“You belong here.” These three simple words are heard time and again on campus as we greet new students and welcome those returning. And with these words, Augsburg offers the gift of belonging to all of its students, no matter their diverse backgrounds and lived experiences.

So, what does it mean to give the gift of belonging? It means that we see you, we meet you where you are in your life, and we surround you with community. It means that we offer you an educational experience like no other. Over my 18 years at Augsburg, I have witnessed again and again how this university community meets our students where they are—with their remarkable life experiences and gifts—and then offers them, each of them, what they need to be successful. We walk alongside students with amazing faculty and staff members whose sole purpose is to offer them the support, the challenges, the love (I might say) that buttress their success.

And in return, our students bring their whole selves to our community—they bring their gifts and skills as scholars, as leaders, as artists, as advocates for justice and peace, as family and community members. All of these skills and more help to make Augsburg stronger. We are a small community, and we need these many gifts to help us live out our mission. We join together with our students on their life’s journeys—journeys that have already been underway with family, in schools and faith communities, in neighborhoods. It is our privilege to have students join us for a number of years so that their journeys—to a career, to their own families, to their communities—are shaped by what they learn here; by the lifelong friendships they make with fellow students, faculty, and staff; and by the experiences we offer here to help them find their path forward.

You belong here. This is what it means to be student-centered; to believe, as Augsburg has throughout its 154 years, that we are called to educate and equip our students for lives of meaning and purpose in the world. Throughout this issue of Augsburg Now, you will find stories of what it looks like when our commitment to belonging and to our students shows up in the world. A faculty member donating a kidney for a student, a legacy of community engagement serving our neighbors, a young alum taking on some of the world’s most pressing climate challenges, and an institutional policy that takes away barriers to students who deserve an Augsburg education. Read all of these inspiring stories with pride for the work of this remarkable university, for you, too, belong here!

Faithfully yours,

Paul C. Pribbenow

Top image: President Paul Pribbenow with students in Foss Center (Photo by Courtney Perry)

The post Notes from President Pribbenow: On belonging appeared first on Augsburg Now.

During the winter of her junior year at �̲�ֱ��, Aaliyah Abdi ’23 received shocking and unimaginable news.

Her body was starting to reject a kidney transplant from when she was 14 years old.

There hadn’t been any problems in the seven years since Abdi had received the kidney, donated by her mother. But suddenly, Abdi’s doctor was telling her that she’d have to either go on dialysis—an ongoing medical treatment to clean a person’s blood amid kidney failure—or get another kidney transplant soon.

“It was just a sporadic rejection,” Abdi said. Her first kidney transplant was needed because of an autoimmune disease. But this time, “there wasn’t any underlying issue with my health that would have warranted the rejection of my kidney. It just happened. The doctor said that’s just what happens to some people.”

Abdi hoped to find a kidney donor quickly. Doing so would mean she could skip the exhausting and time-consuming dialysis treatment. However, she didn’t have any immediate options. Abdi’s mother had already donated for her first kidney transplant—she couldn’t donate again. And the rest of Abdi’s family members and close friends were unable to donate for other reasons.

“A handful of people were willing to,” she said. But when these prospective kidney donors did a Mayo Clinic online assessment to see if they were eligible, each one was rejected.

“I was like, ‘Oh wow, that kind of sucks. But it is what it is,’” Abdi said.

With her family and friends unable to donate, Abdi was unsure of who to ask next.

What she didn’t know at the time was that one of her teachers at Augsburg also had kidney donation on her mind. For years, French instructor Sharon Gerlach had felt called to donate a kidney, but she didn’t know anybody who needed one. Although Abdi was in her second semester of Gerlach’s class, she had not shared her health struggles with her teacher. Neither of them knew what the other was thinking.

‘It was on my heart’

Gerlach had thought about kidney donation since 2009, when she read a newspaper article about the need for these life-saving procedures. “It just kind of struck me as something I’d like to do someday, if I knew somebody and if I was a match,” she said.

Then, Gerlach’s mother was diagnosed with kidney disease. “I thought, ‘Well, if my mom needed a kidney someday, I’m totally on board with that.’ But her kidney disease was not progressive, so she never had a need for dialysis, and she never needed a kidney donor at any time,” Gerlach said.

Still, reflecting on her mother’s diagnosis got Gerlach thinking more and more about kidney donation. She contemplated it for years, saving articles on the topic whenever she’d come across them. In 2021, Gerlach even considered donating a kidney anonymously.

“It was still really on my radar and on my heart,” she said. “I was just thinking, ‘I’m healthy now, so now might be a good time to donate a kidney.’”

She asked her husband about whether she should donate anonymously, but he was concerned the procedure might affect her ability to care for their youngest son. He suggested she hold off for a few years, and since she didn’t personally know anyone who needed a kidney donor, Gerlach set the idea aside for a while.

Being a student on dialysis

In March 2022, a few months after Abdi’s body began to reject her kidney, her health got worse, and she could no longer put off dialysis treatment. She began to go to a dialysis facility three times a week, for three to four hours at a time. After each appointment, she’d feel completely drained.

“It was hard,” Abdi said. “Dialysis is so taxing on your body. Even though you’re sitting in a chair for three or four hours, it feels like you ran a mile. You’re out of breath; you’re so exhausted because your blood is being pulled out and drained and cleaned.”

As a psychology major approaching her senior year, Abdi worked hard to keep up with her schoolwork amid dealing with her health issues. She scheduled classes around her dialysis appointments, and she worked to finish her homework during the first hours of dialysis, before she became too tired to do it.

“It took a lot of time management,” she said. “Oh my gosh, it was so much time management.”

The exhaustion also affected Abdi’s life outside of class. “I felt like I missed out on a lot of things like just going out to a movie at night or going out to dinner because I would be so tired,” she said.

For the most part, Abdi kept her struggles to herself. Most people at school didn’t know she was on dialysis, she said. If she had to miss class because of an appointment, she’d usually just tell the professor she had “a medical issue” without getting into details.

“I would almost try to create two different versions of myself. There was my ‘dialysis and sick me,’ which a lot of my family and closest friends were involved with. But my ‘school self’ was completely normal,” Abdi said.

Then, one day in late April, she was so drained from dialysis that she wasn’t going to make it to French class. She emailed Gerlach.

“I just told her flat out, because I was tired of holding it. I was kind of at my last point,” Abdi said. “I told her, ‘I’m not coming to class because I’m exhausted from dialysis’—and that’s what kind of sparked the whole conversation.”

Making the connection

The weekend before she received Abdi’s email, Gerlach had decided to pray about kidney donation.

“I really felt like I should donate a kidney soon because I knew I was in good health and I’ve got the support network, and you never know what’s going to happen,” Gerlach said. “I remember, I just decided to pray about it. I’m a person of faith, and I kind of thought, ‘God, if you’re going to place this on my heart, open that door for me, or just make it clear if this is something I should pursue.’”

When Gerlach got to campus on Monday, she saw Abdi’s email about dialysis. “I thought, ‘Dialysis? I know what that means,’” Gerlach said. “And I’d had no clue. Aaliyah had never given any indication that she had any serious health problems or any kidney issues at all.”

Gerlach responded with sympathy for what Abdi was going through and asked if this meant she needed a kidney donor. Gerlach wasn’t offering, but she wanted to know more about Abdi’s situation.

“When I saw her ask that,” Abdi said, “I was like, ‘Stop! Do you know somebody?’ It was such a weird email thread because I just kind of woke up. I was like, ‘No, she can’t be talking like this.’”

The email connection moved Gerlach, too. “It really hit me,” she said. “I honestly wanted to say ‘yes’ right away, but I had to check with my family first.”

Gerlach took time to research the process of kidney donation and to discuss the implications with her husband.

In the meantime, Abdi had her final exam for Gerlach’s class. As Abdi was leaving the classroom, Gerlach stopped her to say she’d been thinking about her ever since their email exchange.

Gerlach recalled, “She kind of looked at me and asked, ‘Have you thought about it? Would you be willing to donate?’”

But Gerlach was still in the process of discussing it with her family. “That was really hard to have her ask me directly and not be able to say ‘yes’ right away because I really wanted to,” Gerlach said.

After that conversation, Abdi assumed Gerlach would not donate her kidney. She was disappointed, but she understood. “I was like, ‘Okay, no worries,’” Abdi said, “and I left that school year, my junior year, thinking, ‘It’s okay. I’m just going to have to keep doing dialysis.’”

Saying ‘yes’

Several weeks later, while Abdi was on campus doing research with the McNair Scholars Program, she got an email from Gerlach.

It said Gerlach wanted to donate her kidney.

“I was like, ‘Oh my god, no way,’” Abdi said. She didn’t want to get her hopes up because her other potential donors had turned out to be ineligible.

“But then,” Abdi said, “I hopped on a Zoom call with Sharon. She was telling me the story of how she understood and how kidney disease had affected her life.”

Abdi could barely believe what she was hearing. “It felt like she needed to do it. And I was like, ‘You’re joking with me right now. You’re joking!’”

During that Zoom call, Gerlach and Abdi shared their blood types and discovered they wouldn’t be a match for a direct donation, Gerlach said.

However, they decided to proceed because, if eligible, Gerlach could donate on Abdi’s behalf, putting Abdi in line to receive a kidney from another living donor. The benefit of connecting with a living donor, , is that the recipient can have their transplant sooner than if they were on a waitlist for a kidney from a deceased donor.

Abdi sent Gerlach the link to the Mayo Clinic online questionnaire to see if she was eligible—and Gerlach passed. Then, Gerlach had to participate in a couple of phone interviews followed by two days of in-person testing at the clinic in Rochester to confirm her eligibility to donate.

On June 29, Gerlach was officially approved to donate her kidney on Abdi’s behalf.

When Abdi heard this news, the donation finally felt real. “When Sharon told me again—after she did all the Mayo Clinic things—that she was accepted, I cried,” Abdi said. “I think I was walking somewhere when I got the email, and I just stopped. I sat down, and I cried.”

Abdi’s family and friends were relieved and overjoyed, too. “They saw me struggle for a long time,” she said.

“I was so happy and thankful,” Abdi continued. “How could I not be thankful? It’s somebody who’s not related to me, who had just met me over the course of a year and, out of the kindness of her heart, was able to do something so selfless and give me another chance of just living a normal life.”

The donation process

Gerlach’s kidney would be given to someone on the National Kidney Registry waitlist, and, in exchange for this donation, Abdi would be placed on the waitlist to be matched with a living kidney donor.

Gerlach’s donation surgery was scheduled for August 11 at Mayo Clinic. She wanted to be able to recover in time to teach the Fall 2022 semester.

“I figured that would give me at least three weeks to recover before classes started. That was kind of my criteria,” she said.

The surgery went smoothly. When Gerlach woke up in her hospital room, she had an email from the son of the person who received her kidney.

“When you’re donating like that, you may not ever know who you donated to because they keep each person’s confidentiality,” Gerlach said. “I had signed a release saying it’s fine to share my contact information with my recipient, and I didn’t necessarily expect to hear back from them.”

But the email meant a lot to her. “It said, ‘Thank you for saving my father’s life,’” Gerlach said.

Gerlach stayed in Rochester for a few nights after her surgery, then continued her recovery at home. The process went quicker than she expected. “I felt up to driving after 10 days, and the first place I came to, actually, was a faculty workshop at Augsburg,” she said.

“Two weeks to the day after my surgery, I was feeling so good I decided to go to the State Fair,” she added. “I did get tired more quickly and had to sit down to take a little nap, but I had a great day.”

Eventually, Gerlach fully recovered without any problems. “Some people wonder, are there lasting effects of donating a kidney? For me, none at all,” she said. “They did all kinds of follow-up tests on me. You can live perfectly healthy with good kidney function with one kidney.”

A long wait

Meanwhile, Gerlach stayed in touch with Abdi, who was waiting for a donor match from the kidney exchange.

The wait was longer than anticipated. Abdi had tried to work with her medical team to get a kidney transplant around the same time as Gerlach’s donation surgery, but another unrelated health problem came up. Abdi had to be pulled off the kidney waitlist until she was healthy enough for surgery.

“This other health issue affected my eye,” Abdi said, “and it just kind of happened randomly. So, my kidney team was like, ‘We’re going to pump the brakes on you.’”

In November 2022, her doctor gave her the green light for transplant surgery and she got back on the waitlist. But it would still be months before she’d get matched with a donor.

“I had waited for so long already,” Abdi recalled. “I was trying to get that kidney so that I could finish off the rest of my senior year feeling OK.”

In March 2023, she finally got the call. She’d been matched with a donor. Her transplant was scheduled for April 19 at Mayo Clinic.

Abdi would have to stay in Rochester for two to three weeks after surgery for recovery and follow-up tests. Determined to graduate on time, she emailed her professors so they could help her plan to finish her schoolwork before the surgery or remotely.

In those emails, Abdi finally told her professors that she’d be having a kidney transplant. They offered a lot of support, she said. “They were like, ‘Congratulations! We didn’t even know you were dealing with that.’”

On April 19, Abdi headed to Mayo Clinic for her surgery—but she was feeling sick.

After preoperative testing, Abdi’s doctor told her she had a high fever and could not go through with the transplant.

“I was fighting,” Abdi said, “and I was so sad that day when they said I couldn’t get the kidney.”

‘Such a sweet gift’

When Abdi got back to Minneapolis, she felt deeply disappointed. “It was like the wind was kicked out of me,” she said. She’d have to wait to get matched with another donor, and she didn’t know how long that would take.

“It was so sad,” Abdi said. “I had already said goodbye to all my friends and family and my teachers. So, when I came back, everyone was super sad. But I was like, ‘It is what it is. I’ll get a call eventually, when it’s my time.’”

With most of her schoolwork done, Abdi mostly just rested and spent time with her family until she could graduate. She also continued dialysis.

On May 3, Abdi proudly walked in ���ܲ������ܰ���’s commencement ceremony with her family and Gerlach supporting her.

Then, the next day, Abdi got a call from her medical team. They told her she’d been matched with another donor.

“They got me a kidney. It was such a sweet gift,” she said. “Yes, I graduated on dialysis and with all my health issues, but to be done with it during the same year was such a gift for me. I was so thankful for that.”

Abdi’s transplant surgery was scheduled for May 30, and in the week leading up to it, she essentially quarantined herself. She didn’t want to get sick again.

“I was like, ‘Nobody come see me, and I’m not going out. I’m not trying to get sick this time.’ I was not playing,” she said.

On May 30, Abdi returned to Mayo Clinic and her surgery went well. She recalled, “I woke up and asked, ‘They gave me the kidney, right?’ and the nurse told me, ‘Yeah, you got a kidney. You’re all good; you’re all fine.’ And then I just started crying. I was so happy.”

Abdi’s recovery went smoothly, and she stayed in touch with Gerlach throughout the process.

She also contacted her donor to express her gratitude. “I loved having my Zoom conversation with him,” Abdi said. “Much like Sharon, he felt like it was something he needed to do. He was not donating on anybody’s behalf. He just did it. … Nobody technically had any ties where they had to do it for somebody else. They just did it, and then I ended up with a new kidney. That’s just very sweet.”

Moving forward

To Gerlach, the donation experience felt impactful for several reasons.

“I can’t think of anyone I would rather donate my kidney for than Aaliyah. She’s got so much potential and so much life ahead of her. I was just really, really glad that I could help someone like her,” Gerlach said. “And the other part of the story is knowing that I helped two people kind of get their normal lives back, because we did the exchange. That was really meaningful to me.”

Gerlach encourages anyone interested in donating a kidney to seriously look into it. “If someone feels like they might be willing to do it, I would say definitely consider it. Definitely be open to it if you’re in good health and if you have the support. It’s something you can do to save somebody’s life, and there’s so many people on the waitlist,” she said.

“Not everybody’s called to do everything,” Gerlach said, “but I’ve been blessed with really good health, and so this is something that I could do. It’s not often that you can do something that will save someone’s life. That’s pretty rare.”

Abdi has been in good health since the transplant. She said she’s working at two mental health clinics in the Twin Cities and has just been enjoying life.

“My kidney is working great,” she said. “My energy levels have increased, my appetite has increased, and I feel like my outlook has changed, too.”

Abdi added that she hopes students who hear her story will be inspired to be more open about their own struggles. She made the personal decision to keep her health issues to herself for a long time, she said, “but everybody at school was really sweet and supportive of me once I was able to tell them.”

“It can be very difficult to share the things that are affecting you with other people aside from your immediate family and friends,” Abdi said. “But the more I spoke about it, I realized, the better I felt. Just be more open to any relationship you have and to your own personal story. Because if you need something, the person that might be able to give it to you might just be teaching you.”

Top image: French instructor Sharon Gerlach�����Ի� Aaliyah Abdi ’23��in the quad on Augsburg’s campus (Courtesy photo)

The post A life-saving gift appeared first on Augsburg Now.

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 ���ܲ������ܰ���’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 ���ܲ������ܰ���’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, �̲�ֱ�� President Paul Pribbenow said Torstenson’s speech reads like a roadmap to ���ܲ������ܰ���’s full embrace of its location as a classroom within the context of community. It was a critical turning point in ���ܲ������ܰ���’s 150-year history, as Torstenson’s words honed ���ܲ������ܰ���’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 ���ܲ������ܰ���’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 ���ܲ������ܰ���’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 ���ܲ������ܰ���’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 ���ܲ������ܰ���’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 ���ܲ������ܰ���’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 ���ܲ������ܰ���’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 ���ܲ������ܰ���’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 ���ܲ������ܰ���’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 ���ܲ������ܰ���’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 ���ܲ������ܰ���’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 ���ܲ������ܰ���’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 ���ܲ������ܰ���’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 ���ܲ������ܰ���’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 ���ܲ������ܰ���’s experiential learning initiatives at augsburg.edu/radicalroots.

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

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Elsy Cruz Parra ’26 had planned to attend college for as long as she can remember. After neither of her parents were able to complete school through the middle school level in Mexico, they instilled the importance of education in Cruz Parra and her two younger siblings as they raised their family in Richfield, Minnesota.��

With her high school graduation approaching in 2022, Cruz Parra was fully prepared to go through a rigorous process to get accepted to a higher education institution that would keep her close to home and help her grow academically and professionally. Imagine her surprise and delight, then, when she received a letter that said she had been accepted to �̲�ֱ�� without even applying. She just had to fill out a short form, and she knew her future education was secure.��

“I felt so relieved,” said Cruz Parra, who is now studying biology as a sophomore at Augsburg with the intention of attending medical school. “It was delightful to be able to just make sure I was getting prepared and ready for my first semester at college.”��

Cruz Parra’s experience has been shared by thousands of high school students since the fall of 2022, when Augsburg became one of the first institutions in the country to completely shift to direct admissions, a frictionless process that offers automatic college admission for students who meet certain academic criteria.��

At Augsburg, it’s known as Augsburg Applies to You. Any graduating high school student with a 3.0 GPA qualifies for direct admission. With the lengthy admissions process out of the way, students have much more time to plan for their futures, including connecting with ���ܲ������ܰ���’s financial and support services to prepare for success in their first year and beyond.��

“It’s a paradigm shift from you applying to the college to the college applying to you,” said Robert Gould, vice president for strategic enrollment management. “We’ve changed the way students experience the admissions process, the way counselors experience the admissions process, and, really, what the admissions process means.”

‘The next big step’

One year in, the early returns are more than encouraging: Augsburg welcomed its largest and most diverse first-year class in history last fall. While some critics of direct admissions have argued the policy leads to more accepted students who don’t actually enroll, Augsburg hasn’t seen this negative impact on enrollment yield with direct admissions. (Ninety-nine percent of students offered direct admission would have still been admitted under ���ܲ������ܰ���’s previous admissions criteria.)

“This initiative has the potential to be really transformative nationally,” said Rachel Farris, director of public relations and internal communications. “It’s a very powerful change.”��

To understand the decision to move to direct admissions, it’s useful to back up well before 2022. Driven by the university’s mission of intentional diversity, the past 15 years have seen a series of steps toward removing barriers in admissions and ensuring traditionally underserved communities have access to an Augsburg education. That includes programs such as , which provides a range of assistance for housing, textbooks, and food. There have also been policy changes such as removing standardized test scores and letters of recommendation from the undergraduate application process and providing more need-based financial aid.��

“We’ve been working to remove barriers for students for many years and understanding the impacts of those changes we’ve made,” said Stephanie Ruckel, director of strategic enrollment management, who partnered closely with Gould to plan out the move to direct admissions. “Direct admissions is just the next big step as we’ve built momentum. Every step along the way we were seeing benefits for students, the process, and the effectiveness of admissions counselors.”

As was the case for Cruz Parra, the immediate benefit for students is the shift in being accepted to Augsburg much earlier (by October 1 in their senior year of high school) and feeling secure knowing a college education is available to them.��

“With earlier acceptance, direct admissions supports the goal of having more students feeling like they have more choices, and that they’re making well-informed decisions and are choosing the right school for them,” Ruckel said.

Beyond giving students more time to interact with the university after being accepted, Augsburg has tied direct admissions to financial aid. The Augsburg Promise Scholarship offers students who have been directly admitted to Augsburg full tuition if they are Pell Grant eligible (or have a family gross adjusted income of $80,000 or less) and are a Minnesota resident graduating from a Minnesota high school. This aligns with the requirements of the state of Minnesota’s North Star Promise program, which starts later this year and will cover all tuition and fees at public institutions for resident students whose families make $80,000 or less.��

“Our model is to have a student receive a letter without applying by October 1. By November 1, they fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), and by December 1, they have a financial aid package in hand,” Gould said. (The high school senior class of 2024’s timeline will be delayed by a change in FAFSA policy, so financial aid packages won’t be available until spring, Gould added, but the federal policy should return to normal next year.)

Augsburg Applies to You has led to invitations for the university to participate in direct admissions pilot programs with Common Application, the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, and the Chicago Public Schools.��

“[Augsburg] has really anticipated the way of the future,” said Minnesota Office of Higher Education’s Direct �̲�ֱ�� Coordinator Aaron Salasek, who has partnered closely with Gould and Ruckel. “The institution is really prioritizing equity before enrollment, but that’s sort of a false dichotomy. The two can go hand in hand, and that’s what direct admissions is all about. It’s student-centered, family-centered, and higher education institutions will all benefit from this effort as we scale across the state.”

‘Much more meaningful work’

Anna Cox ’22 remembers well the experience of applying to Augsburg as a high school senior in Indiana. Now an admissions counselor at her alma mater, she’s on the other side of the process, but her work looks drastically different than that of the counselors who read her application in 2018.��

“I get to do so much more meaningful work with students after this direct admissions change,” Cox said. “I absolutely love it.”

Traditionally, the bulk of admissions counselors’ work in higher education has been tied to recruitment, reviewing applications, and supporting students through the logistics of applying, such as submitting transcripts, letters of recommendation, and test scores. In removing hundreds of hours spent in “essay review season” and application review time, counselors at Augsburg have shifted to more of a coaching role. That means intentionally supporting students to make the right school choice for them, helping guide them through the financial aid process, and preparing them for success should they choose Augsburg.��

That increased support also extends to students who fall below the direct admissions threshold. A new success coaching program at Augsburg has admissions counselors providing a range of support for students coming in with high school GPAs lower than 3.0.��

“It really starts to break down the model of admissions counselors being gatekeepers,” Cox said. “Instead of interactions with students of, ‘Turn this in, do this,’ it’s more, ‘You’re already in, what are you interested in? What do you need from me? What are your goals and how can I help?’ It’s more intentional relationship building and supporting students before they even get here, but also once they’re here.”

Ready to replicate

Among those working to drive ���ܲ������ܰ���’s move to direct admissions, there is genuine belief in the policy’s power to shift a paradigm around college admissions. The goal, they say, is to fundamentally change a decades-old system that has driven inequities across American education, which Gould points out “hasn’t structurally changed since its origins of enabling the children of wealthy white merchants to get a higher education.”

“Augsburg wants every institution to copy what we’re doing,” Gould added. “We’re willing to share how we’re doing it. Each institution will have to adapt it to their profile, but we want the concept of direct admissions and success coaching copied.”

As with any pioneering effort, there are many eyes on Augsburg, evidenced by several national media outlets recently covering the change, including Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and Inside Higher Ed. While Gould acknowledged that paradigm shifts often take a long time, Ruckel said evidence of success will hopefully continue to come as students are retained and work toward graduation, buoying the case for direct admissions for other schools considering it.��

“Other institutions around the country are trying to achieve these same goals around access and equity. This is a powerful example we can point to and show how we’re stepping forward as a leader in higher education,” Farris said. “�̲�ֱ�� is one place where the rubber really meets the road in terms of thinking about how our systems work and how our processes either continue or disrupt inequities.”

“Direct admissions,” she added, “is the Augsburg mission through and through.”

Top image: �̲�ֱ�� staff Anna Cox ’22 and Stephanie Ruckel talk with student Elsy Cruz Parra ’26 in the Augsburg admissions office.��(Photo by Courtney Perry)

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Kate Edelen ’11 is one of those people consumed by water security issues—it’s her job. Throughout her career, she’s worked in the world of water, climate, and conflict in more than 15 countries. In her current role as global director of water security at Mercy Corps, a global non-governmental humanitarian aid organization, Edelen leads a team of water security experts who provide support for project implementation, technical design, management, capacity development, and policy and advocacy work in 50 countries worldwide.��

“There are many users and demands on our water resources,” she said. “There’s human consumption; water you need for the environment to sustain the ecological flows of rivers and streams; and water needed for economic development, whether that’s industry, agriculture, or livelihoods. I think of it as a triangle. It’s about balancing across those three different areas most efficiently and effectively, now and into the future.”

One example she cites is the group’s work in the Somali Region of Ethiopia, which has experienced humanitarian crises driven by the impacts of climate change. An extended drought has led to the loss of crops and livestock. Water access is challenging because the aquifers are drying up, and the water boreholes (deep shafts drilled into the ground to extract water) aren’t working, said Edelen.

“The big challenge is you’ll have a drought, but then you’ll have flash floods,” she said. “And because you have drought, the water can’t penetrate the groundwater—it just slides right off and takes everything with it, resulting in flash flooding.”

Mercy Corps is designing a water security project for the area, including a water treatment plant and watershed management system.

“By doing some of these watershed activities,” Edelen said, “we’re stabilizing the riverbeds and understanding how the sedimentation flows, which then affects the water treatment plant because cleaning the water will take much more energy and resources. If you can reduce the sedimentation, you can also reduce the costs and burden on the water treatment plant downstream and allow their capacity to function at a higher level and provide more water to more people. It’s coupling the provision of water with an ecosystem service.”��

A global outlook

Edelen attributes her curiosity about world issues to growing up in Madison, Wisconsin. Her mother was pursuing her PhD in Middle Eastern history at the University of Wisconsin then, and they lived in a student housing apartment complex.

“Most people living there were students from abroad, so I grew up in a global community,” she said. “We had giant community potlucks. It was full of hope because education was a formative part of everybody’s belief structure and values. It was an education for a greater life. Even though we came from different cultures and places, there was a common bond and thread with education.”

Edelen was drawn to Augsburg for her undergraduate education for several reasons, including its science program, focus on the community, and location in the heart of Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. A soccer player and a triple major in biology, chemistry, and environmental studies, Edelen went on to become a Fulbright Research Fellow at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, Norway; a Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow at the Friends Committee on National Legislation in Washington, D.C.; and a graduate of the University of Oxford with a master’s degree in water science, policy, and management as an International Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar.����

She cites several experiences at Augsburg as helping her get to where she is now, including her research through the Office of Undergraduate Research and Graduate Opportunity (URGO) overseen by Director Dixie Shafer. Professor Joseph Underhill, environmental studies program director, also worked closely with Edelen during her time at the university.��

“She’s one of those students who comes ready to learn,” Underhill said. “It was this great combo of working in the sciences but then being interested in the political side of it.”

He remembers having her in a class that studied the Mississippi River (a precursor to his River Semester, in which students spend 100 days traveling down the Mississippi River by boat), and an environmental politics class that featured a section on global water issues.��

At Augsburg, Edelen said she learned that failure is necessary to reach success.��

“You have to keep trying different things and talking to different people,” she said. “You should never allow somebody to dictate what you can and cannot do. When you see someone’s success or abilities, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Everything below is all the people who pushed, helped, and supported them. I think about how a lot of luck is involved in success, but there’s a lot of community, too. At Augsburg, one of the biggest things I’m grateful for is my great support from people who believed in me and told me to keep going.”

The importance of water

When Underhill talks about water security, he starts at the beginning. He said that water has a long history of being the “cradle of civilizations,” with many cities built around rivers. It’s led to numerous conflicts, including battles over who controls the water, as well as several peace agreements.��

“Water is one of the main areas in which countries or factions have realized that they have a mutual interest in safeguarding, and it’s a basic human need,” he said. “It’s often something that neighboring countries have realized that if they go to war over it, both sides will lose. Some of the very first peace treaties ever signed in the modern era were around the joint management of water.”

With climate change and water sources drying up, people are forced to migrate—to become climate refugees—leading to shifting populations. This can lead to conflict, he said.

“It’s not directly over water, but it’s related to changes in water access that have brought communities into conflict,” Underhill said. “It’s something the U.S. military and other militaries around the world are beginning to pay attention to—water and climate change as a contributing factor to conflict.”������

Edelen said the world is becoming less secure with more protracted crises, which can lead to water insecurity.��

“Climate change is really exacerbating this experience and pushing migration,” she said. “It’s shifting some of the previous informal relationships that communities have around natural resource management. You’re seeing some of these conflicts come into play with migration and the different challenges it brings. When you have fragile institutions that aren’t responsive to the populace, and then add the layer of climate change, it becomes harder to manage resources even for functioning institutions. That’s an exacerbating cycle.”

Mercy Corps is looking at building resilience in those communities so people can adapt, cope, and thrive. But it’s not just fragile institutions that are dealing with these challenges, she said.

“The U.S. is dealing with this. India’s dealing with this,” Edelen said. “People sometimes think water is such a specific sector. It’s not. It’s in everything—our economy, food, and energy systems. It’s going to be the largest constraint on the world’s economy.”

Keeping the faith

When she’s not traveling the world for work, Edelen’s home base is Arlington, Virginia, with her husband, son, and two dogs. She admits that sometimes climate change and inequity across the globe keep her up at night. But she doesn’t let herself get bogged down in the negative; instead, she focuses on creating solutions.��

Edelen urges people to educate themselves about their country’s contributions to international development—which currently stands at about 1% of the U.S. federal budget, she said. She’d like Americans to talk to their senators and congressional representatives about more funding for international development and financing for those most impacted by climate change. Less than 1% of total climate adaptation financing has reached the most fragile and conflict-affected countries, she said.��

From an early age, Edelen was taught to use any opportunities or gifts she received to make the world a better place. She’s determined to do just that with her work at Mercy Corps. Underhill said Edelen’s spark combines passion, caring, and pragmatism.��

“It’s a sense that there are solutions that you can pursue,” he said. “That it’s not necessarily a matter of just throwing up your hands and bemoaning an awful situation, but that there is something that can be done about this. And then there’s a certain kind of determination on [Edelen’s] part along with being capable and bright—that’s powerful. That’s a big part of what accounts for her being where she is today.”

Top image: Water crisis in Africa (Photo by on )

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Learn more about Thrive and its work with Program Coordinator Abdikarim Abdi and Assistant Professor of Education Sergio Madrid-Aranda.

Tell us about Thrive.

Madrid-Aranda: Thrive is the expansion of EAST, which changed to serve more students. Dr. Lensmire’s work was so fundamental to what Thrive is now. Her time building the EAST Program is the basis of what Thrive is today, and we are growing from what she has put in place.

Abdi: Working from the EAST Program, we saw the positive influence that educators of color have in the classroom. We wanted to expand this for all BIPOC students in the education department. The first level of support is financially through scholarships. Secondly, it comes through mentorship and counseling services. Lastly, we provide resources for professional development. These all come together to create teachers who will eventually change the landscape of the K–12 education system throughout the state.

Why is representation important in the classroom?

Madrid-Aranda: Historically, the education field has been dominated by white women. That wasn’t a problem at first, but as [student] demographics started to change in the U.S., the demographics of teachers did not.

Speaking for myself and my own experience as a student, I didn’t see a teacher who looked like me until I went to grad school. Throughout my education, I never thought I could even go to grad school because I never saw anyone who looked like me there. Students, especially students of color, need to see themselves in the teachers and leaders around them. That’s why representation is important.

Abdi: Studies have shown that students may learn better when they can identify with their teacher. When I was a student, I was fortunate enough to have some teachers of color because I was in a more diverse school district. When I had a teacher of color, not only did I learn better but so did my peers. Unfortunately, I experienced that later in my life, so I often wondered if I’d had a teacher of color when I was younger if my interest in school could have been different. As a student, it was important for me to see a teacher who could bring something else to the table other than the narrative of the dominant culture.

How does the lack of diverse representation among teachers impact K–12 learning experiences, particularly for students of color?

Madrid-Aranda: The curriculum that teachers are following is already Euro-centric, and so students of color already do not see themselves in the curriculum. Research shows us that when there is a teacher of color, there is a higher chance that the curriculum will be adapted to reflect the lived experience of the students. Additionally, research tells us that teachers of color benefit the learning of both our students of color as well as our white students.

What challenges do you see for BIPOC individuals who aspire to become teachers?

Abdi: The biggest challenge has been having to student teach for 12 weeks, which is all unpaid and often becomes a financial burden. It becomes a make-or-break moment for all potential educators. A challenge specific to the students of color is when they are the only person, or one of few people, of color in a district or a school. This causes isolation to the teacher, not having others to relate to. Additionally, this person often becomes the “expert” or “spokesperson” for all persons of color. During the first three years when the teacher is just starting a career, adding these challenges—in addition to their regular responsibilities of building a curriculum, navigating the system, and trying to build relationships with students and parents—becomes overwhelming to many new educators of color.

Madrid-Aranda: I have been a teacher for a long time, and now I am a professor teaching teachers, so I have seen this through different lenses. There are systemic barriers that present more challenges for teachers of color than their white counterparts. Research has shown that for students who want to become teachers, it is harder for them to be admitted into college. College graduation rates are lower for students of color. When these students graduate and apply for jobs, it is harder for them to get their foot in the door and become teachers. There are implicit biases during the hiring process and the promotion process. Not everyone is consciously trying to be discriminatory, but there are implicit biases that exist so that teachers of color have fewer opportunities compared to their white counterparts. An applicant not being a “good fit” for the team or school often comes up.

Once they become teachers, they struggle to survive the first three years of teaching because new teachers need to be supported in the crucial first years, but often teachers of color are in a community that isn’t welcoming. They often are the only person of color in their school, which can make it harder to build relationships and partnerships.

Let’s visit the first-three-years issue. What is Thrive doing to help prepare students for the first three years of teaching?

Abdi: One of the things we do in the Thrive Program is hold community-building gatherings for our students. The purpose of this is so they can build a network and support each other before they become full-time teachers. Another thing we do is bring in mentors—graduates from the EAST Program, other Augsburg BIPOC alumni, and teachers with whom we have connections. We’re aiming to build a strong network for teachers of color here at Augsburg to help fight that challenge of isolation and belonging.

Madrid-Aranda: Our main job has been recruitment and retention, but our big goal goes beyond graduation to ensure that they survive those first three years of teaching. Recently we connected with a national organization in Maryland that is building a network of teachers of color. We continue to work with our alumni. We want to be intentional in how we can continue to grow this mentorship opportunity to support our students.

How does the Thrive Program align with Augsburg’s mission?

Madrid-Aranda: Intentional diversity. ���ܲ������ܰ���’s focus and work with underrepresented communities to build diversity on campus is key. The drive to build leaders for our communities goes hand in hand with Thrive’s work to prepare our students to be leaders in the classroom.

Abdi: Beginning with EAST, it really shows ���ܲ������ܰ���’s commitment to being a leader and member of the community. EAST could not have happened if the Cedar-Riverside community didn’t already feel that they could trust Augsburg. With that trust and with ���ܲ������ܰ���’s intention of helping students of color succeed to become responsible leaders, you see how Thrive and ���ܲ������ܰ���’s mission are interwoven together.

The Thrive Program provides scholarships to students through the Collaborative Urban and Greater Minnesota Educators of Color (CUGMEC) Grant. In 2023, Augsburg was awarded over $630,000 to fund Thrive and support students of color pursuing education-related degrees.

To learn more about Thrive, visit .

Top image: The last EAST gathering in October 2022 before its expansion to Thrive��(Photo by Courtney Perry)

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I played soccer at Augsburg all four years of my collegiate experience. Now Eilidh Pederson, then Eilidh Reyelts (#20). I learned so much from being a student-athlete, including skills that I use every day as a hospital CEO.

Highlights of lessons learned include:

Impact of serving on a team.
Time management.
Leadership.
Strategy.
Power of preparation.
Assists matter more than goals.
You don’t have to be a starter to make an impact.

—Eilidh Pederson ’06, MPH, FACHE
Chief executive officer at Western Wisconsin Health
(via email)

How you impact people matters. Ten years away from athletics [as a student], but I’m still surrounded by my teammates, who now are all navigating motherhood/adulthood together. Cultivating your village starts in college, and while we look back and are proud of what we did on the court, we are more proud of who we did it with.

—Colleen (Ourada) Enrico ’14
�̲�ֱ�� assistant athletic director, compliance director, and volleyball assistant coach
(via email)

How to focus on my goal and prioritize what I need to do to achieve my goal. I loved my time as a student-athlete at Augsburg!

—Ashley Wolke ’13
Finance supervisor at Best Buy
(via Instagram)

Perseverance, leadership, and continuous improvement.

—Liz Wiggen ’07
Senior communications and engagement manager at Zan Associates
(via LinkedIn)

The journey is just as important as the goal. Don’t become so focused on where you are headed that you miss everything on the way there. The relationships that are cultivated, the people that you work alongside, and the experiences you share with them—these are often far more valuable than anything you might achieve together in the process.

—Kristen Opalinski ’03

For more engagement opportunities, Auggie updates, and event highlights, follow us on social media:

Top Image: ��Augsburg volleyball players block the ball��against St. Olaf College, 2021. (Photo by Courtney Perry)

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1965

John Luoma ’65 published “Saddlebag Preacher: The Story of the Rev. John Stough and the Evangelizing of the Ohio Frontier” in September 2023.

1970s

1970

Peter Agre ’70, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2003, gave the inaugural Aston University Distinguished Lecture in Birmingham, England, on May 25, 2023.

1971

After performing her one-woman show, “Sitting on the Flat Side of a Dime, Swinging My Legs,” in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, Betty (McCoy) Anderson ’71 was the subject of a lengthy profile in the Siloam Springs Herald Tribune, on August 2, 2023.

1974

Philip Lundin ’74 was one of six members of the U.S. Track & Field Coaches Association Coaches Hall of Fame Class of 2023. He was the men’s track and field head coach at the University of Minnesota from 1995 to 2008.

1980s

1983 and 1988

Luverne Seifert ’83 and Darcey Engen ’88, professor and chair of ���ܲ������ܰ���’s Theater Arts Department, received the Minnesota Educational Theater Association’s Dedicated Lifetime Award in 2023 for their work as co-artistic directors of Sod House Theater.

1985

Richard Magnuson ’85, chief financial officer at Allina Health, was named one of the top 25 CFOs of Minnesota for 2023 by Finance & Investing.

1986

Nicholas Gangestad ’86 joined the Nucor Corporation board of directors in September 2023. He is senior vice president and chief financial officer of Rockwell Automation, Inc.

1989

Vicki Ellingrod ’89 is dean of the College of Pharmacy at the University of Michigan.

1990s

1990

Thomas Peart ’90 is the author of “A Vagabond Life: Stories from a Minnesota Hockey Coach,” published by Friesen Press in July 2023.

1991

William Koschak ’91 was named the new CFO for SynerFuse in August 2023. He also has joined the board of directors for Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, California.

1993

Minnesota Lawyer named Tammera (Ericson) Diehm ’93 one of the 2023 Top Women in Law.

1997

Derrin Lamker ’97, head coach and former record-breaking quarterback for ���ܲ������ܰ���’s football team, and a number of student-athletes, including quarterback Cade Sheehan ’24, were featured in the August 19, 2023, Star Tribune story,

Eric Rolland ’97, coach of ���ܲ������ܰ���’s men’s and women’s golf, competed in the 2023 3M Open golf tournament. He earned a spot in the tournament after achieving Minnesota PGA Rolex Player of the Year honors in 2022.

2000s

2000, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2021, 2022

A writing group largely made up of alumni from ���ܲ������ܰ���’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program recently published its second book, “What’s in the Body Bag? A Collection of Dark Fiction by the Dead Birds Writing Group.” Authors include Trena Bolden Fields ’00, ’15 MFA; Judy Niemi Johnson ’05 MAL, ’17 MFA; David Nash ’06; Amanda Symes ’09, ’15 MFA; Jayne Carlson ’16 MFA; Jon Dahl ’16 MFA; Andrew Marks ’21; and Michelle Linder ’22 MFA.

2003

Jason Baumgartner ’03 is the campus chaplain at Minnesota State University Moorhead.

Sheila Hoehn ’03 MAN was named dean of the Central Lakes College campuses in Staples, Minnesota, in June 2023.

2004

Mary (New) Taris ’04 opened Strive Bookstore in the Young Quinlan building in downtown Minneapolis. She owns a smaller version of the store, which includes many books from underrepresented authors, in the Sistah Co-op, located in the IDS Center in downtown Minneapolis.

2006

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz appointed Brent Kelsey ’06 MBA to the Rural Finance Authority, the state’s main agricultural lending arm. Kelsey is a farmer and a principal credit officer at Compeer Financial.

2007

Erik Hinderlie ’07 graduated from the University of Massachusetts Boston School for the Environment with a Master of Science in urban planning and community development in 2023. He received the Urban Planning and Community Development Graduate Program Director’s Award for Public Service.

2008

Cyrus Batheja ’08, ’10 MBA, a member of ���ܲ������ܰ���’s Board of Regents, is the national vice president of infusion care services at Optum.

Greg May ’08, most recently head coach of ���ܲ������ܰ���’s men’s hockey team, accepted the position of associate head coach of the University of Minnesota women’s hockey team in July 2023.

2010s

2011

Ashley Booker ’11 MAE was named CEO of YWCA St. Paul in 2023.

2012

Ashley Aretz ’12, ’19 MSPAS has joined Essentia Health-St. Mary’s Medical Center in Duluth, Minnesota, where she specializes in hospitalist services. Aretz is a certified physician assistant.

2013

Gottleib Uahengo ’13 graduated with his PhD in engineering from the University of Southern California in May 2023.

2015

Parker Hines ’15 is an assistant coach for the Texas Legends, a professional basketball team.

2016

Gabriella (Hooper) Rooker ’16 finished as the fourth American woman and 11th woman overall in the Chicago Marathon on October 8, 2023.

2019

Colin Mustful ’19 MFA is the author of “Reclaiming Mni Sota: An Alternate History of the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862,” which was published by History Through Fiction in October 2023. Mustful is the founder and editor of History Through Fiction. He and his press have created the Reclaiming Mni Sota Indigenous Writers Grant, a literary diversity initiative to raise $10,000 for one Indigenous writer from Minnesota.

2020s

2022

In September 2023, Gavin Holland ’22 re-signed with the Huntsville Havoc, a professional ice hockey team in Huntsville, Alabama, for the 2023–24 season.

2023

Rachel Allen ’23 MAT teaches 10th- and 11th-grade American history and world history at Pine River-Backus School in Pine River, Minnesota.

Hope Manu Kannare ’23 was featured in the October 24, 2023, Star Tribune story,

Brandon Ratzloff ’23 was named an assistant coach with the Rochester Grizzlies junior ice hockey team in 2023.

The post Alumni Class Notes, Spring 2024 appeared first on Augsburg Now.

Catherine (Lovaas) Stulken ’41, Madison, Wisconsin, age 104, on July 7, 2023

Luella (Nelson) Bowman ’44, Bismarck, North Dakota, age 103, on November 6, 2023

Dora (Frojen) Quanbeck ’49, Maple Grove, Minnesota, age 95, on November 8, 2023

1950s

Shirley Dahlen ’50, Minneapolis, age 95, on November 22, 2023

Herbert Strand ’50, Fredericksburg, Texas, age 97, on October 29, 2023

Audrey (Nagel) Sander ’51, Oregon, Wisconsin, age 94, on November 23, 2023

Mary (Valtinson) Vevle ’51, Minneapolis, age 94, on June 23, 2023

David Christensen ’52, Bemidji, Minnesota, age 95, on May 29, 2023

Ivar Holmquist ’52, Rockville, Maryland, age 97, on April 25, 2023

Robert Langseth ’54, Calumet, Michigan, age 90, on October 17, 2023

Wesley Bodin ’55, New Hope, Minnesota, age 90, on November 19, 2023

Darrell Egertson ’55, regent emeritus, Bloomington, Minnesota, age 90, on August 20, 2023

Thomas Holcombe ’55, Omaha, Nebraska, age 90, on October 8, 2023

Lucille (Johnson) Sylvester ’58, Mission, Texas, age 87, on September 25, 2023

Mary (Twiton) Bosben ’59, Madison, Wisconsin, age 85, on December 8, 2023

Hubert Nelson ’59, Eden Prairie, Minnesota, age 88, on November 7, 2023

Willard Olsen ’59, Piedmont, South Dakota, age 91, on August 2, 2023

Richard Robinson ’59, Minneapolis, age 87, on April 26, 2023

1960s

Dorothy (Larson) Henriksen ’60, Hugo, Minnesota, age 85, on May 25, 2023

Phyllis Acker ’61, Crosslake, Minnesota, age 84, on April 27, 2023

Patricia (Hanson) Gjerde ’62, Fairfield, Montana, age 84, on July 20, 2023

Ann (Ring) Odegaard ’62, Austin, Minnesota, age 83, on November 12, 2023

Milo Oppegard ’62, River Falls, Wisconsin, age 85, on October 4, 2023

Eugene Ecklund ’63, Minneapolis, age 90, on November 29, 2023

Richard Hermstad ’63, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, age 82, on November 14, 2023

Wayne Fehlandt ’65, Eden Prairie, Minnesota, age 80, on July 27, 2023

Nancy (Bacon) Hale ’65, St. Paul, Minnesota, age 81, on May 19, 2023

Joy (Wilson) Olson ’65, St. Paul, Minnesota, age 82, on May 23, 2023

Marcia (Thimsen) Noble ’66, Minneapolis, age 79, on June 8, 2023

Lawrence Menzel ’67, Osseo, Minnesota, age 79, on June 12, 2023

John Selstad ’67, Minneapolis, age 78, on August 20, 2023

Cheryl (Peterson) Erickson ’68, Minneapolis, age 77, on April 22, 2023

David Loftness ’68, Prior Lake, Minnesota, age 78, on October 4, 2023

Jeanne (Turner) Shefveland ’68, Buffalo, Minnesota, age 77, on June 9, 2023

Royce Helmbrecht ’69, Austin, Minnesota, age 76, on November 13, 2023

Jacqueline (Kneifel) Lind ’69, St. Paul, Minnesota, age 76, on August 29, 2023

Daylen Peterson ’69, Santa Cruz, California, age 76, on July 29, 2023

1970s

Carmen (Mossing) Rowland ’70, Minneapolis, age 75, on June 6, 2023

Sonya (Hagen) Zieske ’70, Gresham, Oregon, age 75, on June 25, 2023

Arthur Scheunemann ’71, Bakersfield, California, age 74, on September 11, 2023

Robert Stacke ’71, professor emeritus of music, Minneapolis, age 75, on November 30, 2023

Pamela (Anderson) Dahlager ’73, St. Paul, Minnesota, age 72, on October 19, 2023

Neal Nelson ’73, St. Paul, Minnesota, age 72, on September 1, 2023

Susan Bowman ’74, Burnsville, Minnesota, age 71, on November 6, 2023

Marcia Kading ’75, Minneapolis, age 73, on August 7, 2023

Marylee Temple ’76, Minneapolis, age 70, on August 22, 2023

Richard Komorouski ’77, Carol Stream, Illinois, age 68, on August 12, 2023

Pamela (Feigum) Mellema ’77, Apple Valley, Minnesota, age 68, on July 29, 2023

1980s

Margaret (Berg) McChesney ’80, St. Paul, Minnesota, age 86, on November 29, 2023

Louellyn King ’81, Minneapolis, age 83, on April 29, 2023

Paul Amos ’82, Stillwater, Minnesota, age 64, on August 12, 2023

John Pearson ’82, St. Paul, Minnesota, age 63, on July 28, 2023

Mary Krull ’86, Minneapolis, age 81, on May 30, 2023

Joanne Whiterabbit ’86, Hudson, Wisconsin, age 60, on August 27, 2023

Barbara (Davis) Harer ’89, New Richmond, Wisconsin, age 82, on August 5, 2023

William Medcalf ’89, Denver, age 75, on November 12, 2023

1990s

Bruce Holcomb ’90, Stillwater, Minnesota, age 76, on October 5, 2023

Mary Spafford ’92, Eagan, Minnesota, age 76, on April 2, 2023

John Worley ’93, Minneapolis, age 54, on September 20, 2023

Teresa Cook ’97 MAE, St. Paul, Minnesota, age 71, on June 10, 2023

2000s

Matthew Koester ’05, Forest Lake, Minnesota, age 42, on October 27, 2023

Lesli (Hanson) Crowley Hanlin ’08, Andover, Minnesota, age 56, on November 1, 2023

2010s

Bradley Randall ’13, Rockford, Minnesota, age 46, on May 23, 2023

Martin Klees ’15 MBA, Rochester, Minnesota, age 54, on October 7, 2023

Troy Bernardo ’16 MAE, St. Paul, Minnesota, age 35, on September 13, 2023

2020s

Susan Olson ’22, Minneapolis, age 63, on May 25, 2023

Other Losses

Anthony Bibus III, professor emeritus of social work, Richfield, Minnesota, age 77, on December 19, 2023

Kelly Doran, StepUP donor and parent, Minneapolis, age 66, on December 28, 2023

Millicent Orenge, student, St. Louis Park, Minnesota, age 22, in January 2024

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