reflects on this introduction to his life’s work as a professor and academic scholar, but the academy did not command his singular focus. For nearly a decade after graduation, he and his wife, Frances “Fran” (Anderson) Torstenson, invested in community building, including an 80-acre cooperative farm they tended while he taught part-time at Augsburg.

The start of his tenure

In 1947, Augsburg recruited Torstenson to develop programs in sociology and social work, which he did while pursuing a doctorate in sociology at the University of Minnesota. Torstenson systematically expanded Augsburg’s academic programs in sociology, adding courses in sociological theory and social psychology, racial and inter-group relations, rural sociology, and social work. “He was so successful,” Pippert explained, “that for much of the 1950s, the sociology department had the most majors on campus.”

Innovative internship and cooperative learning experiences brought faculty and students into contact with urban life, but that contact remained limited to certain departments until Torstenson addressed the full faculty in 1967. Pippert said the address inspired others to embrace Augsburg’s urban context as a laboratory for liberal learning and research.

Clark said Torstenson’s humble, gentle way drew people into his sound theories. “So many people and institutions make decisions based on what is ‘trending’ or attractive to funders, but I don’t think that calculated into his decisions,” said Clark, an associate professor of nursing. “There was just no other way of doing things. You are part of your community, and when you see a need, you work to address that need. He didn’t wonder, ‘Is this scholarship or is this service?’ He just thought, ‘This is what you do as a human.’”

His vision takes root

The university began hiring faculty interested in urban issues and even encouraged faculty and staff to live and spend time in surrounding neighborhoods. Curricular innovations, including Augsburg’s interdisciplinary urban studies program and River Semester, have origins in Torstenson’s influence.

“One of the greatest lessons I learned while writing this book is how easily our trajectory could have been different had Joel not spoken up the way he did about what needed to happen, and had our faculty and staff not been receptive to this work,” said Clark, who also serves as executive director of Augsburg’s Health Commons. “I’ve always been proud of where I went to school and work, but learning our history really made me proud of how we have stayed focused on our mission through good times and bad. It’s not just what we do, it’s who we are.”

One of the boldest attempts Torstenson proposed to connect with the community and educate students about challenges facing their neighbors was the establishment of the “Crisis Colony” (a label that would not be chosen today, as the book’s authors note). This started as an intensive summer program for students from across the nation to live on the north side of Minneapolis, first in public housing and later in a former synagogue. Torstenson co-led the program with Joe Bash, a Lutheran pastor who served on the north side of Minneapolis. Sociology Professor Gordon Nelson joined them to evolve the experience into a semester program that challenged students to learn and work alongside residents.

This program became the Metro Urban Studies Term, which was the first academic program of the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs (HECUA), one of the premier interdisciplinary experiential education programs in the nation. Torstenson served as the consortium’s first director and continued its expansion with the Scandinavian Urban Studies Term at the University of Oslo in 1973.

“Professor Torstenson remained ever focused on co-learning, based on the understanding that students were also responsible for creating knowledge, which was recognized as possible at the graduate level but was viewed, at the time, as too difficult at the undergraduate level,” said Pippert, who is Augsburg’s Joel S. Torstenson Endowed Professor of Sociology. “He was also innovative at the time for inviting community members to serve as experts, and they were often paid as visiting professors.”

Passing the baton

In 1977, Torstenson reached Augsburg’s mandatory retirement age (of 65) at the time, but the rule allowed him to seek and mentor a successor. Through a national search, Garry Hesser was named head of the sociology department. The two worked side-by-side during Torstenson’s last year before Hesser became the inaugural Martin Olav Sabo Professor of Citizenship and Democracy.

“Joel and the faculty had set the table, and I have been feasting at that table ever since,” Hesser said in a housed in Augsburg’s university archives. “A whole curriculum emerged from Joel’s paper, ‘The Liberal Arts College in the Modern Metropolis,’ which he shared with the faculty, who then voted to allow every student to take up to four internships. It took the University of Minnesota another 15 years to even grant credit for internships. And this wasn’t just urban studies, it was chemistry and religion; every major at Augsburg embraced this approach.”

Pippert said Hesser was “a giant in his own right” who mentored many faculty embedded in the city and put Torstenson’s theories into practice. “Garry took Joel’s impressive work and turned the national spotlight on Augsburg. He helped put us on the map with the policies and programs he championed for the good of our students and our city,” said Pippert, who developed Augsburg Family Scholars, a program to support students with foster care backgrounds, partially inspired by Torstenson and Hesser’s work.

Hesser assumed leadership of HECUA and became president of the National Society for Internships and Experiential Education, which elevated Augsburg to lead the national conversation about experiential education and community-based learning.

One of Hesser’s most significant efforts was leading the formation of the Center for Service, Work, and Learning in the 1990s, which became the Strommen Center for Meaningful Work and inspired the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship. The Sabo Center deepened and diversified Augsburg’s commitment to and presence in greater Minneapolis, especially in the nearby Cedar-Riverside neighborhood.

Through the Sabo Center, Augsburg launched Campus Kitchen in 2003. Surplus, unserved food from dining halls is incorporated into weekly meals that students, faculty, and staff share with area residents. Campus Kitchen also supports a campus food shelf, community garden, and four community meal locations.

Clark hopes these and other examples described in “Radical Roots” encourage readers to consider the legacies on which they are building. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter prompt introspection and visioning.

“We want to make the book useful as readers pause and think about their own locations and what those places value,” Clark said. “I also hope the book reminds people to value the voices of their community and to draw on the wisdom of community members.”

Clark keeps these lessons in mind through her work at Augsburg’s Health Commons, which are nurse-led drop-in centers that welcome people without condition to a shared space that offers health services and human connection at four sites in the Twin Cities.

Augsburg shows up

Clark has guided the accessible, affirming Health Commons sites since she began teaching at Augsburg in 2009, more than 15 years after the first Health Commons opened at Central Lutheran Church on 12th Street in Minneapolis. These sites carry on Torstenson’s vision for place-based, embedded learning alongside community partners like Melissa Pohlman ’00, who serves as Central Lutheran’s pastor for community ministries.

For the past 10 years, Pohlman has walked with many of her neighbors to visit the commons for basic health care services, meals, and connection. It’s a vital space to combat otherness in health care, she said, and it serves as an enduring reminder of Augsburg’s drive to apply its expertise and energy to address pressing needs.

“I love the story of how the Health Commons started, with one professor in the congregation seeing a need and showing up to offer blood pressure checks and warm clothes for kids in Sunday School,” she said. “Look at what that gesture has turned into, this regular showing up that provides our community with access to dignified health care and support.”

Clark said she hopes stories of impact shared in the “Radical Roots” book inspire alumni and friends to invest in Augsburg’s “radical” work to create change: “Our work isn’t easy, and it doesn’t always bring in big grant dollars, but it’s important and makes a difference, and—like Joel believed—it’s just what you do for your neighbors, your city. It’s a way of learning, working, and living that we need to continue to pass on to future generations.”

University Archivist Stewart Van Cleve, who helped the authors gather resources and create a “Radical Roots” webpage, said he hopes the book is a reminder that everyone can make a difference, but “only if we listen to one another and act as servants to the collective greatness of the community.”

“I tend to shy away from putting anyone on a pedestal, but this work makes clear that Dr. Torstenson shifted Augsburg’s trajectory to the more inclusive and neighborhood-focused institution it is today. Quite simply, we would have been a lesser institution without him,” Van Cleve said. “Torstenson realized a greatness that he could not have achieved alone. His story should make clear that we all can have that kind of impact at this university, and that is why we are here.”

Learn more about “Radical Roots” and Augsburg’s experiential learning initiatives at augsburg.edu/radicalroots.

Top image: Joel Torstenson ’38 inside Old Main (Archive photo)

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“Our lives are stories, and collectively, those stories make our history,” said Carvajal, who was raised in southern Minnesota.

During her first year at Augsburg, Carvajal enrolled in a history class about Islamophobia. “It was this blend of social justice, reflections of the past, and visioning for the future,” she said. “I never thought history could be so engaging, so alive.”

She signed up for more history classes. “I learned the importance of history and the power that comes with telling it,” she said. “I realized I wanted to dedicate my life to empowering others to tell their story because if you don’t tell your story, others will.”

Through the Augsburg Department of History, Carvajal didn’t simply study history—she created it by researching lost voices and oral histories, including .

“We learned to approach history with action,” Carvajal said. “Instead of focusing on textbooks, we handled primary sources, created historical documents, and helped people share their stories. Learning and telling history creates empathy, understanding, and action.”

Carvajal graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a minor in history. She now works full-time as the bilingual program specialist for Pillsbury United Communities, a network of programs and centers for marginalized groups. In her role, she supports the personal, social, and economic well-being of youth in Minneapolis’ East Phillips neighborhood.

“I got a grant through the Minnesota Humanities Center to help middle schoolers capture their own stories and conduct oral histories in their neighborhoods,” she said. “I am teaching these kids the importance of documenting lives, events, and artifacts. I want to excite them about history the way my professors excited me.”

Carvajal is among Augsburg’s thousands of history graduates whose classes challenged them to apply classroom knowledge to relevant projects that connect members of the public with the past. History Professor Michael Lansing says students learn about the past so they can make sense of the present.

“History is not the memorization of facts. History is about reading and writing and thinking,” Lansing said. “We ask careful questions, consider multiple perspectives, and analyze information because history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. Those who have the skills and knowledge to look back and interpret what was done and why can make more informed decisions about the future.”

Doing history in public

Lansing has engaged students in dozens of public history projects for community partners, including Purple Places: A Digital History Tour of Prince’s Minneapolis and .

In Spring 2023, Lansing worked with a team of students to document the voices and policies of Augsburg during the COVID-19 pandemic. The course, Doing History in Public, is a 4-credit class open to all majors interested in practicing historical methods for non-academic audiences.

Since this course’s inception in 2009, students have contributed to or created oral histories, archives, exhibits, digital history experiences, historic preservation, and more. In 2019, the class—taught each spring—became a required course for all history majors. “That move,” Lansing said, “demonstrates Augsburg’s pledge to a practical, relevant education.”

Last semester’s COVID-19 focus emerged from a conversation with Mike Bloomberg, a digital and research services librarian at Augsburg. Bloomberg said he was reviewing the university’s archives from the 1918 influenza pandemic and found “almost nothing, other than a few articles in The Echo student newspaper and a report that the president’s secretary nursed students to health in the gym.”

“When something is negative, we don’t want to linger in it. We want to move on and forget, but it’s important for us to look back and reflect,” Bloomberg said. “I didn’t want us to repeat that history, so I talked with Dr. Lansing about how we could preserve the experiences of our students, faculty, and staff during this time. Had we had more information about the pandemic response in 1918, we might have made some different decisions today.”

Capturing diverse voices

Bloomberg and other library staff worked alongside Lansing and his students to learn how to use recording equipment, identify people to interview, develop questions, and collect artifacts such as masks, documents, and photos.

“The process of collecting and reflecting is healing,” Bloomberg said. “The pandemic changed us in profound ways that we might not realize, and many of us involved in this project—from the students interviewing subjects to the subjects themselves—enjoyed connecting about what happened to us during and because of this time.”

Stewart Van Cleve, associate library director and university archivist, advocates for and supports capturing history at Augsburg. He considers this work a gift to the future.

“I’m looking through the oral histories we have of Augsburg memories, and it’s this gallery of faces of amazing people who have shaped the institution. Many of them are gone, but through these oral histories, they can talk to us across time, which is truly a miracle,” he said. “My goal is to ensure our community has a sense of belonging and connection to the institution, this legacy that is something greater than any of us could be on our own.”

Carvajal said she and her peers felt that connection with the people they featured in the COVID oral history project. She interviewed Dorris Carter-Murray, a custodian at Augsburg, to reflect on the time and energy it took to maintain a clean and safe campus through an uncertain, menacing time.

“Dorris was an important voice to hear,” Carvajal said. “She was on the front lines during the pandemic, and she worked extremely hard to make sure we all stayed safe. It’s easy for people in her role to feel invisible or even looked down on, but it was encouraging to hear that she felt really supported and seen at Augsburg.”

Nell Matheny ’23 interviewed Â̲čÖą˛Ľ President Paul Pribbenow. An aspiring museum professional, Matheny said learning to make history engaging and relevant will inform their career. The COVID project compelled them to consider how the pandemic affected others.

“COVID impacted me quite a bit. I had to switch schools and move back home,” said the history major from Maplewood, Minnesota. “It was interesting to see the institutional side of things and how others dealt with such challenges and chaos.”

Matheny and Pribbenow talked at length about the complexity of the leadership challenges Augsburg administrators faced with limited information. Pribbenow hopes people who see his COVID-19 oral history interview appreciate the genuine effort he and his staff took to make sound decisions.

“I found the history project interview to be a little jarring as I realized how much of the pandemic was a bit of a blur for me,” Pribbenow said. “I sometimes had trouble remembering exactly when we made certain decisions as the years blended in my memory. I hope that the combination of perspectives included in the oral history will ensure that there is an accurate picture of what we did and when.”

Matheny and their peers focused on oral histories to capture details and perspectives that might otherwise be overlooked or lost in the gathering of artifacts, data, and documents. Hearing someone’s voice, Matheny added, completes the story.

Â̲čÖą˛Ľ Pastor Babette Chatman ’06 was also among the voices in the COVID-19 oral history project. She was eager to share her perspectives as an essential worker and Black woman walking alongside people, particularly the most vulnerable.

“There is a move in this country to be selective about what history and whose history is told, so it’s important to engage and excite people about documenting history,” said Chatman. “During the interview, I recalled a story about meeting with students over Zoom. I promised them that if they did not give up, I would be there when they walked across the stage at Commencement 2023, and I was.”

Walking people through history

The COVID-19 oral history project is one of several produced through the university archives. Oral histories of Muslims in Minnesota, graduate memories, and the Health Commons are among those available online, alongside the archive’s collections of yearbooks, alumni magazines, photographs, and more.

Many of the students and professors who worked on those projects have also contributed to , a collection of stories and virtual tours that explore thought-provoking topics such as racial and ethnic tensions during Minnesota’s suffrage movement and the history of Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. These interactive experiences involved collaborations with other programs across campus, including information technology and graphic design.

History Department Chair Jacqueline deVries is among the faculty who have led these dynamic projects. In Spring 2020, she and eight students persisted through the pandemic shutdown to gather photos and stories about the women’s suffrage movement in Minnesota. They collaborated with the Hennepin History Museum to create “Votes for Women,” a digital walking tour that invites people to walk in the footsteps of women activists and reformers more than 100 years ago, remembering the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment.

DeVries is working with students to finalize a digi-tour to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Hennepin Theatre Trust. The tour weaves stories, photos, and audio into a walking tour that explores the history of theater in Minneapolis.

“This type of work really stretches students,” deVries said. “They have to do a lot of original scholarship with primary sources and then also consider what people want to know and learn. They have to think spatially about how to develop a walking tour, and then they have to engage with technology to produce it.

“Students are looking for meaning and purpose and significance, and having a real audience heightens students’ engagement,” deVries said.

Carvajal said these hands-on experiences are what led her to realize her passionate purpose, and Lansing said hearing this and other stories motivates his department to continue to teach beyond the classroom.

“We are driven to nurture students to be informed citizens, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders and to help them find a vocation where their talents meet the world’s needs,” Lansing said. “History is woven into every aspect of our lives, and it’s encouraging to see so many students get excited about history’s application in their lives.”

Possibilities of the past

Nick Stewart-Bloch ’17 reflects the power and potential of a history degree from Augsburg. During his sophomore year, the double major in history and international relations collaborated with deVries to research the civic agency of Jewish women in interwar Great Britain. That experience led to a legislative internship followed by contributions to , which documents the history of racial segregation in Minneapolis through oral histories and engaging visual maps online.

After graduating, Stewart-Bloch moved to China to teach English and host international conferences before returning to Minneapolis to serve as a case manager for Agate Housing, where he mediated conflicts between property managers and tenants.

“When I worked with unhoused folks, my experience at Augsburg helped me understand inequalities as well as what a more just city and more just policies can look like,” he said. “The university’s commitment to applied learning that is community-based and geared toward social justice is how I want to practice. Public history helps explain where we are today and hopefully makes us more aware of how our decisions create the kind of society we want.”

In 2021, Stewart-Bloch moved to Los Angeles to pursue a master’s degree in urban and regional planning at the University of California. The Minnesota native hopes to support labor and environmental justice movements as a strategic researcher.

“The training and ideas I gained at Augsburg have set me up to look at urban planning more critically,” he said. “It makes me want to engage with it in a way that redresses the wrongs committed by past planners.”

Lansing easily recalled the names of other graduates who are applying their history degrees in a range of fields. He and his colleagues in the history department regularly invite alumni and community members to speak to and partner with classes.

“Connecting students with professionals facilitates conversations with people actually doing this work and using these skills in a variety of venues,” Lansing said. “These interactions inspire my students but also lead to internships and future jobs. Our collaborative work is building bridges.”

Top image: Jacqueline deVries, Stewart Van Cleve, Mike Bloomberg, and Michael Lansing hold a COVID-19 distancing floor sticker used at Augsburg, now filed in the university archives. (Photo by Courtney Perry)

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In 2019, Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz joined Â̲čÖą˛Ľ as special assistant to the president for strategic partnerships and as a fellow in the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship.

But Walz’s connection to campus began long before she was born, when her mother stepped out of rural life in central Minnesota and onto a bus destined for Augsburg. Linnea (Wacker) Whipple ’60 was the first person in her family to graduate from high school. Why stop there?

“One of the most significant indicators of children’s future educational attainment is the educational attainment of their mothers,” Walz said. “My mom started country school at four years of age because her brother wouldn’t go to school without her, and she graduated from high school at 17. I am grateful she had the drive to leave her family life and that Augsburg—through its faith and alumni connections—found my mother in her small town of 600.”

And Augsburg didn’t let Whipple go. Walz said college advisors checked in on her mother, who worked many hours to pay for school. Professors encouraged Whipple, whose early education was in a one-room schoolhouse, to apply for a postgraduate teaching position in Hawaii.

“They saw her potential, and they didn’t limit my mother at a time when women had lots of limits,” Walz added. “I grew up hearing about that level of personal support and Augsburg’s drive to develop informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders.”

Whipple’s tenure in Hawaii ended abruptly when her brother died in a farm accident. Deeply invested in family, Whipple returned to Minnesota, where she continued to teach, met her husband—also an educator—and raised four daughters.

Equity work with Pribbenow ‘changed everything’

Like her parents, Walz became an educator and married an educator, Tim Walz. Prior to being elected Minnesota’s 41st governor, Tim served from 2007 to 2019 as the U.S. House representative for the state’s 1st congressional district, which includes the Mankato school district where the Walzes taught.

“As educators, and with Tim’s role in government, we were brought into conversations about diversity and equity in the K–12 system,” Walz said. “We wanted someone to facilitate discussions in a way that would honor all voices, and without thinking twice, we reached out to Augsburg President Paul Pribbenow. We had seen and heard that he is a man of the moment who gets things done and achieves meaningful outcomes.”

The Walzes asked Pribbenow to join a task force to address issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in Rochester schools. This experience, Walz said, “changed everything.” It’s why she overlooked other job offers to accept Pribbenow’s invitation to work for Augsburg in 2019.

“We speak the same language,” Walz said. “President Pribbenow is focused on the right priorities, and he approaches work with integrity and a collaborative, empowering spirit. He’s not afraid to take creative risks, and he embodies what makes Augsburg so incredibly special.”

When Pribbenow asked Walz to consider working for Augsburg, he hadn’t settled on a job title. He told her: “There is nothing you can’t do, but you will figure it out when you get here. I have some ideas, but I am confident you will see and do the work in front of you.”

“His belief in me reminded me of the belief Augsburg had in my mother, and I was sold,” Walz said. “He and I both knew we had a lot to work out, but he knew I had something to offer the university, and I was eager to continue to serve and work as an educator.

“My mom always used to say, ‘Do the work that is in front of you,’ and as a child, I thought she meant the dishes,” Walz laughed. “Here, I have an opportunity to do that work alongside leaders who aren’t afraid to take on difficult conversations and opportunities.”

The Augsburg community, Walz said, is made up of administrators, faculty, staff, and students who say, “‘We are not going to just talk about the work, we are going to do the work, and not only do the work but lead the work.’ The university empowers students and reminds us there is not always one way to do things.”

A ‘confident disruptor’

Walz said her work—both at Augsburg and as first lady of Minnesota—is not about power; it’s about responsibility.

“My first question to myself and others is always, ‘Whom do we serve?’ The answer can change, but in my work at Augsburg, it’s mostly focused on students. My role affords me the ability to make connections for people and to cut through red tape,” Walz said.

She was integral in implementing the Auggie Pass, an all-you-can ride transit pass for eligible Augsburg students to access the city’s buses and light-rail trains, even during breaks. She has also helped build connections between campus programs and state agencies to offer internships and experiential learning opportunities.

“One effort I am particularly excited about is my work with the provost to encourage voting among our students and to educate them about the safety of our voting systems,” Walz said. “The Higher Education Act of 1965 requires universities to hand out voter registration cards, but there is no funding or enforcement mechanism. We are looking to weave these and other civic engagement and education efforts into the Augsburg experience.”

As director of the Sabo Center, Elaine Eschenbacher works directly with Walz to integrate civic and community engagement, experiential education, and democracy building into the Augsburg experience.

“I appreciate and admire Gwen’s capacity and interest in going deep on a topic. She is a learner who aims to know more than surface-level information,” Eschenbacher said. “She encourages us to be ‘confident disruptors’ of systems that don’t serve people, particularly the most vulnerable. I wrote that term on a note and had it on my desk for a long time.”

Eschenbacher added that Walz increases the university’s access to people and systems. “People answer her phone calls,” Eschenbacher said. “But more importantly, Gwen brings deep knowledge of education that empowers students to fully realize their potential. She brings rich experience in navigating and creating change, and she brings a deep commitment and clear vision for equity in education.”

Equity in the classroom

Walz’s work also focuses on teacher education. One of her first meetings at Augsburg was with Audrey Lensmire, an associate professor of education and the founding director of the former East African Student to Teacher Program (EAST), now known as the Thrive Program. Walz wanted to learn more about the program’s work to empower East Africans and other BIPOC students to become licensed teachers. More than 100 students have benefitted from the program since 2013.

Lensmire reflected on that first meeting: “When I walked into her office, I was shaking a bit. I didn’t know what to call her. It seemed so weird to call someone ‘first lady,’ but she told me to call her Gwen. She asked great questions, listened carefully, and took lots of notes, and I quickly realized how lucky Augsburg is to have her. … I introduced her to scholars and teachers because she wanted to hear their stories and needs. We began to share our own histories and experiences, and we became friends.”

The two developed a graduate course called Connecting Policy, Practice, and Advocacy for Educational Equity. It combines their shared loves of writing, teacher empowerment, and policy change. In 2020, Lensmire and Walz began co-teaching the course, which has become a core class in the Master of Education program.

Lensmire said Walz has taught her a lot about research, advocacy, and complications within government systems. Walz is honest and thoughtful, Lensmire said, and has even given her daughter, a second-year Auggie, lots of advice and green Jolly Ranchers.

‘A remarkable advocate’

Pribbenow said it’s impressive how Walz gracefully balances her dual roles at the university, while also investing and connecting personally with students in the classroom. He benefits from her “keen eye” in navigating complex political circumstances to advance the university’s vision.

“Gwen has proven to be a remarkable advocate for our students and our mission,” he said. “Her work on community engagement projects is always insightful and focused on moving work forward. Her partnership with our education department to prepare teachers of color for our public schools brings both her educational experience and her advocacy skills to bear on this critical effort.”

Her presence, Pribbenow said, is a model for the Augsburg community. Walz is unlike any other first lady in state history, with an office in the Capitol and a robust policy portfolio focused on education. Yet she keeps her faith in focus, and she’s maintained a “Minnesota nice” that often emerges from the oven.

“Four days before the election, we took a bus around to various stops to thank people who worked on the campaign. I didn’t have a speaking role at these stops, but I wanted to convey my personal thanks and honor their time and hard work,” Walz said. “I rolled up my sleeves and called all my volleyball moms and friends over to the residence, and we baked 1,400 gingersnaps from my grandmother’s recipe and packaged them with a note from me. Small gestures matter, and I love sharing a bit of myself with others.”

Walz said she hopes her personal approach to leadership shows students they can achieve professional success while also prioritizing family and faith. Those priorities brought her to Augsburg, and they will continue to drive her work for the university.

“I can fall into the trap of always wishing I could do more, give more, or be better. But I wake up each morning with devotions to center myself and acknowledge that I am doing what I can, with what I have, to the best of my ability,” Walz said. “It’s a privilege to be here now, working with Augsburg to help educate students to achieve their potential and—together—make a difference in this world.”

That is work worth doing, she said, and it’s right in front of us.

Top image: Gwen Walz talks with the Augsburg community, January 2023 (Photo by Courtney Perry)

The post An educator and catalyst for change appeared first on Augsburg Now.

Three Augsburg students walked into the office of Joyce Anderson Pfaff ’65Ěýin the fall of 1972. “When are volleyball tryouts?” they asked the health and physical education instructor. Pfaff didn’t have the heart to tell them there was no women’s team. “Two o’clock on Tuesday,” she responded, “But only if you can recruit enough women to support a team.” To her surprise, more than a dozen women—enough for a varsity and junior varsity—showed up.

“And that’s how I became Augsburg’s first women’s volleyball coach,” said Pfaff, who had never coached the game but “was enthusiastic and a great organizer,” she added.

“The women had played in high school, and they were very good. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know much about the sport. I lined up competitions and organized a practice schedule,” said Pfaff, Augsburg’s first women’s athletic director. “They wore their physical education uniforms until we sold enough concessions at men’s games to buy fabric that one of the teammates, Marilyn Pearson Florian ’76, sewed into uniforms.”

The team ranked third in the state that year, and “I realized they needed a real coach,” said Pfaff, who paid Mary Timm $500 a year to guide the team in 1973. Timm was able to accept that wage because she had a full-time job as a day care supervisor. Timm used vacation time to travel with the team, which earned a perfect 8-0 record at home that year.

This year marks 50 years since Augsburg volleyball’s storied start, and 50 years since the passage of Title IX, the landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or education program that receives funding from the federal government.

First class of all-female Hall of Famers

To honor decades of female Auggies who broke barriers, the university will induct its first class of all-female student-athletes into the Hall of Fame during Homecoming Weekend, October 6–7. Pfaff will receive the Legend of Augsburg Athletics Award before joining other trailblazing Auggies at the dedication of the renovated women’s locker room in Si Melby Hall. The locker room will be named in honor of Augsburg Hall of Famer Patricia Piepenburg ’69, a member of the fabled “Auggiettes” women’s basketball team, which dominated local teams from the 1950s to early ’70s.

“It’s about time,” Pfaff said, unapologetically. Female student-athletes like Pipenburg, Pfaff said, climbed over and busted down walls. “It’s time for us to dedicate some walls to them.”

Pfaff’s husband interjected from the other room: “Tell her about going to court.”

Pfaff called to mind yet another milestone in her storied career: “The volleyball team got second in state, but the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women said we couldn’t go to regionals because we hadn’t paid national dues yet. So, we took AIAW to court in 1975. I was called in to testify and thought I should have a title. I called President (Oscar A.) Anderson, and he agreed I could say I was the women’s athletic director, which was nice, since I had been doing the job for three years. I joke that I had to go to court to get my title.”

A powerhouse for progress

The title stuck, and Pfaff stuck around, too, until 1988. During and since her tenure, Augsburg Athletics has evolved as a leading supporter of women’s sports. In 1995, Augsburg added the first varsity women’s hockey team in the Midwest, and was among the first to add women’s lacrosse in 2014. Women’s wrestling—another first in the Midwest—followed in 2019. In 2020, the Minnesota Coalition of Women in Athletic Leadership awarded Augsburg with a Breaking Barriers Award, and the MIAC celebrated Augsburg for employing the most female coaches in the conference.

Athletic Director Jeff Swenson ’79 said the university supports more women’s teams (12) than men’s (10), and the athletic department works hard to create an equitable, forward-thinking, and inclusive culture. The women’s locker room remodel, he added, is a fitting upgrade during this momentous year.

“The women’s locker room was constructed in 1979 in what was formerly a dirt-floor batting cage known as ‘the pit.’ Prior to that time, the women’s teams used the men’s visiting team locker room, which was often a scheduling nightmare,” he said. “The renovation includes much-needed improvements to the shower and restroom facilities, and each of Augsburg’s women’s teams will have their own year-round team room, so our female student-athletes will finally have a place to call home.”

Junior Samaiya Buchanan ’24 is among Augsburg’s more than 170 female student-athletes who cannot wait to set foot in the newly renovated space. A commuter student, Buchanan said she plans to hang out in the locker rooms between classes and basketball practices to study or bond with teammates. Upgrading women’s spaces to rival those of men’s facilities, the 5’4” guard said, speaks to how much the university values their hard work, dedication, and success.

“The renovation, particularly during this Title IX milestone, reminds our generation to keep setting the bar high and to not let society separate us or treat us unequally because we are women,” said Buchanan, a business marketing and management major. “We need to keep exposing the differences between men’s and women’s sports and keep performing and perfecting our skills to show that we are just as dedicated and capable.”

‘It’s about heart’

But when Buchanan and others look back on their own experiences in sports and the stories of those who came before them, they don’t dwell on facilities. “Being a female student-athlete is about heart,” Buchanan said. “It’s tough to balance your grades as you work to be a positive, hardworking, and thriving athlete and maintain your mental health and friendships—all while often having to prove yourself a bit more than your male peers. Having heart keeps you motivated to keep thriving and pushing yourself to stay in it no matter what, not only for yourself but for your program, your team, and those around you.”

Pfaff is thrilled to see the same indomitable spirit in today’s female student-athletes as in generations past. Part of her calling now is keeping the memories and stories of those teams and players alive—like the first women to enter track and field events, and Augsburg’s first softball players, who ran bases on a field made using a parent’s tractor. People like golfer Kathy Korum ’81, who became the first female student-athlete to play and letter on a men’s varsity team.

Or Phyllis Acker ’61, who would wake up before dawn to sneak into the handball courts. “Sure enough, the men would come along and start banging on the door to kick us out because their handball tournament was more urgent than ours,” she explained. “We just ignored them until we were all done playing, and then we’d sneak out.”

Or Jane Helmke ’81, who brought female student-athletes across sports to form the Augsburg Women’s Athletic Club in 1974. Helmke, a journalism student, also wrote and published a newsletter to update alumni and friends about women’s athletics at Augsburg.

In the August 1984 edition, Helmke provided updates about the first tennis courts and an ode to LaVonne Johnson Peterson ’50, or “Ma Pete” to most. Peterson earned a bachelor’s degree from Augsburg before beginning her 30-year teaching career and 18-year basketball coaching stint at Augsburg. Helmke wrote that Peterson, who coached basketball for 18 years, personally paid officials’ wages and bought players charm bracelets with charms for each year of play, in lieu of the letters female student-athletes were unable to earn until 1989.

‘We’ve come a long way’

None of the student-athletes in this year’s Hall of Fame were yet born in 1982, when Pfaff joined other area women’s athletic directors in penning a request to join the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC). “Conference leaders never invited us, but nobody protested the letter, so we considered it official,” she added.

“We’ve come a long way,” said Melissa Lee ’04, Augsburg’s head softball coach and associate athletic director. Lee joined the coaching staff in 2004, after competing in every inning of every game during her four-year career; she has spent more years at Augsburg than in her childhood home and hometown. “The 50th anniversary is not about the current day or the end result; it is about the journey through the past, the present, and the future. It is about the battles, trials, and triumphs of the process, which is why we will celebrate this fall together and every day.”

Lee said the student-athletes are why she shows up each day. “They fight, advocate for, support, cheer, and challenge each other, every team, and our whole department. This induction means so much to me, and I am so humbled by the honor,” she said. “Our female student-athletes recognize our strong history of leadership and step up when new opportunities emerge on the horizon. I have no doubt they will continue to lead and create change.”

Auggies inspire the next generation

Alaska native Melynda (Kleewein) Belde ’05Ěýis teaching the next generation of athletes as the middle grades’ physical education and wellness teacher at St. Paul Academy and Summit School in St. Paul. Belde said she was tremendously grateful for Augsburg’s progressive outlook and familial support. Her teammates were her best friends. She met her husband, Steve Belde ’05, on the ice at the Ed Saugestad Rink. “Going to Augsburg was the best decision of my life,” she said.

“I was the first person in my family to go to college, and I am thankful my teammates and coaches welcomed me with open arms and allowed me to spend weekends and holidays with their families, since I was away from home,” said Belde, who played hockey and softball for four years and soccer for two. “I get to go to work every day to a job I love—teaching game play, teamwork, and attitude to the next generation.”

Annie Annunziato ’04 said she has been thrilled to watch female athletic teams continue to break barriers and become more popular with fans. Growing up in New York, she and her sister were the only girls she knew who played hockey and mostly played with boy’s teams. Today, there are several girls’ teams in the area.

“It’s still a fight, though—see the U.S. women’s soccer battle for equal pay as an example. And hockey continues to be a sport that is rarely accessed by people who come from communities with lower socioeconomic status and communities of color, which is incredibly problematic.”

Grateful for trailblazers

Angela (Bergeson) LawrenceĚý’06, who ran cross country and track, recalls first hearing about Katherine Switzer, the first woman to enter and run the Boston Marathon in 1967. She disguised herself as a man at the start of the race, and when officials realized she was a woman, they tried to remove her from the field. But male racers formed a circle around Switzer to protect her.

Bergeson, who has since run the Boston Marathon herself, said, “being allowed to run was never something that I had to think about, and I am grateful for it.” That gratefulness, Bergeson said, is what she took away as her greatest lesson from Augsburg: “Everyone around me was so grateful and always encouraging and empowering, lifting up other’s strengths as we set lofty goals and worked extremely hard, as individuals and as a team, to achieve something greater than we initially thought possible.”

That drive, grit, and gratefulness is what led many of these female student-athletes to inspire and achieve in competition and in life. It’s a mindset, Pfaff said, that Augsburg will continue to fuel in generations of athletes to come, sure to move the needle even closer to equality.

Meet the 2022 Augsburg Athletic Hall of Fame Class

Annie Annunziato ’04 (Hockey) played two seasons of hockey at Augsburg. She was named an AHCA All-American from the West Region in 2003–04, among many honors. Her combined college career stats (104 games): 62 goals with 91 assists for 153 points.

Tonnisha (Bell) Russell ’06 (Track and Field) was the 2006 co-Senior Athlete of the Year. One of the most decorated track and field athletes in school history, Russell continues to hold the following records: indoor 55-meter dash (7.08 seconds), indoor long jump (5.50m/18-feet-0.5), and outdoor 200-meter dash (24.38 seconds).

Angela (Bergeson) LawrenceĚý’06 (Cross Country/Track and Field) earned All-MIAC honors in cross country and is part of six track and field records: the outdoor 800-meter run, outdoor 3,200-meter relay, outdoor distance medley relay, outdoor 3,520-yard relay, indoor distance medley relay, and the indoor 1,500-meter run.

Melynda (Kleewein) Belde ’05Ěý(Hockey/Softball/Soccer) was named All-MIAC defender in 2002–03, 2003–04, and 2004–05, with an All-MIAC Honorable Mention in 2001–02. In softball, she played four seasons as an outfielder and catcher. She also played soccer in 2002, with one goal and one assist in nine games.

Melissa Lee ’04 (Softball/Basketball) was an Honor Athlete and All-MIAC in 2004. Considered one of the top third basemen in program history, she started all 141 of her career games. The two-season basketball player has served as a health and physical education instructor and athletic department administrator at Augsburg since 2004 (softball assistant coach from 2004 to 2016 and head coach since 2017).

Millie Suk ’06 (Soccer) was a Senior Honor Athlete in 2006 and an All-MIAC athlete all four years of her career. She played in 67 career games, setting school records for total points (93, now fourth in school history) and goals (38, now third), among others.

Legend of Augsburg Athletics Award

JoyceĚýAnderson Pfaff ’65 was inducted into the Augsburg Athletic Hall of Fame in 1991 and received the Augsburg Distinguished Alumni Award in 2009. She began her 43-year teaching career in health and physical education at Augsburg in 1966, during which time she became Augsburg’s first women’s intercollegiate athletic director in 1972, serving until 1988. She was Augsburg’s first volleyball and gymnastics coach, and led the establishment of basketball, softball, tennis, track and field, cross country, and soccer as women’s varsity intercollegiate sports.

about these and other members of Augsburg’s Hall of Fame.

Top image: Joyce Anderson Pfaff ’65 and the 2022-23 Augsburg volleyball team hold up their hands showing ’50’ to denote the 50 years since the passage of Title IX.

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Brian Alfred said no teacher had seen him before the sixth grade. The young Black boy had transferred districts because he felt overlooked at his previous school: “I was rarely called on, and when I gave answers, they were somehow never right. I asked for help that never came, and I got in trouble for little things. I felt like I had messed up before each day started. I began to lose respect for myself and others.”

But he got a fresh start with Keenan Jones ’13, in whose classroom he saw a man who shared his skin color, who talked in a familiar cadence, who picked books with Black faces and related class to his life. “He also cared for us,” said Alfred, now a high school sophomore. “Mr. Jones always had our backs, even when we made mistakes. He called us and emailed our parents. He was and still is my champion.”

Jones refused to let Alfred and other Black boys at L.H. Tanglen Elementary School in Minnetonka, Minnesota, become a statistic. He refused to watch them become faces of his past: “Guys I grew up with, who ate pancakes at my house, who I had sleepovers with and who lived next door ended up going down negative paths, while I was playing basketball and going to class,” said Jones. “They were no different from me, but here I am and there they are, struggling against a tall brick wall of injustice.”

Jones expanded his outreach beyond the classroom in 2018, when he co-founded Hopkins Educators of Color, a mentorship group focused on recruitment and retention within the Hopkins Public Schools district. He formed the Tanglen Lunch Scholars for fifth- and sixth-grade Black boys to connect with and learn from young Black men in college. This mentoring experiment, which partnered with the Black Male Success Initiative, fueled more outreach.ĚýIn late August, Jones transitioned to a new role for Wayzata Public Schools. As the district’s family engagement specialist, Jones will support students and families of marginalized communities—a role, Jones said, he has been building toward his entire life.

‘With education comes power’

In 2019, Jones began advising the Minnesota Children’s Cabinet, advocating for teacher diversity and sharing strategies to empower and better educate Black boys. The following year—with three kids, a full-time job, and the COVID-19 pandemic—Jones founded Literacy for Freedom, a nonprofit for Black males in grades 5–12 that focuses on literacy, empowerment, social justice, and social/emotional health.

In 2020 he began working with Black Men Teach, which aims to recruit, prepare, place, and retain Black male teachers in elementary schools.

“Listen, young Black boys are not dreaming about carjacking and acting out in school. They are no different from children of any other color, but the statistics speak to the processes, structures, and often unconscious biases in our society that keep these boys down,” he said. “When you constantly receive messages that you are bad, dangerous, and dumb, you can easily become those things. America and our world could be so much more if we empowered and supported these boys and their hopes and dreams.”

Among its range of programs, Literacy for Freedom holds a mentorship group on select Saturdays from October to May at The Depot Coffee House in Hopkins, Minnesota. For about two hours, tables of fifth- to 12th-graders share short- and long-term academic goals, discussing topics like hip hop culture, identity, mental health, and microaggressions. They track and talk about the books they have read and challenge each other to maintain at least a 3.0 GPA. In the fall, Jones will expand the mentorship program to two groups, one for grades 5–8 and one for grades 9–12.

“At Literacy for Freedom, we teach and reinforce critical and media literacy as strategies in collaborative settings that help to strengthen identity and to build a knowledge base that will help combat systemic racism,” said Jones of the nonprofit, which also brings Black boys together for community service, social events, and college tours.

Jones’ focus on literacy comes from his belief that if you can’t read, you cannot fully participate in and meaningfully contribute to society. “It’s no mystery why masters kept their slaves from reading,” Jones said. “With education comes power.”

“I remember how I felt when I started reading texts by Black authors about Black lives. They opened up my world to possibility and hope,” said Jones, who, for a time, was the only Black male elementary school educator in the Hopkins district, which serves nearly 2,000 Black students. “It’s amazing what happens when you put culturally relevant texts into the hands of these kids, and you give them choices about what they read, and you relate the reading to their lives, and you form community around learning and success.”

Jahmier Smith, a sophomore at Eagan High School, joined Literacy for Freedom for that community. Smith met Jones while the boy’s father was serving two years in prison. Many of his teachers, Smith said, treated him differently: “They take their time explaining things to white students, but don’t have the same care with Black students and see us in a bad light.” But not Mr. Jones.

“Mr. Jones was there for me, and I could talk to him about it and anything else,” said Smith, who wants to be a defense lawyer. “Now through Literacy for Freedom, there’s always someone I can talk to about anything—to help me focus on all my goals and provide me with opportunities to learn and become whatever I want in life. I am so grateful.”

A 2017 study showed low-income Black boys who had at least one Black teacher in grades three through five were 29% more likely to say they were considering college, and 39% less likely to drop out of high school.

Jones turned to Augsburg for support

Before Literacy for Freedom was a fully formed idea, Jones was certain he would find a literacy-focused nonprofit for young Black boys that he could simply join. Nope. He found area nonprofits that support Black boys and girls, and he found nonprofits focused on literacy, but he didn’t find anything specifically focused on literacy as a way to close the education gap among Black boys and their white peers.

The research is lacking as well. In 2021, the Journal of Language & Literacy Education published the first research study to examine literacy practices specifically for Black boys across the entire preschool through 12th-grade pipeline with regard to both reading and writing. Jones said he can’t solve all the interconnected and complex factors limiting Black boys, but he can tackle what he sees as the most critical disparity, with roughly 6% of 12th-grade Black males reading at proficiency and 1% reading at an advanced level, according to 2019 National Assessment of Education Progress data.

As he grew the organization, Jones reached out to “the best of the best,” he said, for guidance and support. While attending Augsburg, Jones had never met Terrance Kwame-Ross, associate professor of education, but Jones had read his research and writing about the education and development of Black boys.

“Dr. Kwame-Ross gave me support and purpose,” Jones said. “I called this influential thought-leader, and he took the time to share resources with me, suggest conferences, and talk with me about my ideas and vision. It was powerful, and our conversations gave me the confidence and connections to kickstart Literacy for Freedom.”

Kwame-Ross picked up the phone because he knows this work can be lonely. Some people don’t see the problems, others ignore them, and more have opinions that stomp out your spirit. The red tape and a lack of resources can be crippling. But it is work worth doing, Kwame-Ross said, and Jones is an ideal leader.

“He’s been in these students’ shoes,” Kwame-Ross said. “As a Black male in education, you recognize the importance of role modeling, networking, belonging, and fellowship. Keenan and I had deep and practical conversations about Black males and how learning attached to reading, literacy, and freedom can deliver long-lasting and powerful results for young Black males, their families, communities, neighborhoods, schools, and society as a whole.”

‘Black males are left behind’

Kwame-Ross said this work is not only for the Jones’ of the world. “Young Black males are American citizens and deserve the same rights and equality as all other demographic populations,” he said.

“In most all categories that nation-states use to measure the wellbeing of their citizens, Black males are left behind, while being overly represented in prison and as police targets in killings,” he added. “America, and all of its citizens, has some responsibility for the historical, social, and current realities of young Black males as their personal troubles are, in fact, public issues.”

Jones said he has been overwhelmed by the response from the community since forming Literacy for Freedom. Black men are volunteering to help him build the organization, and he secured grant funds to support part-time staff. Following a November 2021 article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, legislators began taking his calls, and other nonprofits have reached out to partner. He received letters and calls of support, including from an “80-year-old white lady who said she was tired of reading about Black boys winding up in prison. ‘I don’t have social media or a cell phone,’ she told me, ‘But I would love to sit and read with your boys.’”

“It’s these people,” Jones said, “who take time to remind you this work matters and who offer what little or great support they can, that keep you going when the going gets tough. They are a blessing and make me feel like we are moving the needle.”

His success feels like luck

Jones never thought he would be pictured in a suit above a full-page article in a major metropolitan newspaper. Born and raised in Indiana before moving outside Chicago, Jones was labeled a troublemaker at school, dreamed of NBA stardom, and had friends in gangs. When Ford Motor Credit offered his dad a job, the family moved to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, to start over.

“I think back on my life, and I wish I could say that my success was more than luck, but I’m not so sure. One wrong decision here or one less person who cared there, and I might be in jail or worse,” Jones said. “I knew and still know many friends and family who are as smart and driven as me who didn’t make it.”

Jones enjoyed a successful basketball career at Osseo High School, which led him to play for two junior colleges in Maryland and Tennessee. He transferred to the University of Minnesota–Duluth but sustained a career-ending injury prior to his junior year. He was depressed and directionless, graduating with an associate’s degree in 2008 before working as a paraprofessional for Robbinsdale Area Schools.

That same year, he began assisting his former basketball coach, Tim Theisen ’93, who is a teacher and coach for the Osseo School District. Jones saw how Theisen—an Augsburg Hall of Famer—balanced coaching and teaching. With Theisen’s prodding, he enrolled in the Augsburg Weekend College program.

He met his now wife, Lisa, during this time. She was a Spanish teacher at Robbinsdale Armstrong High School, and she saw Jones operate with students and also validated his educational aspirations. The two married in 2014, the year after Jones became a licensed teacher and started his first job as a fourth-grade teacher at Robbinsdale.

“When I was at Augsburg, it was one of the roughest times in my life. I was a single dad, putting myself through school while working. At one point, I lost an apartment and didn’t have a car, but I knew I had to keep going. Augsburg professors and staff gave me hope. They saw that I could make something of myself and connected me with resources at Augsburg, like the food shelf, and with support in the community. I am forever grateful.”

‘Just think if everyone did something to make a difference’

One such supporter was Barbara West, who retired in March 2021 as instructor of education and faculty coordinator of teacher placement and licensingĚýat Augsburg. Jones said, “she saw me as a talented young man she was not going to let fall through the cracks.” The grandmother of nine offered words of wisdom, helped him identify financial resources, and followed up with him to make sure he met deadlines. West said Jones is an inspiration.

“What a fine young man,” said West, who walked to the “colored school” until the third grade, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled school segregation unconstitutional in Brown vs. Board of Education.

“Just think what our world would look like if everyone did something to make a difference like Keenan. He isn’t overwhelmed by systemic, lasting issues,” West said. “He gets that standardized tests are biased against people of color and that a person cannot make it in society without learning to read—to understand—and feeling empowered to verbalize your thoughts,” she added.

“He understands that when you are fighting for survival, those things don’t seem as important, and you may act out. And when you do, our society labels you and you get cast aside,” West added. “But Keenan isn’t casting people aside. He hasn’t given up, and he isn’t going to give up when things look impossible. He has the perfect combination of lived experiences, research, and heart to dramatically improve academic and life outcomes for Black male students.”

‘This work can’t stop’

During her 24-year tenure at Augsburg, West was involved with cross-campus efforts to draw prospective teachers of color. “Everyone wants them, but they don’t grow on trees,” she said. “Augsburg tried its hardest, but the issue is deeper and starts long before college admissions. If Black children have a bad experience at school—we don’t call on them, they get in trouble more, etc.—then they aren’t going to want to be schoolteachers. And if they don’t see more Black professionals in all fields, then they won’t imagine themselves as teachers or much of anything else. It’s an uphill battle.”

Jones and his colleagues are on those front lines—working from preschool through high school to imagine a more inclusive, fulfilling future. In May, Hopkins Schools hosted its first Black Male Summit as a way to support and empower young Black males in grades 6–12. A total of 68 students participated in the event from Hopkins and surrounding communities like Wayzata, Robbinsdale, and Mounds View.

“We are invested in providing opportunities and pathways for young Black boys, and this is the start of more things to come,” Jones said. “Each boy matters. You connect with and see a change in one student, and you feel like you’ve changed the world. This work can’t and won’t stop.”

Brian Alfred feels that. He doesn’t want to let Jones down, and he is determined to be a role model for future generations.

“I am going to play basketball for Duke and go into computer science,” Alfred said with confidence. “This experience has taught me perseverance and that all of us need to find that one person who is never going to give up on you. It has taught me to avoid temptation, strive for greatness, and not let others define you.”

Jones agrees. Early in his career, a colleague gave him a compliment: “Oh, you have such great rapport with your students as a tall Black man. Do you think it’s because they are scared of you or because they think you’re cool, like an NBA star?”

He forced a smile and walked away.

But his inner dialogue replied: “No,” I thought. “I have a good rapport with my students because I do lots of research about pedagogy, and I work hard to understand and connect with them. I present them with culturally relevant texts and hands-on, practical learning. I praise them, give them choice, and hold them to high expectations. That is why I have a good rapport with my students.”

These types of comments, Jones said, fuel him—”to go harder, do more research, and make more of a difference.”

Top image: Keenan Jones ’13, founder and executive director of Literacy for Freedom. (Photo by Rebecca Slater)

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Minneapolis native Jack Osberg ’62 played football from the time he was a kid in the alleys and parks of Minneapolis until his college years, and he entered Augsburg’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1979. He taught high school biology for 30 years and coached high school and college football for 60. About 22 of those years were at Augsburg, where he compiled a school-record 62 victories and, in 1997, led the team to its first Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship since 1928. At 81, he continues to assist Augsburg’s defensive line and personally connect with students.

Everyone who knows former Augsburg football coach Jack Osberg has a story:

“This giant offensive lineman got a concussion during practice, and I was doing the evaluation,” said Missy Strauch, Augsburg head athletic trainer and athletics health care administrator. “Jack waited because he wanted to drive the student home, and when I left the building, the two were sitting on the steps. The young man was sobbing. Jack sat there, listening. Come to find out the student was the sole caregiver for his mother, who was dealing with Alzheimer’s. Jack and his wife, Nina, checked on the student every day, and they are still in touch. That’s Jack. He coached these students to become better players, but he guided them—by example—to become even better people.”

“Jack is a lifelong friend, and someone anyone—no matter their age—looks up to because he works so hard and cares so deeply about everyone, whether you are the starting quarterback or the third string,” said Jim Roback ’63, who met Osberg on the first day of classes at Augsburg in 1958. “I’ve played and coached with him, and there isn’t a more genuine, collaborative person who can pull out the best in anyone. You never worked for Jack, you worked with him.”

“He was a father figure to us,” said Augsburg Football Head Coach Derrin Lamker ’97. “I’ll never forget when I was quarterback, and we were getting ready for our championship game. I walked into Jack’s office, and he and Nina were reviewing a list of our parents’ names. I was like, ‘Coach, what are you doing? We’re getting ready to play the game of our lives.’ He said, ‘You worry about the game; we want to be able to greet [the student-athletes’] parents by name.’ Well, we won the championship, and they greeted each parent by name.”

“I’ve been taking notes from Jack since my first day of zoology class when he was a biology teacher at Wayzata High School,” said former Augsburg Women’s Hockey Head Coach Jill Pohtilla. “I recall overhearing him with a recruit. He told the young man, ‘Augsburg is not built with bricks and mortar; it’s built with people,’ and that’s how Jack lived—recognizing that people drive success. So whether it’s athletics or life, you surround yourself with people who make you better.”

“We had just won the [MIAC] championship in 1997. Nearly everyone had left, but four of us were cleaning up the locker room,” said Ted Schultz ’98, the student activities director for Minnetonka Public Schools in Minnesota. “Jack walked in with an old boom box. He pulled out a cassette tape from his back pocket and popped it in. ‘We Are the Champions’ by Queen played out. Jack said, ‘I’ve been waiting to do that my entire life,’ and we all just sat and listened.”

“Jack regularly drove 40 minutes to watch my son’s high school football games. My son, Kyle, was 125 pounds, but he played with heart, like I did, and Jack loves that,” said Michael Weidner ’83, a former defensive end. “Think about that. My college football coach cares enough about me and my family to show that kind of support, and consider the thousands of people he’s coached or taught and showed the same devotion and support.”

“When I heard an 81-year-old was coming to work with our defensive line, a part of me thought, ‘What can this guy teach us? How will we relate?’” said Shaquille Young ’23, a third-year social work major. “Well, I learned you can’t let stereotypes get in the way of learning something new. Coach Osberg is one of the greatest people I have met in my life. He knows football like he invented it, and he makes everyone feel welcome and supported.”

The first quarter

Osberg was born in 1940, when football players wore leather helmets. Football was everything to Osberg and his friends, who passed and blocked in the alleys of Minneapolis. In fifth grade, he entered club sports and church group leagues, which were 15 minutes from Augsburg’s campus. Osberg worshiped with Auggie professors and coaches, so when it came time to attend college, there was no other choice.

“I was the first to go to college in my family,” Osberg said. “My father was a hardworking man, but he disliked his job working in basements as a lithographer. He wanted us to lead a better life, and I saw my future in those professors and coaches. I knew Augsburg was the place to improve my spiritual, athletic, and academic self.”

The graduate of Minneapolis’ Washburn High School became a standout football player at Augsburg from 1958 to 1961, earning induction into the college’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1979. A nose guard/offensive guard, Osberg was named All-MIAC twice and selected as MVP, team captain, and Lutheran All-American. He also played baseball his freshman year and wrestled for three years.

Osberg didn’t live on campus—he couldn’t afford it. Commuting, Osberg formed a bond with other students from hardworking city families who put themselves through school sorting mail at the post office or loading shotgun shells onto railcars. The gang of about 12, mostly student-athletes, called themselves “The Syndicate” because they would “sometimes skip required chapel [services] to shoot the bull at Smiley’s Pub,” Osberg said.

Since graduation in 1962, the crew has gathered each year for a fall picnic and holiday party. Jim Roback ’63 is one of the core Syndicate members who played football, baseball (as captain), and track at Augsburg. He also coached with Osberg, serving as Augsburg’s defensive coordinator from 1995 to 2001 and 2006 to 2007, with a 2002 season stint as offensive coordinator.

“I taught and coached for 46 years, and I thought that was a long time. Jack just keeps on going,” said Roback, who taught and coached football, basketball, baseball, track, and women’s tennis in the Anoka-Hennepin School District for 34 years. “Jack worked every minute of the day, and when he wasn’t working, he was having lunch with a group of students in his office or helping them through this or that.”

Another Syndicate member—also a teacher—coached alongside Roback and Osberg. Ron Scott ’62 met Jack during college registration and joined him on the offensive line as a three-year, letter-winning center and blocker. From 1997 to 2002, Scott served as an assistant football coach at Augsburg.

“Jack is not a boss; he is a leader, and he motivates people by example—never yelling, but showing and guiding. Whether you were playing or working for him, you didn’t want to disappoint him,” said Scott, who retired in 1997 after 36 years coaching football and working as a teacher or administrator for the Anoka-Hennepin School District. “Jack never gave up on those Auggies. Whether winning or losing, his attitude never changed.”

The second quarter

Osberg loves football, but he is adamant the sport does not define him. He is equally passionate about teaching. “I’m not sure if I was meant to coach and teach or teach and coach,” he added. “I loved coaching full-time at Augsburg, but the high school science classroom always tugged at me. I love the living world, and there is something about teaching kids at that age and really digging into science with them.”

He loved the challenge of figuring out ways to engage all students in biology, developing activities for all learning styles and covering a range of topics to motivate students beyond grades.

“Teaching helps you appreciate the impact you—as a single human being—can have on a person, and I was OK never knowing my impact because students move on, and you may never reconnect with them. But I’ve had enough students, some of them doctors or scientists, who have reached out to tell me how my classes and outlook helped them find their passionate purpose.”

Osberg began his teaching (and coaching) career immediately after graduation from Augsburg. He served as a biology teacher and assistant football coach at Minneapolis’ Roosevelt High School from 1962 to 1970, taking one year off in 1968 to serve as a graduate assistant onĚýBob Devaney’sĚýstaff at Nebraska University. “That’s where I really learned my x’s and o’s in football,” Osberg said, “but it is where I also learned that I wasn’t made for a large program. I needed a more personal experience with players. For me, coaching is about more than the game.”

In 1971, Osberg was named head coach at Wayzata High School in Plymouth, Minnesota, where he served for six seasons. It was in the teacher’s lounge at Wayzata where he overheard a fellow teacher, Nina, talking with the school counselor about alcoholism’s effect on relationships. Alcohol dissolved Osberg’s first marriage, which had left him raising three kids under the age of 5, so he joined the conversation, which eventually developed into a larger support group. Osberg grew close to Nina, who guided Wayzata’s alternative education program for 28 years. In November 1976, the two married and blended their family of six children.

“She is a 4-foot-7-inch spark plug,” Osberg said of Nina. “She dealt with difficult kids all day, then came home to manage our family, then she’d help me with recruitment and other administrative duties. She was a mother to many Augsburg players who needed guidance, and she was a friend to so many of their parents.”

Osberg recalls asking Nina to join him on a recruiting trip after school because she would “always seal the deal,” he said. Osberg realized on the drive that Tomah, Wisconsin, was a bit farther than he thought. The couple drove three hours through a snowstorm to stand on an unheated concrete floor and watch the recruit play hockey. They thawed over snacks and coffee at the recruit’s home. “We didn’t get home until 3 a.m., and it was a school night, but she never complained, and that athlete came to Augsburg,” said Osberg, who taught high school while serving part-time as an assistant football coach at Augsburg from 1977 to 1984. “We were a great team.”

The third quarter

Nina continued to be “his everything” as Osberg transitioned to become Augsburg’s head football coach in 1991. The previous coach had been there five years and won four out of 50 games. “There weren’t many kids in the program, and they knew how to lose and blame someone else,” Osberg said. “It was difficult for them to look within, to find the gumption and confidence to believe they could turn the program around.”

Jack had that energy and belief, and then some. He recruited hard, even recruiting his own son, James “Jamie” Osberg ’95, who was set to play for Gustavus Adolphus College.

“That first year, Concordia was our last game, and they beat us 62-nothing. The next year, they were our last game, and they beat us 58-nothing. The next year, it was 28-nothing. Those kids’ senior year, we played Concordia our first game of the season, and we beat them 10 to seven. We did it. What a triumph.”

“Jack was not afraid to speak about faith and the larger picture of why we come together as a football team, and not many coaches lead with that during a recruitment visit. He was genuine and made the program feel like a family, which it was and continues to be,” said Ted Schultz. “If you break down any transformational coaching, it’s about relationships. Being able to connect with the players and make an impact and build a relationship beyond the field is what separates a good coach from a great one.”

Bob Schultz, the fifth-grade teacher at Kimberly Lane Elementary in the Wayzata School District, said he continues to reflect on Osberg, whether in his parenting, teaching, or coaching. Having been a teacher for 24 years and a high school football coach for 20, he knows both the challenges and the triumphs of the profession.

“Jack approached every day with purpose and energy,” said Bob, who earned conference honors as a linebacker for Augsburg. “He taught me to value every kid, no matter how well they played on the field. And he taught me to be vulnerable, as we saw him balance parenting and football.”

The Schultzes were part of the storied 1997 MIAC championship team along with current Augsburg Football Head Coach Derrin Lamker ’97.ĚýThe relationship between Lamker and Osberg sounds like a ping-pong match: Osberg coached Lamker in the ’90s, then Lamker worked for Osberg as an assistant coach at Augsburg from 1999 to 2002. When Lamker was football head coach at Osseo High School, Osberg came out of retirement to coach the Osseo line for eight years. In Fall 2020, Lamker recruited Osberg to help guide Augsburg’s defensive line.

“It was so humbling and exciting when Jack came to work for me at Osseo. I’d ask him for advice, and he would give it, but he was never overbearing,” said Lamker, who led Osseo to three conference championships in 11 years. “I was equally thrilled when he agreed to help coach Auggies in 2021. You might think ‘kids these days’ wouldn’t listen to an old guy, but they do. They soak up his energy and knowledge. He has this inspiringly subtle way of uniting coaches and players from different life experiences and backgrounds together for a common purpose.”

The fourth quarter

Auggie defensive lineman Shaquille Young ’23 said “old” doesn’t apply to Coach Osberg.

“He’s exciting to watch on the football field, running back and forth alongside the players, pushing us around, and the few times he yells, he never curses. One of the players knocked him over in practice, but he got right up and cracked a joke about the time his hip popped out of place.

“He has so much knowledge to offer our young minds,” Young said. “He’s one of the greatest individuals I have met in my life, with his ability to make everyone feel welcomed and valued. He brings his best every day, and if he can do it, so can we. He speaks, and we listen.”

But it’s not only what he says, Young said. Each day of practice, Osberg sets up a folding chair on the field for his wife, Nina, 77, who has Alzheimer’s disease. He is her sole caregiver. Lamker said the players and coaches see his devotion to her and are reminded of the fragility of life and the importance of relationships.

“It’s unbelievable how dedicated Jack is to Nina, watching her 24/7 during the COVID-19 pandemic. He’s living out the marriage vows—for better or worse,” Lamker said. “During games, she sits on the bench with players who are injured or not playing. They talk with and cheer alongside her. It’s really neat to see their connection to and love for her as well.”

Augsburg Athletic Director Jeff Swenson ’79 said the Jack-Nina bond is one for the record books, and he would know. Swenson worked alongside the powerhouse couple for more than 45 years: first as a student-athlete when he backed Auggie’s defensive line, as an assistant football coach for 10 years, as a colleague, and finally as a boss, when Swenson transitioned into administration in 2001. The shift in roles never altered their relationship, Swenson said. Jack’s ability to treat everyone with respect, honor, and dignity—regardless of roles—is the greatest lesson Swenson adopted from his coach.

“Jack is a living representation of Augsburg’s mission. He pushes everyone around him to give their best to meaningful pursuits, to be informed about the world and to make a difference where and when you can. He pushes people to lead with faith and value all people and what they bring to the table,” Swenson said. “When you meet someone like that, you want to keep them in your lives.”

Former Auggie defensive end Michael Weidner ’83 also kept in touch with the Osbergs after graduation. They’d talk on the phone or meet for lunch; Jack and Nina came to Weidner’s kid’s games. By Summer 2020, Weidner recognized Jack needed a break from 24-7 caregiving. Weidner emailed former players and friends, asking them to visit with Jack and Nina—outside and distanced—some evening that summer.

“Jack was hurting and struggling during the beginning of the pandemic, when nobody was socializing,” said Weidner, who is a lawyer based in Eagan, Minnesota. “Jack would do anything for one of his players. He’s been there for all of us, through good times and bad, so people came out of the woodwork. A bunch of us rotated going to his house in the evenings to talk about anything for an hour or two.”

Osberg said the chats saved him. “With everything in my life, I’ve been able to hustle to change the program or win the game, I’ve been able to work hard to achieve success or a positive outcome. But this is a game we can’t win. It’s incurable. It’s deadly. I’m getting to the point where I can’t care for her anymore, and it’s killing me. She is my everything,” said Osberg, who received the Legacy of Augsburg Athletic Award during the 2020–21 Augsburg Athletic Hall of Fame Ceremony. “Those chats meant the world to me. To get out and coach or to talk with friends and former players about anything other than this disease was and is a gift.”

But Osberg does not accept defeat. He quickly shifts to the positive, referencing their strong and active circle of friends and family, including 12 grandchildren and six kids—three of whom graduated from Augsburg: Peter Osberg ’93, Jamie Osberg ’95, and Anne “Annie” (Osberg) Moore ’01.

“We all have to play the hand we are dealt,” Osberg said. “I am glad I focused so much of my life on relationships because now, when I need people most, they are there. I’ve been a part of Augsburg all my life, and Nina is an honorary Auggie. It’s reassuring to know that even though she may forget Augsburg, the people who make up that great institution won’t forget her, and they won’t forget us. It’s family.”

Top image: Jack Osberg ’62 (Photo by Courtney Perry)

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