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Title: Murphy Square 2017: Murphy Square Visual Art and Literary Magazine
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: MURPHY SQUARE VISUAL ART & LITERARY MAGAZINE ISSUE 42, 2017 EDITORIAL BOARD Malena Larsen, Editor In Chief Abigail Tetzlaff, Associate Editor Audrey Campbell, Art & Layout Editor Cassie Dong, Art Editor Jazmin Crittenden, Art Editor Elisabeth Beam, Prose Editor Abigail Carpenter, Prose Ed...
Show more MURPHY SQUARE VISUAL ART & LITERARY MAGAZINE ISSUE 42, 2017 EDITORIAL BOARD Malena Larsen, Editor In Chief Abigail Tetzlaff, Associate Editor Audrey Campbell, Art & Layout Editor Cassie Dong, Art Editor Jazmin Crittenden, Art Editor Elisabeth Beam, Prose Editor Abigail Carpenter, Prose Editor Ryan Moore, Prose Editor Gabriel Benson, Poetry Editor Danny Polaschek, Poetry Editor Cary Waterman, Advisor 2 WITH THANKS TO Ivy Arts Copy and Print Augsburg College Student Government Augsburg College English Department Augsburg College Art Department The Echo Augsburg Honors Program QPA 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 What Type of Black Girl Are You? Nikkyra Whittaker ........................................................................... 8 Simul Justus et Peccator, Andy Anderson .......................................................................................... 11 Queer, Eve Taft ....................................................................................................................................... 12 Jesus in a Cracker, A.Tetzlaff ................................................................................................................ 14 Grey Cloud Island, David Baboila ......................................................................................................... 17 Saint Paul Airport, David Baboila .......................................................................................................... 18 White Bear Lake, David Baboila ............................................................................................................ 19 Zips Coliseum, David Baboila ............................................................................................................... 20 Bridge, Jacob J. Miller ............................................................................................................................ 21 50 Feet Tall, Emilie Tomas ...................................................................................................................... 25 Meow, Ashley Waalen ............................................................................................................................ 26 Mousetrap, Halle Chambers .................................................................................................................. 27 Faces, Constance Klippen ..................................................................................................................... 29 I Don’t Always Feel Colored, Diamonique Walker ............................................................................... 30 Where I am From, Hannah Schmit ......................................................................................................... 32 Who Am I?, Ashley Waalen .................................................................................................................... 34 2 Gratitude, D.E Green .............................................................................................................................. CSBR, Gabriel Bergstrom ...................................................................................................................... The Fire, Elisabeth Beam ........................................................................................................................ Desert Drums, Abigail Carpenter .......................................................................................................... Colors, Hannah Schmit ........................................................................................................................... Urban Delight, Jazmin Crittenden ......................................................................................................... When Dad Wore Cologne, A. Tetzlaff .................................................................................................... Shitty Christmas Trees, Elisabeth Beam ............................................................................................... Summer Nights, Adam Ruff ................................................................................................................... 36 38 39 41 42 43 44 46 48 The People United, Adam Ruff .............................................................................................................. 49 After the Hike, Adam Ruff ..................................................................................................................... 50 Crumbs, Malena Larsen ......................................................................................................................... 51 Bloomed, Audrey Campbell ................................................................................................................... 55 Pruned, Audrey Campbell ...................................................................................................................... 56 Herman, Danny Polaschek ................................................................................................................... 57 El Barrio Suyo, Chad Berryman ............................................................................................................. 60 The Neighborhood, Chad Berryman ..................................................................................................... 61 Odyssey, Eve Taft .................................................................................................................................... 62 Postcards From My Bedroom, Audrey Campbell ................................................................................. 63 Postcards From My Bedroom, Audrey Campbell ................................................................................. 64 Counting Sheep, Danny Polaschek ...................................................................................................... 65 3 Sky Nights, Keeyonna Fox ...................................................................................................................... 67 Inner Self, Keeyonna Fox ....................................................................................................................... 68 Victory of the People, Petra S. Shaffer-Gottschalk ............................................................................. 69 An Open Letter to the Un-specials, Halle Chambers ...........................................................................76 Sorex Palustris, Emilie Tomas ................................................................................................................. 79 Woodsy Adam Ruff, Gabriel Bergstrom .................................................................................................. 80 Words, Malena Larsen ................................................................................................................................. 81 Malcom, Danny Polaschek ....................................................................................................................... 83 DRIVING AT ZERO ONE, John Herbert ................................................................................................... 85 DRIVING AT ZERO TWO, John Herbert ................................................................................................... 86 Placemakers, Diamonique Walker ........................................................................................................ 87 A Necessary Evil Thing Considered in any Light, Jacob J. Miller ....................................................... 88 1 WHAT TYPE OF BLACK GIRL ARE YOU? Nikkyra Whittaker On the spectrum of being black and female, we can only be what we appear to be. Take this quiz to find out what kind of black girl you really are! 1. You’re listening to the radio on the way to Target. You’re playing… a. Beyonce’s “****Flawless” b. Taylor Swift’s “Fifteen” or “You Belong With Me” or “Wildest Dreams” c. Chris Brown’s “Loyal” d. Keri Hilson’s “Pretty Girl Rock” 2. It’s your day off work. What will you be doing? a. Blowing off steam on Facebook. b. Watching old episodes of One Tree Hill c. Out for drinks and scoping eye candy d. Talking shit with the ladies while drinking Moscato! 3. What’s your dream home like? a. Full of books on systemic oppression b. Beverly Hills penthouse c. Some big shot rapper’s mansion d. Spacious New York Loft 8 4. Your favorite TV show is… a. Docu-series on race b. Sex in the City c. Bad Girls Club d. Love and Hip Hop 5. Finally, who’s your favorite female icon from this list? a. Angela Davis b. Taylor Swift c. New York from I Love New York d. Nicki Minaj Tally up how many of each letter you got and turn the page to find out who you really are! If you got mostly a’s...You’re an Angry Black Girl! Congratulations, you loud-mouthed, anger filled home-girl! I’m guessing there’s always some reason to be mad at someone, isn’t there? Do you just spend your days in a perpetual state of rage, angry at the world for reasons they don’t find important? Do you find yourself constantly snapping your fingers in that z-formation, pursing your lips at anyone who steps in your way? I bet people are telling you to just be quiet, huh? I mean, what issues could you, a black female, possibly have? Why should you care that your high school English teacher gives you a C+ on your essay because she thinks you copied it from the white man online? Why does it matter that your male co-worker at Target constantly teases you about your nappy hair, calling it a “brillo pad,” “cheeto puff,” or some other clever name? None of this should anger you! Be aware, you sassy Sapphire, in this world, your anger means nothing. If you got mostly b’s...You’re an Oreo! You grew up watching Lizzie McGuire and listening to Aaron Carter. You straightened your hair from the moment you were old enough to assert yourself and cried when it wouldn’t lay flat. Your friends were always shocked to see you bring collard greens and jambalaya to lunch so you stopped eating your favorite foods. They didn’t understand why you couldn’t just brush your hair, wash your hair everyday, why it suddenly grew or shrunk inches overnight. I’m certain you’ve heard from many of your friends how they just don’t see you as a black girl. They erase your black skin because it doesn’t fit the images of other black girls they see. You spend most of your time edging away from the loud black girls, the ghetto black girls who ate hot cheetos and drank kool aid and had corn rows and long braids and smelled like a mix of the jungle and your ancestors pain and you wished, maybe for a just a moment, but you did wish that you could be white. But honey, you can never wash off that melanin! It’s a permanent stain. Just because your friends can’t see the black on you, it doesn’t mean the rest of the world can’t. 9 If you got mostly c’s...You’re a Hip Hop Ho! You sexual deviant you! Let me guess—big breasts, small waist, and wide hips? You’ve got that original Betty Boop to you, something in your eyes that say yes to a question no one bothers to ask. You’re the black girl that white guys use as a notch in their belt. You are the exotic sexual being that men love to hate and hate to love. You became a sexual thing at a young age, when your breasts came in at ten years old and became d-cups at fourteen. They started looking at you differently, didn’t they? Your eyes stopped existing. Your words didn’t matter. Your body became the tool used to diminish your worth. How often did you get yelled at in school to put on something less revealing than your shorts? Did you ever wonder why the skinny, flat-assed white girls were never told the same thing? Honey, your wide hips wrapped in chocolate skin were never yours. You will never be yours. 10 If you got mostly d’s...You’re a Ghetto Fabulous Black Girl! You make what little money you can working at Walmart or doing nails. You make people waiting at the bus stop with you uncomfortable with your loud laughter and yellow and pink braids and long, bedazzled nails. You toss your weave around, remove your earrings, and square up to anyone that says shit about you. When you’re out, you are often told to stop yelling, screaming, taking up space. You’ve got baby daddy problems and you’re only 18. You grew up playing double dutch in the middle of the street with old rope. You accept your black, your ghetto, your Ebonics. But you are not supposed to accept yourself, honey! Don’t you see the fashion police spreads in the magazines? You are on all the pages! Don’t show your hips. Put on a shirt that conceals your stomach. Put your breasts away. Don’t wear bright lipstick. Stop standing out, being different. Get smaller, quieter, lesser, as you are supposed to be. You love your black too loudly and it makes others uncomfortable. Your job is to make people comfortable so do your best to limit the loudness of your melanin. simul justus et peccator andy anderson 11 QUEER Eve Taft You think there isn’t a sign on my ribs that says “stonewall inn”? You think Matthew Shepard doesn’t tug at my hair and warn me as I walk the streets of my city? You think I don’t choke on the smoke from the hellfire you spit from your pulpits with sparks that sear and heat branding irons which scar your names on me to mark me as danger? You think my veins don’t shiver when they think of the devastation wracking the cities that some called deliverance while Reagan fiddled as we burned You think that the prisons pink triangles asylums bullets spitting into a nightclub don’t whisper in my head as I make my way through the world? 12 You think that I don’t notice— I kiss her and kiss her —the headline blowing by with a death toll and I kiss her the skyline splashing out behind us the lights on the Washington Avenue bridge flicker on and I kiss her Putin criminalizes us, across the world I kiss her Vigils held too late for young suicides Corrupting, perverted, disgusting, an affront to family values— I kiss her in the rain and the sleet of Minnesota I kiss her, our lips tasting of chants from the protest that shut down I-94 handed down from our grandmothers hearts beating, eyes sparkling, alive I kiss her You think I forget the lists and the candles and the deaths and the pain and all that roars in my ears is a chorus screaming over and over again you were not able to kill us I kiss her and all is still 13 JESUS IN A CRACKER A. Tetzlaff Eucharist I hugged my father’s black, pleated pants while we waited for mass to start. He was beaming proudly and chatting with the rest of our family. I wore the only dress I allowed to touch my body: by then it was a year old and from my uncle’s wedding when I walked down the aisle carrying a bouquet, looking like a blonde deer caught in front of a semi truck. It had a black velvet top connected to a white skirt. All the girls wore white. My parents cut their losses. All the boys, shirt and tie. Eight-year-olds taking their first communion despite the fact that most of us had no idea what was happening. Understanding the sacraments isn’t really necessary when you grow up in a Catholic family. By the time you are aware of your burden, it’s too late anyway. Religion lived at Nativity of Our Lord Parish, in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Between church and home, I lived in a realm of contradiction. I came to visit religion, but it never went home with me. On Sundays when the game was in town, God would not judge you for wearing your Packer jersey to church. Sinning was bad, but you could tailgate and drink and carouse to your heart’s content. We should have taken beer at 14 that first communion. We would have appreciated it more than the wine. We took our places in the ritual that had been performed again and again. The time-worn ritual begins anew as I walk to the altar with my hands folded in front of me. I must remember to raise my hands high enough so the rheumatic priest doesn’t have to bend down. Right hand over left. I’m a blonde deer again. “The body of Christ.” This is the part where I say, “Amen,” whether I mean it or not, then put the communion wafer in my mouth. I must cross myself (right hand touching head, then left shoulder, then right shoulder) as I walk back up the aisle and toward my family. They liked to sit in the middle section, never too close to the altar. They didn’t like making direct eye-contact with the priest during his homily. To this day I skip the wine for fear of communicable diseases. It stuck to the roof of my mouth, this first communion wafer. It was stale. There was no substance. Maybe the parched flour and water, mixed with the lingering incense is actually what Jesus tastes like. The absorbent clump lasted into the next hymn. Saliva rushed into my mouth and eventually the wafer, heavy with mois- ture, fell from the roof of my mouth. I swallowed without chewing. Just go with it, I told myself. All these people believe in this, so one day, you will too. But I wasn’t sure. I didn’t get it. The power that kept me from running back up the aisle wasn’t the love of God gently pushing me along, but the ritual itself, and the expectation of my parents and grandparents watching proud and probably dewy-eyed as I joined their ranks. Hugs and smiles and congratulations as my family comes out of the first communion Mass, but I wasn’t sure what was such cause for celebration; I hadn’t had a great epiphany about God, nor had I felt any change at all. It was just like every Sunday late in October. head and tell me I was forgiven. “Sometimes, I’m not very nice to my mom or my brother,” I told him. Navitity didn’t own a confessional booth like the ones in movies. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a confessional booth at any Catholic church outside the movies. We sat quietly in a tiny room. Being small for my age, I circled the air below me with my feet. I sat facing him directly. He crossed his legs under the cassock he wore, clearly annoyed. After a silence and a slow nod, the priest said, “Sometimes, we hurt the people we love the most.” It was the only part I heard or remember hearing; he started talking about God’s forgiveness, I assume. I didn’t pay attention, because I didn’t feel different after admitting such a pitiful sin. Marriage I had no ill-feeling toward the physical place of church. In fact, the ritual, the sounds, the smell of incense, and the light that filtered through the stained-glass windows from an Easterly rising sun became familiar and comforting over the years. The nave, filled with old pews, had witnessed my parents’ wedding and my grandparents’ weddings. The organ towered over the choir. The smell of old patrons and Sunday cologne too liberally applied became a sensory memory of that place. However, religion has never been an inward practice; the practice and the scene never joined together. Anointing of the Sick When times are bad, I’ve pulled the fragments of ritual from my memory and recite the “Our Father.” I did this in the winter of my eighteenth year in days following my grandfather’s funeral. He died of bladder cancer, worsened by a communicable bacterial infection called C.Difficile. I became familiar with the ritual of funeral; I’d been to three or four for close relatives. But this time, the ritual felt different. Before, I was sad. My grandfather’s funeral confirmed that the only sacred part of my world had been ripped mercilessly from my arms. Reconciliation “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”As the words come out of my mouth, they themselves felt sinful. I hadn’t sinned, I was eleven. I barely knew what sin was. I had to stop a moment to think of a sin I had committed, so the priest could nod his Baptism I sat in the shower until the water hitting my face was colder than I could stand, reciting the “Our Father” over and over, sobbing. Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. I hoped, over so many repetitions, that my view 15 of God and heaven would change. Yet, it confused me more. Religion stopped looking like the patron blind to reality and became a place where I didn’t belong. Like I was missing out because I didn’t get that epiphany, and didn’t have that same faith. Confirmation Religion was so stale, that when my Mother would occasionally talk about faith, or God, or divine love at the dinner table I would blush with pity and embarrassment. How can you believe this? I thought, how can you be so blind to the real world? Perhaps, I’m the blind one. I continue to live in an intermediate space between faith and atheism. I can’t commit to either. The fence between atheism and faith is fraught with angst. Most days, I try to laugh away my uncertainty. I tell jokes about my Catholic past, chuckle when I hear of “recovering Catholics,” and tell friends, “It smells like a Catholic church in here,” whenever they burn incense. Religion is still stale to me. Religion has no nutritional value. Stale religion has no holy orders. 16 grey cloud island david baboila 17 saint paul airport david baboila 18 white bear lake david baboila 19 zips coliseum david baboila 20 BRIDGE Jacob J. Miller This was not way back when, as my dad would have you believe. It was more recent than that. If he can’t flat out deny it, which he no longer can, he will at least try to convince you that it was so long ago as to suggest it might have been a different lifetime, and he a different person. He has been, after all, Born Again. Except he was not the only person involved, and to carry along as if he was is an exercise in what I’ve heard philosophers call solipsism. For him, his transgression was between himself and the Holy Ghost: accountable not to those he wronged, only to an invisible spirit. But he doesn’t have sole authority in determining the past’s relevance or irrelevance to our lives today. My mother too pretends the past is only what has happened at a particular point in time, and not a factor in what determines what has happened since then and what is happening now. The slate wiper theory of forgiveness is what allowed them to wear their veneer of innocence and believe in its authenticity, and for that reason I resent their new-leaf turnover. My love for them may not be emergent in my words, I know, but I do love them, regardless of the fucked up traits they passed on to their children, which will become evident as this story unfolds You might be wondering, if you care at all, what could be so terrible. Well, it’s not so terrible, and not even very uncommon, but it happened to me, and my brothers and my sisters, and there was never anything we could really do about it. We watched it unfold almost every night to reveal its rotted pit. What was scariest was not when a half-full beer bottle would be hurled in our direction for us being too noisy, and then being held responsible for wasting the beer, and getting punished even more for that. What was scariest was when they fought with each other, mom and dad, when they were both liquored up. All of us children would be sitting in the living room, on our knees, in a line, with our hands folded and tucked inside our clenched thighs, having hitherto been fulfilling our playful, childish duties who couldn’t expect things to go so suddenly and intensely wrong. They would fight about anything, or nothing, for all we knew or cared. They would yell, swear, slam their fists on various surfaces, throw things across the room at each other as if rehearsed. One time, I remember, and this is what I’m talking about when I talk about how scary things got, my 21 dad had my mom pinned up against the refrigerator—after she threw three or four plates at him, one that hit his arm, but would have hit his face if he hadn’t been blocking, and cut it deep. He had the sharp kitchen knife pressed firmly under her chin. If she gulped too hard in fear, or if dad in his stupor lost balance, she would have been bleeding all over the family pictures held by magnets to the fridge. As we grew older, my big brother and I began working under dad instead of merely living under him. Our prospects in life weren’t substantial at that point. Whatever potential we had, it had never been encouraged, so entering into the family business, if it can even be called that, was the only viable option. I woke dad up most mornings from his typical collapse into a face-down, fetal heap on the kitchen floor, sometimes still wet, sometimes already crusted over. I’d say, “it’s time for work, dad,” and he’d drive me to the site where (drinking coffee with whiskey in it on the way) heavy machinery was waiting to be operated—even though we used hammers and nails whenever we could. Stonehenge-sized slabs of cement, wooden pillars, cinder blocks, and iron rods littered the landscape. It was all so disorderly that if a nomad wandered upon the scene, the indication would be of destruction rather than pre-construction. There were no piles of allocated materials or inventoried supply lists. It could have all been salvaged from past demolitions or by thievery from other project sites. We seemed to accrue it all without any kind of exchange or standard of accountability for use. Everything seemed to just show up wherever and whenever we needed it. Who actually made all this stuff? How did we move it from place to place to use from job to job? Who permitted my sodden father to oversee such potentially hazardous 22 projects? He was a self-made man outside the advent of auditing. What did I care then? I was making my way, fashioning for myself a future out of will power, and holding my breath until I could extricate myself from this grim farce. First day on the job, my dad said to me, don’t fuck up, or he’d make me test the bridge before the support beams were all in place. I believed him. That particular bridge wasn’t connecting two sides over a raging river or anything; more of a convenient pathway over a stream, but it was still a threat coming from dad. Second day on the job, my brother James tore partway through his leg with a chainsaw. I heard him yell, but it sounded more out of frustration than terror and pain. He sat down, ripped his immediately blood-soaked pants from where the initial tear was, delicately unlaced and removed his boot so as not to cause more pain, grunting as if he had done nothing more than step in dog shit, and lifted the nearly severed part of his leg that dangled lifelessly like a tube sock on a clothesline, to close the wound, from which I saw steam rising sacrificially to the wintery heavens. He reached forward to grab the excess of sock which, although bunched up at his toes, had a long, tortuous journey before being completely removed. He screamed as he stretched forward, more circumstantially appropriate this time, and this is when I dropped my— whatever, the thing I was holding, I can’t remember what, but I didn’t hear it land because I couldn’t assimilate anything else that may have been transpiring around me. I almost seemed to float over to him, not even aware of my legs propelling me forward. I saw all the blood, but I wasn’t put off by it as much as I thought I probably should have been, and I thought that as I stared at it pooling out. I observed it dispassionately, coldly, but I may not have been breathing. At first sight, it was just an organic pipe that sprung a leak. I think I asked if he was all right but I meant it more like did he think he was going to die. He said to go get dad and that’s when I became afraid. I stood there for I don’t know how long, until he repeated himself more urgently: “Walt!” he said, “Go! Get! Dad!” I listened that time, but I was still very afraid. I was trembling and began feeling like I might faint, and I almost hoped I wouldn’t find dad, that he’d be off drinking somewhere, but he wasn’t. He was drinking right there, over a small mound of dirt, holding a big piece of wood sturdy for someone to do something with. I saw his breath bellow out into the cold with a cough and evaporate as he took a swig from a bottle before sliding it back into his coat pocket, without so much as a pretense of inconspicuousness.The bottle neck stuck straight out and brushed against his elbow, a cumbersome lump sinking down and throwing off his equilibrium further than the ethanol already had. I slowed my pace, tried to regain some composure, and still hoped he wouldn’t notice me. I could claim an attempt at getting his attention, but he just couldn’t be bothered with me. I tried, I’d tell James, but I’ll carry you. I was sure I could have done that. Part of me still wished I could have avoided involving my dad at all. It was selfish, but I thought I might get slapped with the blame. But I yelled, Dad! Come quick! Dad, I yelled again, skidding on the gravel as I spun around, intent on not letting my dad’s impatient glare lock on me, and from that momentum, nearly ascending at a perfectly horizontal angle in the air before I landed face first on those same tiny rocks, a perfect reenactment of self-humiliation on the school playground at recess. I felt all those multiple points of impact, but wasted no time in catapulting myself back up—no time for embarrassment just yet—clawed off the pebbles that clung gently to the tiny dents they bore into my face and palms, and sped back to my brother who, when I reached the dirt-mound summit again, I could see was lying flat, surrounded by the thick, still-steaming purplish puddle which had, since I left him, at least quadrupled in circumference. Not looking back at all during my return sprint to see how far behind me dad was, or even if he followed me at all, I turned from the sight of my brother completely to see him, Dad, shuffling over the mound, bogged down by beer bottles, which could be heard clanging together in his pockets. He was wheezing inhalations of frozen air. He saw James right away, I know it, but he didn’t say anything until he got right up close to him, planting one clumsy boot in the blood puddle with a squelchy, meager splat, like an old-fashioned letter-sealing stamp on melted wax. He leaned over with outward turned elbows and hands on hips, looked at James’ face. James’ eyes were closed. Dad then scanned down to the butchered leg, grimaced, scanned back up to James’ face. James’ eyes were now open again, frigid with shock, and dad said, “pull yourself together, son,” erupting hysterically at his own clever buffoonery. James turned out to live, no real thanks to our father. I ended up having to run to the nearest phone anyway and call an ambulance. He didn’t even lose his leg. He did require a blood transfusion because he lost gallons of it, or at least it seemed like it when I stood there staring at the mess, but his gristly cheeks had their color restored right in front of me, resupplying and, it almost seemed, re-inflat23 ing him to human shape at the coercion of some stranger’s bodily elixir. It worked like sorcery, but far more astonishing because it was methodologically reliable. The warm fluid surged through his veins, and he was ensconced for a moment in a prodigious glow of newfound vitality. Back then, my dad, laughing, called him a lucky son-of-a-bitch, whereas telling the story now, upon reflection and suspension of rational thought, my brother was “touched by an angel.” Now, whenever this celestial creature of mercy is mentioned, who conveniently remains anonymous for humility’s sake I suppose, instead of our dad drunkenly laughing and mocking the situation, James does. An example of an aforementioned fucked up trait passed on in the family. 24 50 FEET TALL Emilie Tomas I was in 5th grade When my class went To see ‘The Human Body’ and I watched In childhood Horror as A 50 foot grin Unfurled, loomed Large enough To pull me Into orbit Devoured First a sandwich And then my Faith in humanity With deafening Smacks Like thunder If thunder Was made Of jelly and Dismay and I Knew it was a Crime to allow a Person to become This Inflated, With every pore Its own path to Hell and I knew I couldn’t trust Anyone because In our heads We are all 50 feet tall. 25 meow you see ashley waalen 26 MOUSETRAP Halle Chambers Minnie “Mousy” O’Mally knew she was invisible up here on her fire escape. This was her safeplace. With the ladder pulled up as it was now, almost no one could reach her here. Plus, even if someone did make it up here, she could easily get away. If she crawled rough the window, she’d be securely locked in the apartment. There, it was warm and dry and at least sometimes safe when her daddy…no, excuse her, correction, “Father or Sir” wasn’t home. He hated when she called him Daddy. He wasn’t home now, out doing illegal God knows what in the “family business,” but he would be back soon. Hence why she was out here. So, no apartment, not right now. If she dropped the ladder, she could slide down to street level in seconds and be down the block in under a minute. She knew, because she’d practiced and had timed herself. The only way to avoid getting hit in the face was to be quick on your feet. That was the first rule of fighting that Jase, her older brother, had taught her. With the life they lived, it was also a rule of survival. And they didn’t call her “Mousy” for nothing: she was small and fast… very fast. Jase could make a distraction, and Minnie could run. But, Jase was working a job that “Father” had given him out of town till this weekend, and she’d surely get caught if she didn’t have her usual head-start. So,“down” wouldn’t work either. If she scaled up the ladder above her, she’d be on the roof, where their oldest brother, Cobie, had often taken her and Jase to stargaze. She hadn’t known till six years into her still short life that he’d done it to keep his precious baby brother and sister away from their father’s sight when the man would come home satellite high or plastered. She hadn’t known till twelve years in that he’d take their father’s hungover backhand on the mornings after, so she and Jase didn’t. All she’d known as he’d taught her each constellation was that Cobie was braver than Orion and that she and her brothers were more inseparable than the Gemini twins. But, her world went as topsy-turvy as Cassiopeia when her father had sent Cobie away, saying he would not have a queer as a son. When Jase and Minnie hugged him, Cobie swore he’d come back for them in a year or so. Jase had given up when he’d been two years gone. That was two years ago, and now even Minnie 27 was starting to doubt. No, she couldn’t go up to the roo, not alone. She shivered in the October chill as she reviewed her options: “in” would be facing her father’s wrath, “down” would be facing being caught by a cop or a stranger, and “up” would be facing a reminder of the happiness, now heartbreak, brought by a brother who was likely never coming home again. So, maybe she couldn’t escape easily…or at all. She shivered again, this time more in frantic panic than from the frigid, near winter city wind. For not the first time in her life, Mousy felt trapped. 28 faces connie kilppen 29 *I DON’T ALWAYS FEEL COLORED Diamonique Walker Sometimes I find comfort in places I somehow know I don’t belong Never a full day, but hours will pass and I won’t consider my brown skin or kinky hair I’ll let the imminent fear of my black body being made into an example fall back to the depths of my mind My daughter’s safety in mixed company won’t occur to me I won’t juxtapose my blackness with any other’s identity confidence As if one chooses randomly from a pile of stock black girl names when they look at me He asks me if my hair is real I tell him he can’t ask me that He says oh it’s okay, my girlfriend is black I’m a dirty smudge on freshly ironed white linens Trying to blend in, trying to live my life I breathe, momentarily Suddenly, I’ll feel breathless, choked Stabbed in the chest Stung by a white hot micro aggressive slap in the face An unsolicited violation of my personal space A pale hand gently pulls a lock of my hair in white amazement Or a thin pair of lips will say “what’s upppppp” to me and not anyone else I’ll get called a name like Jasmine with such utter 30 *Line borrowed from Claudia Rankine, Citizen WHERE I AM FROM Hannah Schmit I am from the forest. From ruddy Maple and heady Pine. I am from the sunlit dust that refracts the life of the breeze. The rough wood of the trees are my bones, roots firmly planted deep in the depths of the cool black soil. Generations have taught me to live in the sun, tan weathered hands, calloused and worn cover small, break earth and sow seeds. Exhaling with the unfurling of new leaves whose first stretch welcomed life, I learned the importance of patience and nurturing. I am from dirt beneath my nails and gritty sand in my teeth. Sap painted hands and hot tar feet, blackened from short dashes across burning pavement that rippled with summer heat. Sandboxes were my kingdom, the layers of silt and sand familiar to my prodding hands. I climbed turreted towers of twisted bark and branches to survey the world and breath in time with the breeze. Twigs and leaves were my crown and a rusty tractor my carriage. My people were the songbirds and insistent cicadas whose songs filtered lazily together through the woods. Sometimes I called back, matching note for note, melodies and harmonies creating a canopy of familiarity. I am from wildflowers who nodded their velvet, satin, and paintbrush heads as I passed by. From dried grasses whose sweet scent rose from rolling waves that undulated under horse-tail clouds above. The gold-fringed top of the corn is my hair as it turns to brown under the autumn sun. I am from the passing of seasons, each marking the time as brilliant red and orange gave way to pristine white and serene gray. Freckles and sunburn traded for pale skin cold kissed cheeks. My life can be counted in scraped knees and bruises, and band-aids and scars, each a story unique unto itself. I am from the water. Clear and silted, still and rushing it surrounds me. The river courses through my veins, its steady pulse my heartbeat. I am from the muted silence of holding my breath. From letting go in the soft pixelated light that swirls lazily in the haze of a murky river. From the dew that rests in early mists that lay as a blanket over a newly purified earth, protecting the last of the dawn. I am from music. Love-strung tunes of lullabies rock 31 my past to sleep and call forth dog-eared memories. Treasured memories that float fragmented in my mind, I was waltzing with my darling… Goodnight, Irene… Then sings my soul… Black Forest I have come to be in this place. Knit sweaters and hand me downs weave the fabric of my personality. The black ink of the notes is stained on my fingers, the lyrics printed out as a map on my mind. My body is movement, ‘full of grace’ as I danced through recitals and music competitions. My history is composed of the ivory keys of a piano board, the metallic strings of a guitar, and the soft wheeze of a musty accordion. I am from survivors. From broken families and lives I was given the opportunity to begin. Out of the ashes of war and blood, death and pain I was taught compassion. The scars remind me of my privilege. A handful of ink-smeared letters, a fading tattoo, and relentless nightmares that went unspoken. Touched by shadows of heartbreak and longing I have learned the fears of disease and pain, the cruelty of man and the destruction of illness. I am from a legacy. Footsteps preceded my very first and taught me how to stand tall—to walk courageously. When I was tired of walking and needed to fly, strong hands lay behind me as I learned to test my own strength. I am from fading memories. From sweat and ploughs, rough tools and run down sheds. My past is a copper foundation of saved pennies stretched with love and trust. The polished wood of a hunter’s gun and tug of a taut fishing line tie me to the land of a generation gone by. I am from the creaking wood of a ship that ferried dreams. From the fjords and 32 I am from strength. From weary hands that sought to move forward. From songs crooned in different tongues, prayers tucked away from missed lives. I am from the sweet smell of tobacco. From a worn brown pipe laid in the top overall pocket. From tales of Shirley Temple and shiny black shoes. From the canoe as it passes over reeds and the click of a cane keeping time with shuffling shoes. From sterilized rooms and flowers with similarly fated owners. I am from loss and tears. I am from the Mississippi and the Great Lakes, from steam and coal. From concrete jungles and log cabins. I am a piece of the past, I am… The rooms of my mind are wallpapered with snapshots of a younger me. Sayings and phrases are the soundtrack of my life. I carry them with me. Tucked in locked and forgotten rooms they wait patiently, longingly for me to recall. future. I seek not where I am going only exist here, as I am. I am from the past. Shaped by the present I live for the future. I am from wanderlust. An incorrigible desire to explore that cannot be quelled with the stillness between heartbeats. I am from the excitement that teeters on the brink of the inevitable. I am pulled at by the gentle whisper of religions. Called to the beauty of holiness in the world, I am grounded in the church yet growing in the temple and the mosque. I am gentle hands that have learned to be useful—to give back. Well-used fingers taught to survive and protect. I am a collection of places and people that I have encountered. In love with humanity, I exchange comfort for experience. I am at home in the concrete jungles constructed from heat-cracked pavement and in the mudpatched hut of the desert. The mountains and caves call to me like the trees and fields of my youth. I am at home in the grand expanse of a world that knows no limits, understands no boundaries. A world that exists, simply to exist. My feet itch to travel down forgotten paths where the dust of ages can billow out from under me and cloud the clarity of the 33 who am i? ashley waalen 34 2 GRATITUDE: A POEM IN FOUR PARTS D.E. Green 1. Le Chaim 2. In Praise of Delusion Each day, my own sunrise, my own morning star: your red head radiates strange aerial spikes. When he walks down the sloping skyway from Memorial to the Music building on his way to a long evening class, he sees his reflection in the large classroom window at the base of the slope. He loves that mirror. In it, he is about a foot taller than his five-fiveand-a-half and twenty pounds lighter. He is younger than his sixty years. The silver hair is less telling. As he approaches, the Other ways slightly, moves with the elegant gait of an athlete or dancer. This, he imagines, is my Norwegian double—tall and slender and (at least from this distance) good-looking. Of course as man and image converge, his Other shrinks into an eastern-European, Semitic, rather compact, little old man. Perhaps (he wonders) I have seen the inner image of myself. Perhaps (he smiles) I am happy just to have illusions. Our son’s beard and long Hasidic locks on a head never bowed in prayer hover over his guitar and, till he gets it just so, a heavy-metal riff. The picture of Ollie, our old pup,— his face speaks love, love, love. Like the holiday meal you’ll pretend to let me cook. Or when your hand gently strokes my heaving shoulder: I am sobbing silently because the movie has ended well—a good death, timely reconciliation, vows revived, a renewed breath. 36 3. Thanksgiving 4: To My Son This morning, as I drive from Northfield to Hampton past field after barren field, three wild turkeys foraging and gobbling at the edge of the road— their white-splashed wings, black-feathered trunks, It’s Friday, Z—, and (as always) time to say how much I love you (and your mom too, since I don’t say it often enough though I feel it every minute) and how much I miss you and hope you can spend a few hours with us and Grandma the first weekend in November. We worry about you every day, ‘cuz that’s our job, but we also have an abiding sense of how strong you are: How much you have been through, how far you’ve come, and how you face each day with grit—and, I hope, love. The latter is so hard to do: Over breakfast your mom and I sometimes sit around and whine about our work, about grading student papers. But a little later I’ll be walking across campus and the light will be just right and I’ll see a familiar face amid a group of young people and—I don’t know why—I feel love. I think that’s the word. And I felt it last time we picked you up downtown and you were talking to some scruffy stranger on the street. And the fact that you can still be open to such encounters—isn’t that love too?— filled me with wonder. It’s funny: Old people, among whom I am about to number, have proverbially been beyond wonder, such a romantic and old-fashioned word. But I swear that I still feel it—and that you are among the wonders of my world. red combs poking and pecking the gravel and weeds—surprise me. I flinch. The car swerves. I breathe. They range unruffled. 37 work in progress gabriel bergstrom 38 THE FIRE Elisabeth Beam I stood with my back to the crowd watching the house go up in flames. It happened faster than I had expected. It had taken less than a minute for the fire to spread from the kitchen to the living room and even less time for it to make its way upstairs and into the bedrooms where Grandma and the twins had been peacefully sleeping. Joel stood beside me; his face was dark with ash, his mouth tilted upwards in a sickeningly gleeful smile. Momma had never liked Joel. She said he was a troublemaker and I should do my best to stay away from him. Joel hadn’t always been mean. When I first met him he would bring me friends and make me laugh. He gave me my grey tabby cat, Walter, and my small white bunny, Snowy. We used to all run around the garden and play and laugh. I didn’t like it when Walter and Snowy played. Walter always hurt Snowy. Joel loved it. Snowy’s pain filled shrieks always brought a smile to his face. Joel would play tricks on Momma. He’d move the chair she was about to sit in and she’d tumble to the floor with a crash and a scream. He would put dead things in the twins’ crib for Momma to find. Once he brought a live snake into the house and slipped it into the shower when Momma was in it. She screamed something awful and had locked me in my room for a week. I always got blamed for Joel’s wicked tricks. Momma brought a lot of new friends to the house after that. She brought in men wearing long white coats who talked with me and asked questions about Joel and Walter and Snowy. Joel would stand behind them as they questioned me and make faces. I didn’t understand why they didn’t just talk to Joel and grew frustrated with their questions. Once Momma brought home a man in a black suit. He walked around the house mumbling in a strange language, throwing water on the walls and waving his cross around like a baton. I thought he was crazy. I told Momma and she told me to hush and sit down. The man stood in front of me yelling in his strange way and holding his cross on my forehead. It was cold and made me uncomfortable. Joel got upset. He didn’t like the man and the way he was 39 shouting. The next thing I knew the man was on the floor bleeding from a gash in his head and Joel was laughing loudly in my ear. A bunch of police officers showed up and Joel told me not to tell anyone what he’d done. He said I should blame it on Momma and she’d go away for a long time and stop bothering us. Momma shouted and cried and struggled as the police dragged her away to the sound of Joel’s gleeful laughter and the twins’ high pitched screams. Grandma came after Momma. She was mean. She locked me in my room and told me to stay there until I learned my lesson. I watched him stalk around the room at night mumbling darkly to himself. Grandma made me to go church with her every Sunday, she said I had to pray for my soul for what I’d done to that man and to Momma. I didn’t understand why everyone blamed me for Joel’s tricks and was tired of being punished for all the naughty things that he did. One night at supper, Joel made scary faces at the twins who started wailing. Grandma stood up and yelled at me as she tried desperately to calm the twins. She told me to go to my room. I said no. I pointed at Joel and yelled at him with all my might. This was all his fault. Grandma sent me to bed. Joel told me they were going to send me away. They would separate us and I would never be able to see him again. I told him I was fine with that because he was being horrible. That upset him. He got Walter and Snowy and made me watch as Walter ate Snowy. I cried. He laughed. Joel woke me up at midnight. He told me we could stay together. Me, him, and Walter, but we had to do 40 something first. He smelt like gasoline. He led me to the kitchen and pointed to the stove which was covered with a sticky, sweet smelling liquid. He told me to open my hands. I did. He handed me a lighter. I didn’t want to do it but Joel got angry when I tried to say no. He yelled and told me to do it for all the times Momma blamed me for something he did. That if I did this everyone would finally realize it was him doing all the bad things and not me. My hands were shaking so bad it took me five tries to get the lighter to ignite. When it did I froze and stared at the small flame in my hands. It flickered with every shuttering breath that came out of my mouth. Joel grew impatient and slapped the lighter out of my hand and onto the stove. There was a large whooshing noise and a blast of orange light. My arm hair stood on end and sweat trickled down my face. I backed away. Joel stood in front of the fire and laughed. He threw his arms out wide and danced in tune with the flames. He was crazy but his movements were so beautiful and fluid. It was frightening. The fire advanced toward me. I didn’t want to move. I wanted the fire to eat me like it was going to eat Grandma and the twins. Joel grabbed my hand and led me outside. We stood to the side and watched as the fire slowly ate up the house I had grown up in. The house that the priest, the twins, and Grandma had all died in. Sirens and smoke filled the night air. I looked to my side for Joel, but he had disappeared. DESERT DRUMS Abigail Carpenter When my London flatmate, Raoni, suggested we travel to Northern Africa because he was missing the heat of Brazil, we had no intention of visiting the Sahara Desert and the Atlas Mountains. But we quickly made friends with a generous and hospitable Moroccan man, Raxido, who invited us to a local drum circle at the edge of the Sahara Desert. After traveling on camelback against an orange-rayed sunset, we found ourselves among the sand dunes. We parked our camels single file near our camp, and I realized a place that once only existed in my dreams was now before me. I had to close my eyes for a long while. I opened them over and over again until I was sure of it. I had to reach down and let the sand fall between my fingers slowly. I had to breathe in the crisp, evening air. And when I looked up, the stars speckled in the sky like the summer freckles on my face, thousands and thousands of them. When the drum circle began, I let its music fill me up. It started in my toes and moved higher, tickled my fingers and sent goosebumps up my arms and back. The drums vibrated within my chest and when it reached my mouth, I screamed in laughter. My laugh echoed farther and farther across the desert, not meeting any person or town or house until it was miles and miles away. I wrapped my blanket a little tighter and watched my friends dance around the fire to the beat of the drums. Their legs moved up and down as their hands joined the ashes flying through the night air. For many hours, we sat around the fire, told our stories and spoke aloud our dreams. We danced and sang and took turns pounding the drums. We slept under the stars among the silence of the desert for only a few hours until the sun awoke us on the horizon. And moving through the deep sand, the sunrise at our backs, we rode our camels to the bus to escape the desert heat before it swallowed us up whole. 41 COLORS Hannah Schmit If I am a color call me red The color of passion and love Humanity worn on my sleeve The color of my blood, beating heart. Call me red. If I am a season call me fall With baited chilled breath I speak My words on whirlwind breezes fall An omen of changes to come Call me fall. If I am a sound call me silence. The chaos and stillness of calm My words lost yet encompassing In anticipation of something Call me silence If I am a thought call me hope The desire for something more A yearning call deep within me The need to breathe Call me hope. 42 urban delight jazmin crittenden 43 WHEN DAD WORE COLOGNE A. Tetzlaff “Did Grandpa Mike die?” My small voice broke a quiet that Dad and I carry easily between us. A radio frequency connecting our minds that communicates silently, so we don’t have to. Even at the age of three, I knew our sacred, noiseless space well. Dad took me to a park one day, nearby my childhood home. We rarely visited this park unless we intended to use its snowy slope for adrenaline rushes in our bright plastic sleds in the winter time. But it wasn’t wintertime now. My dad wore a blue t-shirt he’d owned since high school. Summer or spring, the season isn’t particularly distinct. The hills rose nakedly as we quietly approached. I’ve come back to the memory time and again; the images are blurred, like a positive photograph that didn’t come out of the darkroom correctly. I can’t recall how my father responded to my question, though I’m sure he patiently and painfully affirmed my query. In that moment I wasn’t shocked. I wasn’t sad. Presently, I regret that I can’t remember a man who loved me and was so dearly loved by others. I don’t know how he looked aside from the pictures I know. How he talked, laughed, 44 yelled, walked, I don’t recall. Did he wear cologne to work like Dad? When I was young, Dad wore cologne to work. He woke up around five in the morning in order to be at work five-thirty, and he still does, despite the fact that no one expects him in the office till eight. I’d hear his alarm from my bed and wait to smell the mix of dewy summer grass and the spicy knives of cologne in my nostrils. The smell lingered and pulled me back to sleep as Dad left the house. On the day at the park, Dad wasn’t wearing cologne. Dad didn’t wear cologne that day because it was either a weekend or he had the day off or had taken time away to grieve. I don’t remember the call to our corded telephone late one night. It was the hospital telling Mom and Dad that my grandfather died of a heart attack while showering. I don’t know if he died immediately or if the attack was slow, painful, cold, and wet. I will never ask. The thought of breaking the stitches grief so tenuously sewed incites trepidation. Was my young face one of his last images? I’m vain enough to assume so––grandparents always think of the grandbabies first. Was it a comfort? I can only hope. At my Grandfather’s funeral, I can’t remember Mom’s grief. I can’t remember the funeral either.She keeps the remnants of her love tended like a flower garden and tells me of her father often. I have nothing but the cemented walkway leading to the park that summer day deep in my mind. Mom tells me that my grandfather lived as long as he did because he was waiting for me. It was a miracle I was even born, but that’s not my story to tell. She calls me “the sparkle in his eye.” Christopher, my younger and only brother, inherited my grandfather’s bright, Anglo-blue irises. He was born the year after my grandfather died. Christopher joined the Army a few weeks ago; my grandfather was a Marine in the 60s. During his service in Asia, my grandfather collected each country’s currency. Grandma keeps the collection in a red leather box in her bedroom closet. I used to step onto a chair and carefully extract the artifact from the top shelf and touch each coin and each bill. Some of those tenders are much extinct now. The souvenirs of my grandfather’s life are far less valuable to me than those of my travels––those, at least, the mugs and the key chains, those have memories attached of the real thing. I’ve spent most of my life scouring photos and objects, trying to resurrect an authentic memory of my grandfather. Trying to find a sensation that brings him back to me like the early morning scent of Dad’s cologne because I only remember the hills and my words and Dad. The solvents of time washed away my grandfather. 45 SHITTY CHRISTMAS TREES AND SECONDHAND DOLLS Elisabeth Beam When I was a kid we didn’t have a lot of money. But we managed to survive. Mom worked a lot at the dingy looking Super 8 Motel just down the street from the elementary school. You know, the kind of motel that charges by the hour instead of night. She hated it but it was close to school and paid just enough. Around November she would start picking up shifts at other hotels in town to save up more money for Christmas. It was hard. The heat bill always went up mid-October when the chill started to set in and the snow began to fall. Presents were always an issue. Getting stuff for just me and Sarah was usually alright, but Mom came from a big family. Six brothers and sisters all of whom had kids. All of whom would be needing presents. That’s a lot of money. Money we just didn’t have. One year there was a huge blizzard and they canceled school for a week. Sarah was only six at the time and she couldn’t be left alone to take care of herself much less a five-year-old as well. So mom had to stay home from work and look after us. She tried to make it seem like she wasn’t stressed out about the money, but I knew she was. She would pace around the kitchen at night and mumble to 46 herself. She’d crouch over her checkbook and shake her head. She tried to hide it from us, but I noticed. I always noticed when she got like that. A week of work missed meant we wouldn’t be able to afford the gas to get to grandma’s house for Christmas. And a week with everyone at home meant that the heat bill was going to be rough. She was too proud to try and get food stamps. So money that would normally go towards presents went to buying our Christmas feast. We didn’t go to my grandma’s house that Christmas but it was probably the best Christmas of my life. The day before school let out our landlord took out all the carpet in the living room. He said it was due to be replaced and that someone would be over before the holiday to put down some new carpet. “Your feet will be so happy and thankful! That’s the best Christmas present you could ask for!” he had happily told us. No one came. The floor was cold and there were nails and sharp staples sticking up at weird angles. It hurt to step on them and small red dots appeared throughout the house as we all made the mistake of stepping in the living room without socks. Mom put down an old ratty green rug, one that our cats liked to pee on. She bought a small fake green tree from the thrift shop downtown. It was the saddest looking tree. Most of the branches were missing so it had random bald spots sporadically around its leaning trunk. A good number of the ornaments that we put on it fell off because it couldn’t support their weight. We made new ones out of paper and glitter. Mom wrapped tinsel she’d taken from work around it and Sarah and I sloppily placed string lights. We put an old family picture at the top of the tree because we were too scared that our expensive Christmas angel would fall and break if we tried to stick her up there. Thinking back on it now it was a pretty shitty looking tree, but back then I thought it was the best thing I’d ever seen in my life. I remember sitting on the floor amongst the nails and staples and looking at it glittering and glistening and thinking that it was a far better tree than anyone else could ever have. I thought that even if we’d spend a million dollars on a tree and all its dressings that it wouldn’t even be able to come close to this masterpiece sitting before me. For Christmas Eve we blasted holiday music and ran around the living room twirling and waving our arms above our heads. Mom had somehow found time to make new flannel pajamas for both me and Sarah and we had immediately put them on. She had also given us each a doll that she’d found at a thrift store. They looked ratty and dirty but I loved them both. Every bit of dust and matted patch of hair was a story waiting to be told. The dolls had character and I loved it.That shitty tree and our thrift store dolls were great but they weren’t what made that night so special. It was that we were all together, making the most out of what we had and not lamenting what we were missing. I think as we grow up we lose the magic in secondhand dolls and shitty Christmas trees. 47 summer nights adam ruff 48 the people united adam ruff 49 after the hike adam ruff 50 CRUMBS Malena Larsen He’s looking for love In the crevices of his couch Like loose change. I saw him lift up the cushions And pull out crumbs His mother’s earring A quarter The spoon he dropped last week After eating ice cream out of the container. It was chocolate cookie dough and he ate the whole thing. I watched him put the quarter in his back pocket and the spoon back in the cushions. I told him I had been in love once And he said I like it when girls call me daddy. I had a dream that night that he was dating somebody and my stomach hurt when I woke up. I became a spoon in the couch cushion Who said words like Daddy And Fuck me And Hard. At the end of every night I was put back with the crumbs, and each day that he came to get me there was more cat hair or lint stuck to me I waited patiently Dirty For him to pick me up. It was 77 degrees the late summer night he stopped getting me from the cushions. He told me that he found somebody to love and we can’t be friends, because if I see you I’ll fuck you. I asked him why he couldn’t control himself if he was in love with somebody. The inside of my ribcage Was being scraped empty 51 Like the chocolate cookie dough ice cream container And my stomach hurt Like it did after the dream Where he wasn’t mine I can’t help it. He told me. I like it when girls call me daddy. When we met he was wearing a suit and it looked like he had spent a lot of time on his hair but I didn’t think he was attractive until the weekend when I was drunk. Across the table On the other side of red cups And puddles of water He stared at me In a grey tank top. His eyes And arms Were strong 52 And dark. Making eye contact felt like sex And he smelled like Fireball And somebody I shouldn’t be alone with And too much cologne. We went swimming at 6 am at the neighbor’s lakefront when everyone else fell asleep. He took off his shirt I kept mine on. The water fell off of him like it didn’t want to keep his body covered for too long. He picked me up and folded me over his right shoulder and threw me into the 6 am summer sweet lake water. He drove me home At 7 am Still drunk and Smitten. It was 88 degrees and my birthday the night I let him kiss me in the back hallway of our friend’s frat. I couldn’t wait anymore He told me In the house that smelled like Liquor and dust And damp wood. The first time we Fucked Was in the front seat of his White Pontiac Grand prix At 11 pm on a Tuesday. I saw him almost As an animal. His fists Were clenched And his eyebrows Like shelves Over his beetle eyes. Do you like fucking daddy? After that night I had to sneak him into my bedroom because he couldn’t do all of the positions he wanted to in his car. He needed to prove to me that he was the best fuck and that he could make me cum and that I should call him Daddy. I had never called fucking, fucking before. Before I was a dirty spoon it had only been called love. His eyes started to remind me Of Tiny Round Black beetles. There’s nobody else anymore We should just keep fucking. And when we fucked It was 66 degrees and almost fall when he came to my house in his white Pontiac Grand Prix and told me I remembered then, the quarter he put in his pants and how he used me to eat his ice cream and then put me back with all the crumbs in the cushions of 53 his couch Where he keeps looking for love Like it’s the loose change In his back pocket. 54 bloomed audrey campbell 55 pruned audrey campbell 56 HERMAN Danny Polaschek Grape juice dribbled down Herman’s chin and landed in scattered droplets down the front of his white T-shirt. He didn’t notice and, after setting down his half-emptied glass, picked up his spoon and started on his bowl of bran flakes. Sitting at the kitchen table, there was nothing in front of Herman —but a bare white wall. It seemed, however, that he wasn’t looking at it, but rather through it like a child looks through a window and, seeing nothing but gray skies and rain, is overwhelmed by disappointment because they will not be outdoors playing that day. As Herman sat there facing the white wall and chomping his cereal, his son entered the kitchen and began his morning ritual. Herman heard the coffee-maker start bubbling from somewhere behind him in the kitchen along with the quick and efficient pitter-pattering of his son’s feet, who Herman assumed had to be walking laps around the center island as some sort of new, trendy morning workout. Once the coffee maker’s burbling came to an end the footsteps stopped as well. Herman focused on the sound of the coffee being poured, the soft sound of liquid filling a ceramic mug. The sound stopped as quickly as it had started and Herman was further drawn from his relaxed, monotonous state by the sound of his son’s voice. “How are the flakes this morning, Dad?” Herman didn’t turn around to face his son, but continued with what he was doing, looking like a cow chewing cud. “Five star quality,” he replied in between spoonfuls. “Flaky as ever.” Herman’s son chuckled a bit and looked up from his fresh cup of coffee but the laugh died away when he noticed that his father was still turned away from him, eyes glued straight ahead. Taking another sip, Herman’s son pondered whether he would keep pursuing his father in conversation or not. He ultimately decided against it and left the kitchen, coffee mug in hand. A sigh escaped Herman’s throat as he set down his spoon, finished with his mushed and soggy cereal. Ain’t this the life, he thought to himself sarcastically. Finally turning away from the wall, Herman scooted himself back from the kitchen table and slowly stood up. He gripped the side of the table for balance and took a few deep breaths in an effort to steady himself. Just a few weeks before, Herman had 57 missed a stair descending to the basement and found himself tumbling clumsily down the rest of the way until crashing to a stop on the last few steps. Herman’s head still felt a bit shaky from time to time, which caused a bit of a tremble in his legs. Instead of walking from place to place, he grew accustomed to maneuvering his way to each destination by leaning on and grabbing anything he could for support and then flinging himself to another sturdy checkpoint, and so on and so forth until he reached his goal. It was much like a monkey swinging from vine to vine, but less precise and much less graceful. With his feet finally under him, legs steady, Herman pushed away from the kitchen table and launched himself to the kitchen counter, which caught him with cold indifference. Hunched over, Herman caught his breath for a few seconds before beginning to shuffle down the length of the marble counter towards the coffeemaker at the other end. “This better be a damn good cup of Joe,” he mumbled to himself, clearly exhausted. Halfway down the counter, Herman stopped. With a steady grip on the counter he reached up to the cupboard above his head and swung it open. He couldn’t see inside but he knew that what he was looking for was in there: his old blue coffee mug— one of the only things worth bringing with when he moved into his son’s house the year before. Feeling around the smooth, wooden interior, Herman eventually got a hold of his mug which distinguished itself by having only half of a handle still attached. With the partial handle hooked onto his ring and middle fingers, Herman pulled out his mug and brought it shakily down over his head, setting it on the counter with a soft “clink.” Herman was beginning to feel dizzy at this 58 point, and wished for a moment that he had listened to the doctor about getting a walker. “Mr. Huckley,” the doctor said, “even if you don’t think you’ll use it, take it anyways. Just in case.” Herman didn’t take the walker, and wouldn’t even let anyone help to walk him out of the hospital, not even his son. “I don’t need your damn help,” he snorted each time someone tried to take his arm to steady him. He was always a stubborn man and old age wasn’t going to change that. Continuing down the counter, Herman felt this same stubborn anger boiling in him. He was almost seventy years old and yet he felt like a child who was just learning to walk. He’d built his own home, and a garage to go with it, and now he could hardly make it to the opposite end of the room without feeling fatigued. Sweat was running hot from Herman’s forehead. He wiped it with a shaky hand and breathed in deeply, closing his eyes as he did so. He only had five or so more steps to go and he braced himself for the final stretch, determined to get there even if it killed him. With a focused balance and patient, shuffling steps Herman managed to get to the end of the counter and the coffee pot. He exhaled in relief, and a satisfied smile tugged the corners of his mouth up ever so slightly. With his blue mug in one hand, Herman picked up the coffeepot in the other, intent on pouring himself a well-deserved cup of coffee after his tiresome journey. His satisfaction was immediately replaced with bitterness as he lifted the pot and felt that it was nearly empty, only a few drops remained rolling around in the bottom. Herman’s minute smile had vanished and his brow hardened, scrunching up his forehead in small, tense knots. Setting the pot back on the counter, Herman hissed repeatedly under his breath, cursing his son for not leaving him any coffee. Herman’s hands were visibly trembling and he was having a difficult time keeping a grip on the edge of the counter. He contemplated making more coffee but dismissed the idea immediately, knowing that he could not remain standing and moving around the kitchen much longer. Herman felt a hot flush come over his face and could feel beads of sweat rolling down his temples and his cheeks. In one swift motion he wound up and threw his coffee mug across the room, where it shattered against the windowless, white wall. Slivers and shards of ceramic bounced all over the kitchen, the blue pieces scattered like shattered glass. Herman heard footsteps drumming down the staircase before his son entered the room,stopping in the doorway to avoid stepping on any of the pieces of blue ceramic. “Dad!” he exclaimed, “What happened? Herman was bent over, hunched with his hands on his knees. He was struggling for breath now, and sweat soaked through his shirt on his back. In between wheezes, Herman said exasperated, “You didn’t leave me any damn coffee, you son of a bitch.” His son stood there eyeing first his father and then the indent in the wall where the mug had hit. He shook his head in disbelief, which quickly turned to anger. With a clenched jaw, he left the room and returned a minute later with broom in hand. He began quietly sweeping the blue bits of coffee mug into a dustpan. After Herman had caught his breath and recomposed himself, he pulled his body back into a standing position, leaning against the counter. He glanced to his son, bent over and sweeping under the kitchen table. “I heard you on the phone last night,” he said. Herman kept his eyes on his son as he stood and turned to face him. His son raised an eyebrow at him but gave no verbal reply. “I heard you,” Herman repeated. His son bit his lip and continued sweeping, eyes trained on the floor. “It’s just not working, dad.” 59 EL BARRIO SUYO Chad Berryman El viento le envolvió al hombre como una manta de hielo. Él andaba por el barrio suyo pero los vecinos no lo saludaron. Caminaba delante de una casa grande con flores y grandes ventanas, y por esas ventanas podía oír una pelea entre dos padres y los lamentos penosos de sus hijos. Él seguía la acera que serpenteaba por un parque lindo donde había un banco solitario. Él Lo saludó con la cabeza. Recordaba unas noches del verano cuando este banco no había ofrecido insultos ni acusaciones, sino un lugar simpático para descansar mientras él le regalaba un uso admirable. Pero en el invierno el banco se congelaba como él, y ambos eran incapaces de ayudarse el uno al otro. Paseaba delante de una casa blanca de arquitectura maravillosa. Un coche altanero llegara la entrada. Un padre sincero apareció mientras acababa de contar los acontecimientos de su día. Su hija miraba su celular, y el silencio suspiró por la expresión herida de la cara del padre. Ellos entraron a la casa sin otra palabra. El hombre nómada seguía caminando, y pronto la nieve dentro de sus venas se derretía por una balada antigua que se tarareaba al ritmo de sus pasos. 60 No pido mucho, no vivo de prisa canto los himnos con risa bendita no tengo nada salvo alma amada y sin despedida no hay la llegada THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD Chad Berryman The frigid air wrapped around the man like a blanket of ice. He was travelling through his own neighborhood, but no neighbors acknowledged him. As he walked in front of a large, picturesque house, complete with flowers and giant windows, he could make out the sound of two parents fighting accompanied by the upsetting cries of their children. The sidewalk snaked its way through a park in which there stood one solitary bench. With a nod of his head, the man greeted it. Nights of summers past filled his mind, nights in which the bench had not offered insults or accusations but rather a consoling place of rest while he presented it with the gift of an honorable purpose. However, the bench froze and shivered in the winter the same as he, and neither could provide the other with any relief. He passed by a white house of grand construction. There, a flashy car had just pulled into the driveway. From it emerged an earnest father finishing the recounting of his day. His daughter, however, simply stared at her phone, and the wounded expression on her father’s face betrayed an unsung sigh. The two entered the house without another word. As the wandering man continued walking, the snow in his veins began to melt due to an old tune he commenced to hum in time with his steps. I don’t ask for much, or live in a rush in my blessed laughter the hymns come alive there’s nothing I own save a soul that is loved for without a farewell one could never arrive 61 ODYSSEY Eve Taft Thank you for the twisted pathways of your mind Which led to the streets and alleyways of Dublin James Joyce, do you understand that you opened floodgates? Your avalanche of babbling sentences, sans punctuation Buck Mulligan tossing form and style into the wind Your catechism, you, Daedalus, gave us sacrament Blood flow to wake up the numb limbs of literature You spoke with your soul to our souls Fearing not the noise in your skull but flinging it down in ink I understand you, “life is many days” I understand you, “god is a shout in the street” I understand you, “I am another now and yet the same” You understand me “everything speaks in its own way” Soon I’ll visit your beloved homeland Walking the streets of Dublin, writing and giving thanks to modernism Now as free of rigid form As Ireland of England 62 postcards from my bedroom audrey campbell 63 postcards from my bedroom audrey campbell 64 COUNTING SHEEP Danny Polaschek What can you do when the world is asleep? Go to sleep too? I’ve counted all my sheep. They jumped through the air gliding for 5 or 6 feet cleared the fence and then flew with not even a bleat. I didn’t focus however on these aerial sheep antics because far away in the distance was a sight oh so fantastic. A blue house, with a single light on in the window sat a girl a beauty no pencil could ever have drawn. I looked up at her and she down at me addicted to the eyesight too distracted to count sheep. 65 3 sky nights keeyonna fox 67 inner self keeyonna fox 68 VICTORY OF THE PEOPLE Petra S. Shaffer-Gottschalk Your worship was my refuge, your clay heart my focal point, your chelsea smile the apple of my eye. We were sick. We poisoned ourselves with amphetamines and pills until we didn’t recognize ourselves in the mirror. We walked miles just to feel accomplished in our space, we turned the cigarettes we shared into sentiments we thought we shared. I must possess the wrong innocence. Souls are fickle things that change when left to die in the cold. ~ He was outrageously tall. He towered over me like the Statue of Liberty and he talked to me as though I was a boat in the harbor. Standing five inches taller than six feet, he was an image of Ukrainian beauty. He stood like someone who knew things you didn’t know and this fascinated me. I was so naive, so optimistic. I saw the lust and want in his eyes and I mistook it for passion.The curve of his jaw and his long eyelashes crept into the screens behind my eyelids and ignited a fire in me that I didn’t know how to put out. I was the new girl in town struggling to keep my loneliness at bay. He was a gleaming light in that summer of darkness. I had just moved to Minnesota months before. After discovering drugs and promiscuous sex I became nothing short of a hurricane. Amphetamines kept me awake, cigarettes kept me skinny, and weed kept me sane. My GPA reflected exactly what they don’t tell you about functional depression: you can feel like a blank page, but as long as you fill it with words people will stop asking questions. He was selling me drugs. He offered me a good price. I had never met him but I figured what the hell, I could stand to meet new people. It was dark, long past sundown. We were meeting in a parking lot by a lake a few blocks away from my house. I was in my mom’s car. I waited and listened to Amy Winehouse until I saw an orange car pull into a parking spot a few yards away from me. The man driving fit the picture I had seen of him before. We 69 made eye contact and he ushered me over to his car. I took a deep breath, grabbed my sweater, and got my money ready. He rolled down the passenger side window. “You Nikita?” I said. He smiled at me. A smile that I would come to know. “You can call me Kita.” ~ He had really good drugs. I’m not sure that they were pure, but at the time I didn’t care. Neither did he. We just wanted to get high. We did his drugs together, sitting in a playground by the lake, talking about life and what we crave. He told me that he was applying to a college in London. I didn’t think anything of it. Before long we saw each other every day. He was a lifeguard who had to be on duty early in the morning, so he would take me out for coffee at eight in the morning. No makeup, sweatpants, my hair in a messy bun. He didn’t care. We would talk about things that we hadn’t shared with anyone else. He told me he struggled with his relationship with his father in Ukraine. I told him that I had struggled with eating disorders since I was thirteen. We would sneak out onto his back porch to smoke cigarettes late at night. His mother hated that we smoked. 70 “You need to quit smoking, love,” she’d tell me. “I smoked for twenty-five years and it took two pregnancies to get me to stop.” His mother loved me. She thought that I was spunky, independent, had a mind of my own. She did not like his last girlfriend. She made that very clear. She, like Nikita, was very tall. She had long curly black hair and eyes so intense that you would lose your appetite. Her Russian accent was thick and powerful. She had run away to the United States when she was twenty-one and seven months pregnant with her first son. Nikita. “Does it mean anything?” I asked him. “Your name.” He smiled when he answered. “My mom told me it means ‘victory of the people,’” he said. Oh Kita, you have no victory. You are the secret I keep from my mother the hidden disease that projectile vomits and digs with fingernails sharpened by teeth. Your fields of sunflowers told me a secret, your secrets so dark and beautiful and I killed myself with your gargantuan sunflowers. His mother was beautiful. She had been a professional figure skater that traveled the world, meeting people as she went. She met Kita’s father in her home country of Ukraine and according to the story, he was immediately drawn to her exuberant personality and her long legs. At twenty-one she was well on her way to continue pursuing a successful skating career until she got pregnant. According to Kita his father did not accompany her to her appointments.He did not send her flowers. He did not ask if she was okay. Instead Kita’s mother made her way to America to create a life of victory and hope. He took me to meet his grandmother. She said hello and came in and that was the last that I understood. The entire time I was there she would ask me questions in Russian and Kita would translate for me. He taught me how to say Hello (Privet) Yes (da) No (net) And thank you, which I don’t remember. We spent almost the entire time we were there trying to help his grandmother set up a new movie streaming program on her computer. I know nothing about computers in English, let alone in Russian. I was overwhelmed. The leather furniture just made my nervous sweat more noticeable. She told me about Ukraine a little bit. She said it was beautiful but troubled. She offered me chocolate and cookies. I sat, sweating, trying my hardest to pay attention. When I said anything to her, Kita would translate for me. I wanted to leave. After we left his grandmother’s house he told me to wait in his car while he talked privately with his grandmother. I thought it was strange but didn’t question it. I played mindless games on my phone while I waited for him. Some part of me knew that they were talking about me, but I continued to deny it. I was hungry, but I wasn’t planning on doing anything about it too soon. I was hungry often then. When he returned to the car I asked what they had talked about and with no hesitation he said, “You.” I paused, then asked him to elaborate. “She likes you,” he said. And that was that. How strange, I thought, to be liked by someone who never explicitly spoke a word to me. ~ Andrevich was Kita’s middle name. Named after his father. Kita’s father was very handsome. In his forties with tan skin and thick hair, he was a heartthrob that would make you look twice. He lived in a nice, expensive apartment in Kiev with his girlfriend who was twenty years younger than him. Apparently that was a theme. Kita had only seen his father a handful of times in his life. He had gone back to Ukraine to spend some time with him as a young boy, but didn’t have too much recollection of it. When he was sixteen he went back to live with his father and his twenty-yearold girlfriend for a while. Kita has always been tall, thin, and handsome. His father noticed this. “So what happened?” I asked him one day. 71 Kita shrugged. “He kicked me out and I came back to the states,” he said without a flinch. He said this as though it was a commonality. “He thought that I fucked his girlfriend,” he said as he lit a cigarette. There was a very long, uncomfortable silence. “Did you?” I asked. He laughed out loud and a cloud of smoke poured out of his mouth. “No, of course not,” he said. “My dad isn’t one to listen to a sixteen year old.” ~ “I’ll take you to Ukraine someday.” “Sunflowers. There are parts of Ukraine where there are endless fields of sunflowers wherever you look. They’re as tall as me and the flowers are bigger than my face.” He pulled me closer as he talked about Ukraine. He insisted that I learn all that I could about the Russia-Ukraine conflict, sending me innumerable articles daily. Through him I learned about the importance of the Ukrainian revolution and fights that had been fought, some as recent as 2011 and 2012. He told me that he wanted to fight for his people if he had to. When my eyes were flushed with concern, he pulled me in close and whispered in my ear, “I’ll survive for you.” His eyes lit up every time he talked about the fields of sunflowers in Ukraine. In the same way, his eyes lit up every time he got angry. Your golden eyes drew miners to starve and fight to abandon their homes. We were in his bed, naked, wrapped up in blankets and speckled by the corner light in his room. It was late, the kind of late that feels early. The air conditioner hummed in the place of our phones which were both off and hidden somewhere in the room. He did no wrong. He could not do any wrong. His eyes were blank but telling like a wall in a foreclosed home. All of his intentions were good. Yes. Good. “Where in Ukraine?” I asked. “Have you been eating?” he asks as he lifts up my shirt. “Kiev, the city squares. And to the huge fields of flowers.” “What kind of flowers?” 72 ~ I squirm away and pull my shirt down. “Yes, I ate just before I came here,” I say. I can still taste the salt in my mouth. “You look skinny,” he tells me with a hint of disdain in his voice. My heart soars. I look skinny. But he’s reaching for my stomach again and once again I’m backing away. We get into the car and drive to the gas station. I say that I need to go use the restroom. While Kita pumps the gas, I make my way into the small Holiday bathroom. I put my sweater on the ground and rest my knees on it, my usual routine. I stick my finger down my throat and vomit into the toilet. As I walk back outside, Kita is getting back into his car. I get in the front seat and sniffle slightly.Kita looks at me quizzically. “You okay?” he asks me. My eyes are watery, my nose is burning, and my breath is putrid. “I’m fine,” I say with a smile. ~ The elevator door was so cold against my cheek. I watched the red numbers blink as they rose. 8...9...10...11. My vision was going fuzzy and grey, my ears started ringing and throbbing. 11...12...13. Ding. The doors opened and my wobbly legs carried me down the seemingly endless hallway. My hands were barely working; as I watched them push my key into my apartment door I could not feel it. The door opened, I could see my living room window. I closed the door behind me and collapsed on the ground. “Why did you faint?” His words echoed behind the screen of my phone. “I just haven’t eaten a lot today.” There was a silence so deafening that it struck fear in my heart. Fear I had not known. “When did you eat last?” He had anger in his voice. I paused. He would know if I lied but he would hate the truth. “I had a little dinner last night,” I said quietly. “What did you eat?” His reply was sharp. I was shaking. “I had a little bit of salad I think,” I said with a quivering voice. I could hear his sigh. I can still hear his sigh. “How many times have we talked about this?” He exclaimed. “I know, I know, I’m sorry…” It didn’t matter. He didn’t listen. I had failed him again. “Do you know what it’s like to have a girlfriend that can’t even take care of herself ?” “What am I going to tell my friends?” “You’re not even trying.” I was sobbing, I was convulsing, I was sweating, all from my bed from which I could not move. My phone was glued to my ear and I had no energy to remove it. “So what are you going to do about this?” There was intense spite in his words. With a shaky voice I said, “I could send you a picture of everything I eat?” He laughed. With his full, angry throat he laughed 73 at my pain. “And do what? Post it on Facebook? Show all my friends that my girlfriend is an anorexic who can’t even feed herself ? You know what, go ahead. Maybe that’ll help you change.” I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to die. My stomach kept whispering “never again, never again, never again.” Opening my mouth made me panic because it reminded me of eating. I hung up my phone and with wobbly legs I walked outside in the snow and smoked an entire pack of cigarettes. ~ Months go by. Months. I watched him pack his bag with clothes that I had never seen him wear. He packed light, only a few shirts and two pairs of pants. “My dad will buy me more when I get to Ukraine,” he said. I sat on the edge of his bed and watched him focus on folding his clothes. His visa sat in the center of the bed, staring at me. I started to cry. “Babe, it’s going to be fine,” Kita said without breaking focus. I watched him form a pile of the shirts that I had grown used to him wearing. They looked like wilted flower petals. 74 “Why aren’t you taking those?” I asked, pointing to the wilted pile. “My father won’t like them,” he said. Later that night, we were drinking red wine in his bed. His room was bare and cold. I was curled against his side, my head on his chest. He stroked my bare back and played with my hair. I sighed, but not the kind of sigh that’s followed with kisses. Kita sighed too. “Petra,” he said, a tone of exasperation in his voice. “If I ever treat you like my father treats women, please leave me.” ~ I still remember how to say “I love you” in Russian. “я люблю тебя.” Ya lyublyu tebya. ~ My fingers were bones. Anything beyond mascara was too much, especially lipstick. He hated lipstick. He thought that it brought too much attention to my mouth. He didn’t like when other people noticed me. He stopped smoking cigarettes and instructed me to do so too. “They’ll make you age faster,”he would say. If I had a bad day and smoked a cigarette, he would tell me he was disappointed. I lived with three men at the time, something that Kita would never let me forget. He asked every few days to be sure I wasn’t sleeping with any of my roommates. If I was spending too much time with a friend, he would tell me that I was neglecting him. He sent me articles outlining how to be a better partner. He reminded me that he just wanted me to be the best that I could be. The screaming and hour-long phone calls were footnotes. You stripped me of my dignity and told me, “This is what you have.” Your monstrous arms crawl into my nightmares Your titanic stature collided with my glacier and though you claim I sank you You were a behemoth and I was a stone. At the end, I fell into the ground. His screams surrounded me in my echo chamber and suffocated me. My knees were bruised from kneeling in front of the toilet all night. How apt for the one accused of dropping to her knees for all men. I was free but I did not know it yet. All I knew was the cold floor of my bathroom and the tales of beautiful but troubled Ukraine. My goodbyes have been said, These addictions fed. It’s the cost that comes with the sickness. And your screams won’t be heeded anymore. 75 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE UN-SPECIALS Halle Chambers When we are little, even before we can speak We are told that we’re special and that we’re unique. That we all are made different and that none are the same Which fits quite nicely in a toddler’s mind frame. And we are told we should treasure what’s different inside, That what makes us different is not something to hide. But then quite soon after, things start to change; The word “different” stops meaning “special” and starts meaning “strange.” We’re sectioned off from our average peers In our own little category and told, “you belong here,” And then different is bad and normal is good, And for the different ones, nothing is working the way that it should The way we’ve been taught or the way we’ve been shown All we know is that we do not like being lost on our own. 76 So once again we are taken away To a place where things makes sense again and we’re ok: Where no one hurts us, Where no one can see, Where no one deserts us, Where we can be free. But because the un-specials can’t see what goes on, They decide to make things up and get so much wrong. And it’s happened for years because they can’t see through that door. So long they don’t even know that it’s wrong anymore. It’s so fixed in their heads that these lies are right; They judge each special kid by their stereotype. But today that will end. So you sit there and you wait, cause it’s about time someone set the dang record straight. You probably think that this poem won’t cut it, But today I’m gonna open the door and don’t you dare shut it! To start, let’s be clear: I am...I was in Special Ed. But just because I was in that room doesn’t mean I’m brain dead! So for Pete’s sake, don’t puppy dog guard me! Just give me a break, it isn’t that hard see: If I need your help, I will tell you I do. Just please, Please don’t mock me. In my place, would you want me to mock you? “Oh come on! Let her get it! Go easy on her!” Help, where not needed, is almost as bad as a slur. I’m not invalid So don’t play that card. Yeah, I’m a little quirky and oversensitive, But I’m not, and I quote, “A little retard.” Yeah, I’ve been called names. And those words? They hurt. They catch in the center, In your pit of self worth. And they tear and they rip, And those words are collective. Soon you start to believe that you are defective. I’ve dealt with them all, and surprisingly, I actually prefer the straight up bullies To those who pretend to like me. Fake friends and two-faces Of all genders and races. They’re only my friends so they don’t have to see me cry. Or they use me, abuse me, Oh, how they confuse me! Cause I can’t tell what’s truth and what’s lie. “Hey! He likes you. Go give him a kiss!” And because I don’t know better, I believe this. But soon I find they’re not playing Cupid, They just wanna make me look stupid. For their entertainment, they make me play the 77 fool; They pretend that they care for me When they’re really just cruel. It takes time and takes work to make you forget; Even now, I’m not quite there yet. I mean, here I am, in what’s supposed to be home, And yet here I am, still feeling alone. I’m still paranoid, it doesn’t just end; I still have to ask if someone’s my friend. I say one thing and mean another; I make a mistake, But you take it verbatim. Can’t you cut me a break? If we’re talking and I look like I’m lost, Don’t blow it off like it’s not worth the cost. Sarcasm and subtlety muddle in my brain, So please just take a minute to explain. Do these quirks make me broken? Is there something wrong with me? The way society has spoken, There would seem to be. 78 Stop poisoning the minds of “different” young women and men. I don’t like being defective.... Can I be special again? SOREX PALUSTRIS Emilie Tomas Did they name you for Your wit, pointed Nose of pointed judgement Who brought us fire; five to seven inches of shrewd truth? Or was it your mischief That Inspired them? Your Presence followed by screams And a three inch tail. I saw your likeness on a stage, Dirt in place of your midnight coat Though she is reformed now. Perhaps it was the gleam in your Eyes; whispered fortunes and A summer of silver birth. Maybe you are a messenger Of God, somehow in your Eighteen months you learned to walk On water, the second coming Of Christ. 79 woodsy adam ruff gabriel bergstrom 80 WORDS Malena Larsen The bathroom wall was covered in words. Words like fuck and love and song lyrics and names with hearts around them. His body looked peaceful, somehow, as he sat propped and slumped against the door. His head hung to his right shoulder and his mouth was open like he was about to say something but was interrupted. There was blood running down his left arm like a river and a needle hung loosely out of his skin. The words that he had heard her say several hours earlier were getting quieter and quieter. “It’s not working,” she had told him. “I’m sorry.” They were smoking cigarettes outside her apartment when she said it. She knew he had been trying to fix himself. After twenty-eight days of treatment and one week in a sober house on Lake and Fifth she barely recognized him. He was twenty-five pounds heavier and his skin looked clean and strong; there was no more grey in his cheeks. It wasn’t just his change in appearance that scared her. Lately, he had been telling her the difference between wrong and right and that she should stay in on the weekends. His family couldn’t stop talking about how proud they were of him and they would ask her, “Doesn’t he just seem so much better?” She would answer with yes but feel guilty because she wished he still liked to make mistakes. His family had a party after he got out of treatment and his grandfather kept saying things like, “Men in this family have always been strong!” and, “Now he can take care of you.” His grandfather didn’t care for her much but he felt that she was the least of the boy’s problems. He didn’t like the way she hung on him like a scarf or the way she agreed with everything he said without a second thought. As he sat on the bathroom floor the words she had said were getting quieter and quieter. They were almost gone. He had been sober for thirty-five days and he didn’t know why. He didn’t feel better or stronger or more loved. His hand lay loosely on the floor, palm up and open like he was waiting for somebody to hold it. Everyone was so proud of him but he couldn’t imagine living his life without her. Long after her words had faded completely, the bathroom door opened. He fell back onto the floor. His head hitting hard against the tile. 81 “Oh my gosh!” The man who opened the door yelled. “Can someone help?” He took out his phone to call 911. A crowd of people rushed over to where the man was dialing. A young man pushed past the group of people. “Move!” The boy got on his knees by the body on the floor. He reached into his pocket and took out something that looked like a pen. He stuck it into the arm of the body that was needle free. People gasped and murmured and watched. Sirens rang in the distance. The boy holding the pen looked up at the bathroom wall that had words like fuck and love and song lyrics and names with hearts around them. He looked up at the group of people. “It’s not working,” he said. 82 MALCOLM AND THE BLUE SIDE Danny Polaschek Brown leaves dragged past Malcolm’s feet in the wind. The bench underneath him felt like a rock and he had to clench his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. He stared at the empty playground—the tire swing, the slide, the bridge and the fireman’s pole. Nikki rested her head on his shoulder. Each time a breeze swept through, Malcolm could feel her nuzzle slightly closer, her hair scratching and tickling his neck. When he was a kid, Malcolm had sat on this exact same bench many times with his mother. They lived in a little blue house just a few blocks away— “just a hop and a skip,” his mother would say and Malcolm would make it his mission to jump and bunny-hop the whole way there. When they arrived, they’d eat lunch, sitting together on the narrow, wooden bench. After each bite of his sandwich, Malcolm would beg his mother to let him go play, to which she would give in once she herself had
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Title: Augsburg Now Fall 2016: United in Community
Collection: Alumni Magazine Collection
Search Result: Play with purpose The space to learn An ambitious approach Homecoming 2016 FALL 2016 | VOL. 79, NO. 1 INSIDE AUGSBURG NOW Vice President of Marketing and Communication Rebecca John ’13 MBA rjohn@augsburg.edu Director of News and Media Services NOTES FROM PRESIDENT PRIBBENOW On the gif...
Show more Play with purpose The space to learn An ambitious approach Homecoming 2016 FALL 2016 | VOL. 79, NO. 1 INSIDE AUGSBURG NOW Vice President of Marketing and Communication Rebecca John ’13 MBA rjohn@augsburg.edu Director of News and Media Services NOTES FROM PRESIDENT PRIBBENOW On the gifts who are our students Last spring, a small group of Regents, faculty, staff, and alumni were charged by the Board of Regents with exploring long-term strategy for Augsburg, especially in light of shifting demographics, economic trends, and volatility in higher education. It was an inspiring process as we reflected on how Augsburg would remain faithful to its historic distinctions, while at the same time being relevant to a changing world. Perhaps the most compelling conclusion of the Futures Group was that Augsburg would be its best self in the years ahead as it remains radically student-centered, meeting students where they are and equipping them for lives of meaning and purpose. It is not a unique claim, this idea of being student-centered, but it is understood in diverse ways across higher education. For some, the claim means that students are customers or clients who deserve high-quality service. For others, it means that students are lumps of clay to be formed and shaped with particular values. For still others, the claim means that students are deeply engaged in the governance of the college or in its administrative decision-making. At Augsburg, though, the claim of being radically student-centered means something very different. For our community, each student is a gift, a gift to be received with gratitude and humility, a gift that surprises and engages us, a gift that changes us. Each summer, I tell our incoming students that their gifts of intellect and leadership and passion will make Augsburg a more faithful and successful college, even as we accompany them on their educational journeys. And I mean it. This issue of Augsburg Now illustrates well how the gifts who are our students have made all of us better. Read about alumna Maya Santamaria ’94, an entrepreneur whose Augsburg education has shaped her community work in Minneapolis. Witness the stories of our remarkable student-athletes, partnering with Special Olympics Minnesota to show how intellectual differences need not get in the way of teamwork and sportsmanship. Hear the stories of this year’s Distinguished Alumni and Spirit of Augsburg awardees, whose lives are testaments to how Augsburg’s mission is lived out across the world and generations. And perhaps most powerfully, learn about how Gov. Mark Dayton declared August 29, 2016, as Augsburg College Equity Day in Minnesota, recognizing Augsburg for its commitment to diversity, inclusion, and justice. As one staff member told me on that special occasion, this work is “a love letter to our students,” a recognition that our remarkably diverse students, who come to us with their many experiences and talents, are gifts that have changed us forever and for the better. What gifts we have been given for almost 150 years! They ground our vision to be “a new kind of student-centered, urban university, small to our students and big for the world.” Faithfully yours, Stephanie Weiss weisss@augsburg.edu Director of Marketing Communication Stephen Jendraszak jendra@augsburg.edu Communication Copywriter and Editorial Coordinator Laura Swanson Lindahl ’15 MBA swansonl@augsburg.edu Creative Associate Denielle Johnson ’11 johnsod@augsburg.edu Production Manager Mark Chamberlain chamberm@augsburg.edu Photographer Stephen Geffre geffre@augsburg.edu Advancement Communication Specialist Jen Lowman Day dayj@augsburg.edu Contributing Writer Kate H. Elliott augsburg.edu Augsburg Now is published by Augsburg College 2211 Riverside Ave. Minneapolis, MN 55454 Opinions expressed in Augsburg Now do not necessarily reflect official College policy. ISSN 1058-1545 Send address corrections to: alumniupdate@augsburg.edu. PAUL C. PRIBBENOW, PRESIDENT Send comments to: now@augsburg.edu. AUGSBURG NOW Fall 2016 PHOTO BY RICKY TAYLOR ’17 This fall, Augsburg College hosted the national Lilly Fellows Program Conference. The event focused on the theme, “Reformed and Always Reforming: Faith, Science, Art, and Culture,” and featured the Rev. Paul Oman, founder of Drawn to the Word ministry, who painted an artistic expression of the Reformation. 02 Around the quad 22 Homecoming 2016 08 Annual report to donors 24 Auggies connect 10 Play with purpose 27 Class notes 16 The space to learn 20 An ambitious approach 32 In memoriam On the cover Augsburg College students show their school spirit at the 2016 Homecoming pep rally. Learn more about the celebration on pages 22-23. Photo by Caroline Yang. Inset photo by Courtney Perry. All photos by Stephen Geffre unless otherwise indicated. NEW ACADEMIC BUILDING SCALES HEIGHTS The Norman and Evangeline Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion is on track to open for classes in January 2018. In the six months since the April 29 groundbreaking, McGough Construction and its subcontractors have completed the concrete work for the partial basement and most of the four floors of the north wing, and the three floors of the west wing. As the cement work has finished, the team has undertaken installation of electrical conduit, plumbing, and framing for interior walls. Weekly construction updates are available at augsburg.edu/hagforscenter. 2 Augsburg Now The Hagfors Center brings together the study of global business, advanced science and technology, and religious dialogue. It is home to eight academic departments: Biology Business Chemistry Computer Science Mathematics Physics Psychology Religion Structural rendering of the Hagfors Center courtesy of McGough Construction COLLEGE AWARDS 2016 President’s Interfaith and Community Service Honor Roll—Finalist with Distinction: Augsburg College was one of five finalists in the United States named to the prestigious President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction in the interfaith community service category. This is the seventh year the College has earned this recognition. The AugSTEM Scholars Program, funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation, supports students pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The scholars participated in Zyzzogeton, a celebration of student research. Best Regional Universities by U.S. News & World Report: U.S. News & World Report named Augsburg one of the best universities in the Midwest. Rankings are based on factors including average first-year retention rates, graduation rates, class sizes, studentto-faculty ratios, acceptance rates, and more. $1 MILLION GRANT PREPARES STUDENTS for graduate school, meaningful work The National Science Foundation awarded Augsburg College a highly competitive $1 million grant for continued support of the AugSTEM Scholars Program. Under the direction of Professor Rebekah Dupont, the program will provide scholarships to as many as 80 academically talented students with financial need who are pursuing studies in science, technology, engineering, and math. The four-year grant is part of NSF’s work to address the need for a highquality, diverse workforce. With a traditional undergraduate student body that is more than 35 percent persons of color, Augsburg is well positioned to support this goal. The program provides direct financial support, delivers hands-on learning, offers research opportunities, and pairs each student with a faculty mentor. Research shows this combination of hands-on learning and close mentorship is highly effective in helping students leave college ready for graduate school and the workplace. Augsburg recognized for being studentcentered: The Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education ranked Augsburg No. 2 in Minnesota for student engagement in the learning process in their inaugural ranking of U.S. colleges and universities. The student engagement score is based largely on results of a student survey that addressed how challenging classes are, whether they foster critical thinking and prompt students to make connections to the real world, and how much interaction the students have with faculty and other students. Auggie earns “Most Promising Young Poet” national honor Donte Collins ’18 was named the “Most Promising Young Poet” by the Academy of American Poets this fall. His poem, “what the dead know by heart,” previously won Augsburg’s John R. Mitchell Prize, which qualified him for the prestigious competition. Collins is a theater major who is active in the local, regional, and national spoken word and poetry scene. Collins told Minnesota Public Radio that he plans to use the $1,000 prize from the award to self-publish his first collection of poetry, a chapbook called “autopsies.” PHOTO BY RICKY TAYLOR ’17 Editor’s Note: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. 1565060 and 1154096. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. 50 Best Disability Friendly Colleges and Universities: College Choice ranked Augsburg No. 13 of the 50 Best Disability Friendly Colleges and Universities in 2016 for having strong programming and solid support services that meet the physical, social, and academic requirements of students with learning disabilities and special needs. Best LGBT Friendly Colleges and Universities: College Choice ranked Augsburg among the 50 Best LGBT Friendly Colleges and Universities in 2016 for having a strong and proven history of creating quality programming for the LGBT community and its allies. Fall 2016 3 Augsburg partners with MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO to deliver Strommen Engagement Series A new partnership with Minnesota Public Radio means the Augsburg College Strommen Engagement Series is poised to spark dialogue on some of the state’s pressing contemporary issues. The reimagined Strommen Engagement Series was created in collaboration with MPR as part of the “Conversations on the Creative Economy” program hosted by Chris Farrell. He is a senior economics contributor at Marketplace, American Public Media’s nationally syndicated public radio business and personal finance program. For the 2016-17 academic year, MPR and Augsburg will explore: • Living in Recovery—Working in a Culture of Alcohol: A discussion on the health cost to a business when employees are chemically dependent and how professionals in recovery are working to remove the stigma of addiction and the culture of drinking in business. • Global Food in a Farm-to-Table World: A discussion on how companies are adapting to environmental and consumer demands to be more sustainable and still grow food for 7 billion people. • Worship in the Workplace: A discussion about the business advantages of accommodating the faith traditions of employees and how leaders navigate these situations. • Banking on the Unbankable: A discussion on how financial institutions create both a business product and a social good for people who traditionally would not have access Go to augsburg.edu/now to financial tools. for details. Governor declares ‘AUGSBURG COLLEGE EQUITY DAY’ Gov. Mark Dayton declared Aug. 29, 2016, “Augsburg College Equity Day” in recognition of the College’s commitment to equity and justice, and its efforts to close the opportunity gap in Minnesota. President Paul Pribbenow met with leaders of the Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial board to discuss Minnesota’s educational achievement gap among children and youth of diverse backgrounds. The state has one of the largest achievement gaps in the nation, and Augsburg is working to ensure all students of academic ability have access to higher education. The College’s pledge to this work includes limited debt pathways to graduation, setting aside dedicated housing for homeless students, increasing financial aid literacy, supporting faculty in creating inclusive classrooms, and increasing access to course materials. The College was applauded for this leadership through a compelling editorial, “Augsburg College leads the call for campus equity,” written and published by the Star Tribune editorial board on Aug. 30. ARCHIVE PHOTO PHOTO BY BRIANA ALAMILLA ’17 NOW AND THEN: AUGGIE HOMECOMING [Left]: Current students play dodgeball in Si Melby gymnasium. [Right]: Jan (Koepcke) Steller ’66, a member of this year’s 50th reunion class, snaps the football during a 1965 coed Homecoming matchup. 4 Augsburg Now All good Homecoming celebrations need some friendly competition, right? This year, Augsburg College students got into the competitive spirit at a dodgeball tournament that pitted Auggie against Auggie in a battle testing speed, agility, and … fashion sense. The event’s companion costume contest proved to be a lighthearted update on a long-time tradition. Coed sporting events have been part of Augsburg Homecoming for decades, and the outfits seem to get better with time. See highlights from Homecoming on pages 22-23. AROUND THE QUAD SOOTHING SOUNDS: Auggies compose music for pediatric patients Music therapy major Tristan Gavin ’16 records a composition for use at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital. COURTESY PHOTOS CONVOCATION SERIES 2016-17 Augsburg College’s annual convocation series offers the community meaningful opportunities to engage with contemporary issues and to hear from speakers who are renowned in their fields. In September, the series kicked off with the Bernhard M. Christensen Symposium featuring bestselling author, public theologian, and social activist Jim Wallis and his presentation, “The Bridge to a New America.” Wallis is president and founder of Sojourners, a nonprofit, faith-based organization whose mission is to put faith into action for social justice. In November, the Center for Wellness and Counseling Convocation welcomed Kristin Neff, an education psychologist and associate professor of human development and culture at the University of Texas at Austin. Her presentation was titled, “Self-Compassion: How to be an Inner Ally Rather than an Inner Enemy.” Augsburg College music therapy students created original compositions to help patients and families at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital get better sleep. During the 2016 spring semester, students in the Music Therapy Senior Seminar course taught by Annie Heiderscheit, director of the Master of Music Therapy program, wrote lullabies as part of a community partnership. The music therapy students worked with music business students and their advisor, Augsburg Instructor Dain Estes, to produce high-quality recordings for use on the hospital’s network of digital, interactive health care features. Individuals can choose to play the calming tunes using devices in their hospital rooms. The Auggies’ compositions also are part of a pilot study that is exploring whether listening to music helps improve sleep quality in patients and families who use it in the pediatric intensive care unit. SAVE THE DATE: Join us on Monday, Jan. 16, for the Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation. All events are free, public, and held in the Foss Center. For detailed information, go to augsburg.edu/convo. Fall 2016 5 BOARD OF REGENTS Jeffrey Nodland ’77 Nicholas Gangestad ’86 WELCOMES NEW CHAIR AND MEMBERS Jeffrey Nodland ’77, president and chief executive officer of KIK Custom Products, was elected chair of the Augsburg College Board of Regents at its April 2016 meeting and began his term July 1. Nodland will play a key leadership role in Augsburg’s planning and fundraising initiatives. In addition, the Augsburg Corporation, at its annual September meeting, elected six new members to the Board of Regents and re-elected three members. Elected to their first term on the Augsburg Board of Regents: Dr. Amit Ghosh ’12 MBA Rev. Marlene Whiterabbit Helgemo Rachel Pringnitz ’02, ’07 MBA • Nicholas Gangestad ’86, senior vice president and chief financial officer of 3M • Dr. Amit Ghosh ’12 MBA, a staff consultant, professor of medicine, and medical director of internal practice at Mayo Clinic • Rev. Marlene Whiterabbit Helgemo, an ordained Lutheran pastor serving All Nations Indian Church of the United Church of Christ and executive director of the Council for American Indian Ministry of the UCC • Rachel Pringnitz ’02, ’07 MBA, operations administrator for the Division of General Internal Medicine at Mayo Clinic • Jill Nelson Thomas, philanthropist and board member for multiple nonprofits, including Family & Children’s Services of Oklahoma • Noya Woodrich ’92, ’94 MSW, former president and chief executive officer of the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches PHOTOS BY MARK CHAMBERLAIN Elected to a second or third term: Jill Nelson Thomas Noya Woodrich ’92, ’94 MSW 6 Augsburg Now • Mark Eustis, an organizational leadership and governance advisor for health systems • Alexander Gonzalez ’90, financial consultant at Thrivent Financial • Pam Moksnes ’79, vice president for gift planning services, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, through the Lutheran Church Extension Fund HOME SWEET HOMEPAGE: Augsburg launches redesigned website College and university websites are often the first place students turn to for reliable information when they research schools. This fall, Augsburg unveiled a website redesign offering prospective students a fresh experience and encouraging them to learn more about the College. The new look took more than a year to research, plan, design, and develop. Now this work is on display on the site’s top-level sections, which showcase how Augsburg positively influences Auggies from their first day in class to decades after graduation. Visit augsburg.edu to see the new design. AROUND THE QUAD ON THE SPOT A look at erratic weather and climate change with John Zobitz “Do we live in the tropics?” In early fall, a Minneapolis Star Tribune article asked this question. While readers surely answered “no,” the story described the recent soggy summer in which Midwestern Regional Climate Center weather data showed the Twin Cities got twice as much rain as usual in August, contributing to the fourth-wettest summer since records began in 1895. Associate Professor John Zobitz studies math and how it relates to climate. Scientists point to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as one of the culprits in global warming. Zobitz uses mathematical modeling to conduct environmental science research on several topics, including carbon uptake. For years, Zobitz has helped media make sense of unusual weather across the country. He commented on record-setting snowfall in Buffalo, New York, following a November 2014 blast, as well as the return of wintry weather during an April 2013 whiteout in Augsburg’s own backyard. Here’s a glimpse into the world of climate science—an area where the forecast can have more to do with mathematical formulas than tomorrow’s high temp. Q: How can mathematicians’ expertise help environmental scientists and climatologists? A: Mathematicians test and evaluate hypotheses through mathematical and computational models. We model and benchmark future global temperatures based on current scenarios, hopefully providing an informed context for climate policy decisions. Q: A: Hasn’t the Earth always warmed and cooled throughout history? Yes, but what is alarming is both the amount and the rate of the increase. The global monthly temperature has been warmer than average for 360 consecutive months (that’s every month during the past 30 years). That persistent global pattern underscores a shift in global temperature beyond natural temperature cycles. Q: A: Do unusually cold temperatures in an area dispute global warming? No. An important thing to remember is that global temperature represents an average across a global network of monitoring stations. Climate change will affect each area differently: some areas might warm and some areas may cool, but the overall trend of global temperature is increasing. Q: A: Do you think climate change is inevitable? A key concept in calculus is the accumulation of smaller pieces to one larger whole. If we want to reduce climate change, small changes in our daily lives such as driving less and reducing waste, together, may accumulate to a large effect. Q: What does it mean to our future, as human beings, if climate change continues as it has in the past 30 years? A: We need to recognize that we live in a rapidly changing world where “normal weather” is the exception rather than the rule. Adapting—and innovating— in an environment of constant change will become key for success. Fall 2016 7 ALISON RANUM ’17 NAZIH SAFI ’17 Hometown: Minneapolis Hometown: Eden Prairie, Minnesota Studying: Biology and Exercise Science Studying: Mathematics and Management Information Systems Roy and Eleanor Krohn Scholarship With thanks: “College is an expensive investment, and without the donors who have been so kind to help me along the way, attending Augsburg College would not be an option for me. Thank you so much.” 8 Augsburg Now Beverly Durkee Mathematics Scholarship With thanks: “Thank you for your continuous support of student learning. It feels good to know that I go to a college where the alumni really care about furthering their alma mater.” REVENUE BY SOURCE 2015-16 AUGSBURG COLLEGE 67% ANNUAL REPORT TUITION TO DONORS 19% T 3% PRIVATE GIFTS AND GRANTS 7% o the people who understand that together we can build and shape a campus, a community, and the world for lifetimes to come, thank you. To the people who are hard-working, inspired, and trying to make a difference and impact the future locally and internationally, thank you. To the 4,965 individuals who gave $17,689,103 for multiple programs, projects, and funds, thank you. To the community who gave $1,551,262 to the Augsburg Fund, thank you. Thank you for making this community a place where we are developing informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders. Whether you were a student 50 or five years ago or are a friend of Augsburg College, Auggies like you are what keep an Augsburg education sustainable, faithful, and relevant long into the future. ROOM AND BOARD GOVERNMENT GRANTS 4% OTHER SOURCES EXPENSES BY CATEGORY 41% SALARIES AND BENEFITS 31% FINANCIAL AID 13% OPERATING EXPENSES* 7% CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS 3% Thank you. 3% *Expenses in this category include: facility repairs and maintenance, information technology expenditures, marketing expenditures, membership dues and fees, outside consultants, supplies, and travel and business meetings. DEBT SERVICE UTILITIES AND INSURANCE 2% STUDENT SALARIES ENDOWMENT MARKET VALUE $40.5 May 31, 2016—$39,412,669 MIKE SHAW ’17 Professor Jeanne Boeh and Mr. Bernhard Fleming Economics Scholarship $32.4 Augsburg College’s influence: “Augsburg has pushed me to do my absolute best at school and forced me to think how I can use the skills I am developing to help my community.” $28.2 $27.8 $39.4 $34.6 $33.3 $31.5 Hometown: Minneapolis Studying: Business Administration and Economics $38.3 $29.8 $24.5 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 As of May 31, 2016, Augsburg College had annual realized and unrealized losses of 3.23 percent on the College endowment. The five-year average annual return on the endowment is 3.52 percent, and the 10-year average annual return is 3.49 percent. The College is committed to maintaining the value of the principal to provide support to the College in perpetuity. Special Olympics Minnesota and Augsburg College team up BY KATE H. ELLIOTT 10 Augsburg Now All eyes are on a group of athletes in college basketball jerseys. There are short ones, tall ones, fast ones, and slow ones—some having good days and others feeling off their game. An athlete flies through the air, dunking a ball. High-fives, cheers, and clapping echo through the rafters. Moments later, voices rise. “No, no, the other way,” shouts an encouraging spectator trying to prompt an athlete dribbling with authority toward the wrong basket. A foul, some underhand throws, and then a pause for a player with a medical issue. Play resumes. More commotion. Sneakers skid across the gym floor as the spectrum of abilities and disabilities blurs. Then, the buzzer sounds, but the final score isn’t the focus given the diversions of smiling, sweaty faces and celebratory exchanges among athletes. The February game brought together teams comprising athletes from Augsburg College, Hamline University, and Special Olympics Minnesota—the first in a series of ongoing Unified Sports competitions that pair individuals with and without intellectual disabilities. Auggie participation reflects the Augsburg Athletic Department’s broader effort— spearheaded by its Student-Athlete Advisory Committee—to engage student-athletes in meaningful, life-changing community service. And in this game, everyone wins: dozens of student-athletes such as Sean Adams ’17 are building lasting bonds and gaining a more sophisticated understanding of ability; Minnesota’s more than 8,000 Special Olympics athletes such as Alec Kelsey are gaining confidence, training, and lifelong friends; and PHOTOS BY MATT HIGGINS, MIAC Augsburg alumni such as Steele Krause ’16, are leading informed, engaged lives after graduation. Krause said volunteerism through Augsburg transformed his idea of service from “checking a box” to a way of life. “At Augsburg, my idea of service evolved from logging hours to serving with purpose and gaining a true understanding of each organization,” said the former men’s basketball player now living in Denver. “Last week, I stopped by the Colorado Special Olympics office to learn more about ways to get involved.” Augsburg’s embrace of unified competition in the past year has intensified personal connections and impact, said Adams, a captain of Augsburg’s men’s cross country and men’s track and field teams. “Out there on the court, it didn’t matter whether someone had a disability or not; we were all working toward a common goal and all had strengths to contribute to the team,” he said, reflecting on a Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Special Olympics D-III Week Unified Basketball Tournament held in April at Macalester College. “Playing alongside others—next to their pure love for the game and competition—reminds me why I love sports.” The winner of each Augsburg-Hamline Unified Rivalry competition—such as the basketball game pictured—earns the “Unified Hammer,” a trophy similar to the ceremonial sledge hammer passed since 2005 between the schools each time their varsity football teams square off. Fall 2016 11 In February, a Special Olympics Minnesota athlete had the chance to skate the Minnesota Wild flag to center ice during an Augsburg College men’s hockey game. The Minnesota Wild hosts several events each year to celebrate “The State of Hockey,” and Augsburg facilitated this unique partnership between SOMN and the professional sports team. PHOTO BY KEVIN HEALY Augsburg has partnered with Special Olympics since 2011, when NCAA Division III formally began supporting the organization’s efforts to provide year-round training and competition for more than 5.3 million children and adults in 170 countries. But Augsburg upped its game in 2016 by committing to pair with Special Olympics Minnesota each month of the academic year. SOMN named Augsburg a Champion School, one of only five institutions in the state recognized for student leadership and advocacy, campus involvement, and participation in Unified Sports. Michael Kane, vice president of SOMN’s area programs and initiatives, said the organization is eager to strengthen existing collaborations, including regional bowling championships, hockey tournaments, and the organization’s most popular fundraiser, the Polar Plunge—during which Auggies, along with thousands of Minnesotans, jump into icy lakes. Augsburg’s passionate drive to advance understanding, acceptance, and healthy living is elevating SOMN’s reach and reputation, particularly among the next generation. “Augsburg College is a great example of an institution striving to make inclusion a reality,” Kane said. “Students and staff have fully embraced Special 12 Augsburg Now Olympics Minnesota by volunteering at competitions and planning to host a wide variety of events and activities. Hundreds of Augsburg students have stood up to make these events and activities possible.” Guiding Augsburg’s increased involvement is the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, a group of about 50 student-athlete volunteers committed to enriching the student experience through a range of relevant service opportunities. Jane Becker is Augsburg’s head volleyball coach and athletic community service coordinator, and Jennifer Jacobs is an assistant athletic director, assistant volleyball coach and advisor for SAAC, overseeing the student-run organization with representation from all of Augsburg’s 21 teams. The pair talk at length about the importance of student-athletes connecting with the community. Augsburg student-athletes and teams host clinics and open gyms for neighboring schools, help area churches renovate, and build partnerships—like the Unified Rivalry with Hamline—to foster lasting friendships and healthy competition. Becker and Jacobs lift up the committee’s work with Special Olympics because it advances the lessons of determination, teamwork, and heart that coaches promote on the court and in the field. They hear of perceptions changed and career paths adjusted because of these meaningful experiences. “Our student-athletes are putting in long hours of competition, making grades, and then giving themselves to others,” said Jacobs. “The amount of time and energy our student-athletes dedicate to Special Olympics and other volunteer opportunities is inspiring. They are committed to making an impact, relationship building, and experiential learning.” Rachel Frantz ’17, co-president of SAAC, said she and her peers are energized by the heart and competitiveness of Special Olympics athletes. She has friends such as Tom, who competes in speed walking and swimming. Non-verbal, Tom communicates through sign and body language. “His favorite gesture,” Frantz said, “is his signature hug that last about three minutes.” It’s hard to let go of those types of connections. “Special Olympics athletes teach me how to come as I am and do my best. They support one another and foster a positive environment where each athlete can grow,” said the biology major, who has participated for the past six years in Special Olympics events, including jumping in an icy lake during the Polar Plunge, competing in a unified basketball game, and volunteering at basketball, swimming, and track and field events, which happen to be her favorite. “The athletes are always congratulating all of their competitors, regardless of their finish,” Frantz said. “I love cheering them on as they achieve a new personal record or finish a difficult race.” Beyond friendships and lasting memories within the community, these experiences inspire bonds among Augsburg student-athletes as well as the general student body, many of whom also serve Special Olympics. Frantz, a competitor in lacrosse, cross country, and track, who likes snorkeling, rock climbing, and choir, might not have gotten to know Adams, who plays guitar and acts in his roommate’s short films. But, through SAAC, the two have volunteered together, growing closer with every project. “It’s been a privilege to build upon the good work of those who led the committee before us,” said Adams, who serves as co-chair of SAAC’s volunteering committee. “The evolution to unified competitions and partnerships AUGSBURG AS A CHAMPION SCHOOL Augsburg is one of only five Special Olympics Champion Schools in Minnesota. The designation is granted to institutions that excel in three areas: Unified Sports, student leadership and advocacy, and campus involvement. • Unified Sports: Augsburg student-athletes participate alongside Special Olympics Minnesota athletes in clinics and competitions. In partnership with Hamline University, Auggies cofounded the first Unified Rivalry in Minnesota. Special Olympics Minnesota created the Unified Hammer trophy given to the winner of these competitions throughout the year. • Student Leadership and Advocacy: The more than 50 student-athlete leaders on Augsburg’s StudentAthlete Advisory Committee work with SOMN to activate students, engage faculty, and promote communities of acceptance. • Campus Involvement: Augsburg student-athletes have enthusiastically recruited students to create teams for the Polar Plunge and other key SOMN events held throughout the year. The campus also has held Respect Campaigns, including Spread the Word to End the Word, which discourages people from using demeaning, offensive, or inaccurate terms. “Our events are volunteer driven, and I’m just not sure what we would do without Augsburg student-athletes volunteering at every turn,” said Devin Kaasa, the college partnership and competition manager for SOMN. “Their work fosters respect and dignity for people with intellectual disabilities and changes actions and attitudes among their peers without intellectual disabilities.” Members of the Augsburg football team volunteer at the 2016 Fall Games organized by Special Olympics Minnesota. PHOTO COURTESY OF SPECIAL OLYMPICS MINNESOTA with other colleges in the area is expanding our reach and feels more authentic and influential than cheering from the sidelines.” Friends across the river, Hamline’s SAAC advisor and women’s volleyball coach Becky Egan and senior softball player Mary-Clare Couillard, said they, too, have big hopes to grow from several rivalry games to multiple contests and volunteer efforts throughout the year. “Our campuses can have such a positive impact for Special Olympics athletes, and I hope to see us doing all that we can to help out,” said Couillard, who has interned with Special Olympics since June. Egan echoed her sentiments. “Since our campuses are so close, it is easy for our student-athletes to travel and stay excited about volunteering,” Egan said. “The more inclusive we become with other schools in our conference, the healthier the competitions become across our other sports, and it broadens connections among all our student-athletes.” PHOTO BY MATT HIGGINS, MIAC 14 Augsburg Now passing year. During a January 2016 game against Saint Mary’s University, the Augsburg College women’s hockey Devin Kaasa, the college partnership team recognized more than 100 Special and competition manager for SOMN, Olympics athletes in attendance with a is the main contact for schools in the ceremonial puck drop prior to the game. MIAC as they build and strengthen their Proceeds from puck purchases for a relationship with the nonprofit. Kaasa, halftime “Chuck-A-Puck” competition whose brother has participated in Special benefitted SOMN. The following Olympics for 20 years, said he has been weekend, the hockey players volunteered showcasing positive Augsburg-Hamline at the Special Olympics Minnesota State outcomes to promote similar interactions Poly Hockey Tournament. among the conference’s 13 schools. In early March, Auggies raised more “Our athletes look up to studentthan $1,000 for the 19th annual Polar athletes because of Plunge event at their abilities and Lake Calhoun in “Augsburg College is a great energy. To some, Minneapolis. The example of an institution striving 2016 plunge season these college to make inclusion a reality.” students are like raised more than –Michael Kane professionals, and $3.9 million for playing alongside Special Olympics’ them is such a thrill,” Kaasa said. “I athletic, health, and leadership love Augsburg because they are always programs for children and adults with up for trying a new idea, and I can intellectual disabilities. always count on them to serve.” Just this September, members of Augsburg’s involvement with SOMN the Augsburg football team helped out has been diverse and expansive, with SOMN’s Fall Games where athletes growing in size and scope with each competed in equestrian, softball, bocce, and golf events. Each month, the NCAA Division III features a Special Olympics Spotlight Poll, asking fans to vote on one of three compelling stories highlighting efforts at various institutions and conferences. With 1,300 votes, the MIAC won the July spotlight (and $500 toward its next Special Olympics event) for hosting the first-ever conference-wide unified tournament. Mark Kelsey’s son, Alec, was among the 50 Special Olympics athletes who competed alongside student-athletes from Augsburg, Carleton, Hamline, Macalester, St. Catherine, and St. Thomas in an eightteam, double-elimination tournament held during the fifth annual NCAA Division III Week in April. At 6-foot-2, 25-year-old Alec loves basketball, lives for the moment, and never looks for an excuse to quit, even after a seizure on the court. “Special Olympics athletes represent the best of what sports has to offer—no fear, no nerves, no hate, all heart,” said Kelsey, who started the West Metro Warriors Special Olympics delegation in the Twin Cities 10 years ago. “Alec rarely gets through a game without a seizure, but I cannot tell you how excited and proud he and his fellow athletes are to play with college studentathletes. We were particularly impressed with Augsburg’s showing at the tournament … while one team played, the other team cheered with Special Olympics athletes. It was magical, and I can only hope those Auggies were so moved in such a deep and positive way that they become forever advocates for inclusion and acceptance.” As a recent graduate, Krause regularly reflects on the intersection of athletic, religious, and academic experiences he enjoyed at Augsburg. His time learning to live with purpose “sparked a craving for personal and communal excellence” and a desire to create a stable, nourishing, and joyful environment for his community. “Being involved with SOMN was humbling and gratifying … and being able to use my knowledge and skills within various sports is empowering,” said Krause, a former SAAC copresident who works as an account manager for Pacific Office Automation. “I am extremely proud to be an Auggie, and I will always refer myself as such. Augsburg’s commitment to community is astounding, and it keeps getting better every year.” At Augsburg, Krause said, he learned that volunteering is as much about selfreflection after the experience as it is about the outcome of the service. Only then can people begin to understand more about the world around them and assess (and possibly adjust) their attitudes and actions. “I no longer just show up to volunteer and then leave when the job is done,” he said. “It sticks with me, urging me to think about how my involvement and experiences shape my life, and how I can continue to make a difference.” To learn more about Augsburg’s athletic teams and service, including Auggie involvement with Special Olympics, go to augsburg.edu/now. [Far left]: The Augsburg-Hamline Unified Rivalry series began with basketball games and has grown to include several activities. The schools hosted a flag football game in October and will sponsor a softball game this spring. [Center photos]: Augsburg football players helped facilitate softball and bocce ball activities at the 2016 Fall Games series organized by Special Olympics Minnesota. [Far right]: Athletes take a break from the action during a MIAC conferencewide unified basketball tournament held in April at Macalester College. PHOTOS COURTESY OF SPECIAL OLYMPICS MINNESOTA Fall 2016 15 S. E I G G U A . BE D U O R P D. BE E L L A C E B AUGSBURG COLLEGE’S 2016 HOMECOMING CELEBRATION was held Sept. 22-24—a festive PHOTO BY JOHANNA KITZMAN ‘11 weekend when alumni, students, and families took part in new events and beloved traditions. More than 500 alumni from 64 different graduation years attended celebrations, including reunions for the classes of 1966, 1976, 1991, and 2006. PHOTO BY REBECCA ZENEFSKI Ten Auggies were inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame after being welcomed to the ceremony by current student-athletes. During a Homecoming lunch with alumni award recipients, students were invited to share in discussion with recipients of the First Decade, Spirit of Augsburg, and Distinguished Alumni awards. In an evening ceremony, six alumni and two honorary Auggies received awards and were recognized for their generous service to the world. 22 Augsburg Now PHOTO BY JOHANNA KITZMAN ’11 PHOTOS BY COURTNEY PERRY The Taste of Augsburg featured 38 booths—most hosted by student groups—and offered games, entertainment, and food, including the Augsburg Chemistry Society’s liquid nitrogen ice cream. Augsburg won the football game against Carleton College, and alumni, families, and students stayed after the game to enjoy s’mores at an Auggie Block Party featuring the band Broken Spoke. Bob Stacke ’71 This year, 30 Homecoming events celebrated the best of Augsburg, from an all-band reunion to Auggie Talks led by alumni, staff, and faculty experts. The Centennial Singers and an alumni band led by Professor Emeritus and Spirit of Augsburg Award recipient Bob Stacke ’71 invigorated the chapel at a worship service where Associate College Pastor Justin Lind-Ayres welcomed all Auggies with a “Home Calling” message. Fall 2016 23 AUGGIES CONNECT FROM THE ALUMNI BOARD PRESIDENT Dear alumni and friends, T he Alumni Board has made exciting changes to better serve Augsburg College graduates and current students. We reorganized our board committees, and we’re already seeing the fantastic engagement and work of two new groups. • The new Parent and Family Committee shares information about Augsburg and its services with families. We’re thankful to the Parent and Family Committee for helping students move into campus housing this fall. Committee chair Howie Smith ’80 joined Cyrus Batheja ’08, ’11 MBA to help with first-year student move-in day. Committee members Derek Francis ’08 and Hannah Dietrich Swanson ’05 assisted with new student orientation. The committee hosts two parent and family nights per year, and the next event is March 2. • Rick Bonlender ’78, Josh Krob ’08, ’15 MBA, Adriana Matzke ’13, and Brad Randall ’13 on the new Adult Education Committee will focus on the growing adult undergraduate and graduate studies alumni communities. I attended Augsburg College as an MBA student from 2008 to 2010, and I’m inspired by this work. Whether you remember your time at Augsburg as a cohort, a class, or a team—as a grad student, traditional undergraduate, or adult undergraduate—there is a place for all in the upcoming events at the College. The MBA networking event on October 25 was a welcome chance to see former cohort members for a mini-reunion and to get involved mentoring a future Auggie MBA. As a board, we strive to better serve the College, our fellow alumni, and— perhaps most importantly—Augsburg’s current students. We’re looking ahead to our next Alumni-Student Networking event on February 8. Last year, we had 260 participants—a record-breaking attendance that included students, alumni, and faculty. Thanks to all who helped recruit attendees, facilitate introductions, and open doors for Auggies! I look forward to our continued service and engagement with the Augsburg community. JILL WATSON ’10 MBA, ALUMNI BOARD PRESIDENT 24 Augsburg Now For more information about alumni events, see augsburg.edu/now. The StepUP® Program at Augsburg College has had a successful year. As the largest residential collegiate recovery program in the United States, StepUP is regarded as the gold standard for programs of its kind. Now in its 20th year, StepUP empowers students to champion lives of recovery, achieve academic success, and thrive in a residential community of accountability and support. StepUP celebrated its annual gala October 29, and the event focused on the theme of “hope.” The gala is an opportunity to reduce the stigma often associated with substance use disorders by raising awareness—and honoring the accomplishments and contributions—of StepUP’s 100 students and 750 alumni. At the gala, emcee Don Shelby, an Emmyaward-winning former news anchor and person in recovery, welcomed supportive Auggies, families, friends, and advocates for recovery. Peter Hubbard ’10 spoke about his work with StepUP alumni to create chances for StepUP students to learn about life after graduation, network, and explore concerns with those who have followed a similar path. The Barbara and Skip Gage family received the Toby Piper LaBelle award in recognition of their longstanding commitment to education at Augsburg. The Gage’s dedicated support of the CLASS program, Lindell Library, Gage Family Art Gallery, and Gage Center for Student Success furthers Augsburg’s ability to live out its mission of serving the diverse needs, gifts, and experiences of its students. In addition, the contributions of The Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation were recognized with the inaugural Keystone Award for institutional support. To continue the deep success of the StepUP Program, the College has launched an endowment campaign for the program. The campaign is nearly halfway to its goal of raising $10 million by 2017. The endowment will allow the College to increase enrollment in the program, to maintain StepUP’s unparalleled community experience, and retain StepUP’s exceptional counselors and staff. Visit augsburg.edu/stepup to learn more. AUGGIES CONNECT GENEROSITY OF ALUMNI fuels research, hands-on opportunities for Auggies Two influential Augsburg College alumni, Terry Lindstrom ’73 and Dean Sundquist ’81, have found that giving back to their alma mater is a way to inspire young researchers to pursue their passions. They have chosen to support the Office of Undergraduate Research and Graduate Opportunity, known as “URGO,” which aligns students’ interests in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), social sciences, humanities, and the arts with research by faculty. Each year, research by more than 20 Augsburg students is funded by the College for 10 weeks each summer. Because of the committed support of Lindstrom and Sundquist, 16 additional scholars participate in URGO and receive a stipend. This financial support is critical to providing the hands-on, skills-based training students need to successfully apply to graduate school and to shape meaningful careers. “Fundamentals are absolutely essential,” Lindstrom said, “but it was the research experience that helped me determine what I wanted to do.” Lindstrom and his wife, Janet, plan to fund URGO students for the next three years, just as they have since 2013, and will ensure the perpetuity of their scholarships through their estate plan. “Everyone deserves to find the career that creates passion,” said Lindstrom, who retired in 2010 as a distinguished research fellow at Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, where he spent 31 years in drug discovery and development. Eager to find real-world applications to benefit society, Lindstrom earned his PhD in pharmacology and biochemistry at the University of Minnesota after his Augsburg graduation. He led the research teams that resulted in a half-dozen patents for life-changing pharmaceuticals, including Evista for osteoporosis and Cymbalta, used as an antidepressant and for bone and muscle pain. He visited campus this past summer to meet faculty and student researchers—including four students he sponsored directly: Josh Kuether ’18, Taylor Mattice ’18, Adam Pancoast ’18, and Ellyn Peters ’18. Similarly, since 2006, Sundquist, a member of the College’s Board of Regents, and his wife, Amy, have sponsored research by URGO students. Sundquist visited campus this summer as well to meet with the 12 students he sponsors and learn His campus visit was a chance to see the energy, enthusiasm, and excitement in students as they researched projects with their mentors, including Assistant Professor Matt Beckman, Associate Professor Vivian Feng, and Assistant Professor Michael Wentzel. “These URGO students are very smart and very impressive. They go on from Augsburg to graduate school and medical school and business school with research experience and the confidence to succeed at the next level,” Sundquist said. Ultimately, generosity of people like Lindstrom and Sundquist has had a transformational effect on thousands [L to R]: Terry Lindstrom ’73 watches as chemistry student Taylor Mattice ’18 draws out a chemical reaction scheme from her summer research project with Assistant Professor Michael Wentzel, her faculty mentor. about their research. As chairman and CEO of Mate Precision Tooling, a worldwide leader in metal products and laser technologies, he has a global perspective and understanding of how scientific improvements propel the economy. of students. Alumni create learning opportunities that prepare students to solve real-world problems, develop lifelong relationships with peers and faculty, and deliver a uniquely Augsburg summer. Fall 2016 25 Augsburg women inspired to fund transformative mural in new academic building For women who are driven to lead and participate, meeting a fundraising goal for Augsburg College doesn’t mean your work is done. It just means it’s time to engage in another meaningful challenge to continue positively impacting the lives of Augsburg students, faculty, staff, and the CedarRiverside neighborhood. That’s just what Augsburg Women Engaged (AWE) is doing through the leadership of Lisa Svac Hawks ’85, vice president of external communications for UnitedHealthcare, who was moved to make a lead gift to fund a mural planned for the interdisciplinary Norman and Evangeline Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion. “When I learned about the way Augsburg is bringing these disciplines together under one roof, I knew this was something distinctive and powerful,” said Hawks. “The Hagfors Center will measurably contribute to shaping greater leaders for tomorrow.” The mural that AWE will fund, titled “Emergence,” incorporates the image of monarch butterflies with references to symbiosis, textile traditions, geometry, faith, home, prayer, and identity. The $150,000 project will express the College’s commitments to hospitality and serving the neighbor, two core principles of the Lutheran tradition in which the College is rooted. The large-scale mural will adorn the staircase at the end of the west wing. Making the lead gift for this powerful installation, which will be created by muralist Greta McLain, came naturally to Hawks. “Art has a special way of helping us experience what it means to come together in a new way. Art helps us visualize new futures. It helps us connect to big concepts and to engage emotionally with them so we can see ourselves in big ideas,” Hawks said. 26 Augsburg Now “As a group of women, we believe that art connects the heart and head. By funding this mural as a permanent beacon in the Hagfors Center, we invite everyone to connect our heads and our hearts, so our hands can get to the good work.” For McLain, the collaboration between space, artist, community, and construction can take many forms. “We all are asking: In what ways are we shaping the future leaders we need to address the challenges of the future?” she said. AWE is undertaking this new challenge and commitment to the greater Augsburg College community at the same time it successfully closes out another project for the Hagfors Center. This group of 70 women already raised $130,000 to sponsor a student study lounge in the building. The AWE-Inspired Philanthropy Council invites all Auggie women to join them in sponsoring “Emergence.” They supported a Give to the Max Day project to raise funds for the work, and are partnering with Donna McLean and Martha Truax ’16 MAL in Institutional Advancement to reach their goal of $150,000 in gifts and pledges by December 31. Email mclean@augsburg.edu or truaxm@augsburg.edu for more information. To see work available for sponsorship in the Hagfors Center, including 21 pieces created by faculty, staff, alumni, and artists who have exhibited previously in Augsburg galleries, visit augsburg.edu/now. ALUMNI CLASS NOTES 1960 The newest book by Lowell “Zeke” Ziemann ’60 is “America’s First Centennial and the Old West: 1876 A Year to Remember.” This book presents prominent events in the Western Territories during the United States’ centennial year. Incidents of 1876 described in the book include: the Little Bighorn conflict, Wild Bill Hickok’s murder, the capture of Jesse James’ gang, and Bat Masterson’s first gunfight. 1968 The Rev. Mark Hanson ’68, former presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, received the Walk of Faith Award from Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service on October 26 in recognition of his career in service to the Lutheran community. The ELCA is the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination. Hanson was ordained in 1974 and has since served as a pastor for three Minnesota congregations, as bishop of the St. Paul Area Synod, and as the president of the Lutheran World Federation in Geneva. Hanson is an advocate for migrants and refugees. He currently serves as the executive director of the Christensen Center for Vocation at Augsburg College. Regent Emeritus Ron Nelson ’68 was honored with a Distinguished Alumni Award at Homecoming. He retired from 3M after 33 years with the company and spent 11 years as vice president and controller. A captain for the baseball and basketball teams at Augsburg, Nelson was inducted into the Augsburg Athletic Hall of Fame in 1991. He is one of the owners of Thawzall, LLC, located in Alexandria, Minnesota, and is a member of the board of Oakdale-based Hearing Components, Inc. Nelson lives in Mendota Heights, Minnesota, and is an active member of St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church. His wife, Mary Kay (Belgum) Nelson ’68, passed away in July after a courageous 11-year battle with leukemia. They were blessed in their ALUMNI AND ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME AWARDEE PHOTOS BY JOHANNA KITZMAN ’11 marriage with a focus on faith and their family, including daughters Kristy and Becky. 1971 Professor Emeritus and Retired Chair of the Augsburg College Music Department Robert “Bob” Stacke ’71 was honored with the Spirit of Augsburg Award at Homecoming. In retirement, he pursues his passion for photography and continues to be a guide and mentor for music and arts alumni as the leader of Bob’s Band, an ensemble comprised primarily of Augsburg jazz band alumni. Since 2001, he has volunteered at a music camp in Haiti during his summers to share the joy of music with children. 1972 Ray Yip ’72 received the Distinguished Alumni Award at Homecoming. Yip is an international public health leader who has had a significant impact on global public health in the areas of nutrition, maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, and tobacco control. He has held positions with UNICEF, the Centers for Disease Control, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Since 2015, he has served as special advisor with a focus on health and clean energy for bgC3, a thinktank and incubator founded by Bill Gates. Yip lives in Beijing with his wife, Florence Bannicq. 1983 Tim Schultz ’83 has been named private client services market leader for Arizona Bank & Trust, a division of Heartland Financial USA, Inc. He most recently served as regional wealth manager at Johnson Bank and chief operating officer for the western region of BMO Private Bank. 1987 Richard Bahr ’87 released his book, “Amazed: Why the Humanity of Jesus Matters,” in June. The book provides a one-of-a-kind look at Jesus through the lens of his humanity. Bahr and his wife, Carla, operate the Threshold to New Life ministry (threshold2newlife.org), providing relief and restoration to homeless persons. Bahr coordinates the volunteers for a daily breakfast held at Minneapolis’ Salvation Army Harbor Light Center, which serves more than 40,000 meals per year. His blog can be found at richardbahr.com. Amy Hyland Baretz ’87 had an outstanding pitching career on the Auggie softball team, an accomplishment that earned her induction into the Augsburg Athletic Hall of Fame. She set the school record for career victories, twice earned All-MIAC honors, and was a member of an Auggie squad that won the MIAC title and reached the NCAA Division III national tournament in 1984. She also played volleyball at Augsburg. Following graduation, she became the owner of franchise businesses in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. SUBMIT A CLASS NOTE Tell us about the news in your life—your new job, move, marriage, and milestones. Visit augsburg.edu/now to submit your announcements. Fall 2016 27 ALUMNI CLASS NOTES 1988 Lee RoperBatker ’88 received the Distinguished Alumni Award at Homecoming. She is president and CEO of the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, and she has spent her career working to further gender equality, create equal opportunities, and build pathways to economic security for women and girls. Roper-Batker founded and serves on the executive committee of Prosperity Together, a nonpartisan coalition of public women’s foundations that, at the White House in November 2015, publicly committed $100 million to improve the economic security of low-income women and their families in America. 1990 Matt Staehling ’90 is the new city administrator for St. Cloud, Minnesota. He has served the city for 20 years, most recently as the city attorney. 1992 Augsburg volleyball star Tina (Kubes) Peterson ’92 was a dominant player in the early ’90s, securing AllMIAC honors, earning a season MVP nod, producing impressive numbers as an outside hitter, and serving as a multi-year captain. Peterson, who was inducted in the Augsburg Athletic Hall of Fame, also was a member of the Auggie women’s basketball team. Following her graduation, Peterson has used her health and physical education degree as a teacher and coach. She has coached volleyball and track athletes in Minnesota’s New LondonSpicer school district. Joel Tveite ’92 was inducted into the Augsburg Athletic Hall of Fame in recognition of his successes on the baseball, basketball, and golf teams. Tveite was an all-around talent for Auggie baseball, pitching and playing third base. On the mound, he set school records with 28 complete games, 253 innings pitched, and 36 starts. He earned AllMIAC honors and was a team captain. Since graduation, Tveite has worked in accounting and management positions, and he has been active in baseball and basketball leagues as a player and coach. for Entrepreneur of the Year at the TwinWest Chamber of Commerce small business awards luncheon. She was also a 2016 nominee for the Excellence in Leadership Award at the I-94 West Chamber’s small business awards breakfast. Candidates were judged on business strategies, drive for excellence, financial success, and community involvement. 1993 Augsburg Athletic Hall of Fame inductee Kevin Schiltz ’93 was a dominant wrestler for the Auggies in the early ’90s who earned three All-American honors and qualified for national tournament competition four times. He was a MIAC champion in wrestling as well as an offensive and defensive lineman for Augsburg’s football team. Schiltz was a team captain for both sports. Since graduation he has worked in university athletics. Today he serves Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, as a wrestling assistant coach and department equipment manager. Sharol Tyra ’92, professional certified coach, certified professional co-active coach, mentor, makeup artist, and president of Life Illumination Coaching & Image (lifeillumination.com), and a Lord of Life Canticle Choir member was the 2016 finalist Jodi (Divinski) Walfoort ’93 received recognition for her time on the Auggie cross country and track teams when she was inducted AUGGIE SNAPSHOTS ’08 ’06 28 Augsburg Now ’09 ALUMNI CLASS NOTES into the Augsburg Athletic Hall of Fame. Walfoort competed in her first athletic season in 1991 at the age of 25 when the Auggies re-started the cross country program. She made the most of her two years as a runner, earning All-Region honors twice, and she was voted a two-time MVP. After Augsburg, Walfoort became an IT professional and went on to start a commercial real estate company. 1994 Athletic Hall of Fame inductee Bill Gabler ’94 transferred to Augsburg and competed in wrestling, football, and baseball. As an Auggie wrestler, he twice earned All-American honors, won a MIAC championship, and was on the program’s first NCAA Division III national title winning team. He later served as an Augsburg assistant coach who helped guide the Auggies to two NCAA national championships. In football, Gabler was a starting middlelinebacker, and in baseball he was the starting shortstop. He has enjoyed a career in sporting goods, fundraising, and corporate promotions. 1996 Robert Anderson ’96 was the first Auggie football player to earn All-American honors, and the former ’11 defensive lineman was inducted into the Augsburg Athletic Hall of Fame this fall. Some of Anderson’s athletic achievements at Augsburg include setting school records for sacks, being named a MIAC conference lineman of the year, and serving as a cocaptain. Following his graduation, Anderson has worked as a sales director for the software industry in locations including Australia, Austria, China, Germany, New Zealand, and Singapore. Athletic Hall of Fame inductee Bill Kriesel ’96 is one of the top defensive backs in Augsburg football history. He set a single-season school record for interceptions, was named a team MVP on defense, earned All-MIAC first-team honors, and served as a co-captain. Following his graduation, Kriesel played professional football in Germany, earned his MBA, and served on the Augsburg football coaching staff, among other roles. Since 2013, he has worked as a defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. Jodi Markworth ’96 was hired as the new principal at Cedar Ridge Elementary in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. She had been principal at Sheridan Hills Elementary in the Richfield (Minnesota) School District. Hernan Moncada ’06 is the new principal at Eagle Heights Spanish Immersion, a K-6 elementary school in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. ’06 Cyrus Batheja ’08, ’10 MBA threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Twins baseball game on August 6. The Augsburg nursing grad and Alumni Board member was given the honor for his community work including homeless outreach and assistance with UnitedHealth Group, his family’s commitment to quality disabled living situations, and his work on the Tix for Tots advisory board. ’08 Former men’s basketball player Jim South ’96 was inducted into the Augsburg Athletic Hall of Fame. South was a four-year starter for the Auggies, and he holds Augsburg’s career record for field-goal percentage. He earned All-MIAC honors in basketball three times and also played on the Augsburg baseball team for three seasons. Following graduation, South worked for CocaCola before obtaining a law enforcement degree. He also is an active volunteer who serves as an assistant coach for a high school basketball team. 1997 Derrin Lamker ’97 received Augsburg’s Excellence in Coaching Award in recognition of his impressive career. After quarterbacking Augsburg’s football team to a MIAC championship and several of its best seasons in school history, Lamker moved into teaching and coaching. He served as head coach at Osseo (Minnesota) High School for 11 years, winning three Northwest Suburban Conference titles, two section championships, and a Minnesota Class 6A state title. This season he became the offensive coordinator Brian Gullick ’09 and Matt Tonsager ’09 are custom woodworkers of furniture, games, and décor. Their business is Gullton Wood, and the pair created a set of Augsburg College bean bag boards used at Homecoming in September. ’09 Amy (Satnik) Bachman ’11 and her husband, Blair, welcomed a baby girl, Mackenzie Peach, on March 3. ’11 Fall 2016 29 ALUMNI CLASS NOTES at Edina (Minnesota) High School, and he also has coached basketball and baseball. Dwayne Lowman ’00 has been appointed to the inaugural advisory board of Definitely Someday, a nonpartisan firm that helps Minnesotans prepare for a future run for political office. Sweden, which was attended by Pope Francis. Laudert says, “I am beyond thankful, inspired, and thrilled at this opportunity. I am incredibly grateful to the Metropolitan New York Synod and my congregation for the chance to do this. [I am] even more thankful for our partnership in the gospel and the ecumenical mission we share together.” 2004 2008 2000 Melissa “Mel” Lee ’04 has taken the reins as interim head softball coach during the 2017 Augsburg College athletic season after serving as an assistant with the program for the past 12 years. She will continue her duties as an assistant athletic director and an instructor in Augsburg’s health and physical education program. In addition, as a member of the National Fastpitch Coaches Association, Lee is one of two 2016 recipients of the Mary Nutter Scholarship. The educational grant will fund Lee’s attendance at the 2016 NFCA National Convention. 2006 Kyle Loven ’06, a Seattle-based performance and visual artist, was recognized with the First Decade Award at Homecoming. His work combines puppetry, projections, objects, sound, and other art forms with the human presence. Since moving to Seattle in early 2009, Loven has created and toured his original works. His shows have premiered at venues such as the acclaimed Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and Seattle’s On the Boards. Loven is the recipient of grants from the Jim Henson Foundation and numerous arts organizations based in Washington state. 2007 Wolfgang Laudert ’07 attended the ELCA Grace Gathering this summer and made a pilgrimage in October to the Taizé community in France as the result of receiving a leadership development grant. His European trip ended on a journey to the joint Lutheran-Catholic ecumenical prayer service commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in Lund, 30 Augsburg Now Matthew Dunn ’08 received his doctorate in sociology from the University of California-Riverside in June. He is married to Gabriela Oliva Dunn. They live in Murrieta, California. Sara Horishnyk ’08 earned a master’s degree in arts and cultural management from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota and is now working at Twin Cities Public Television. 2012 Angelica Erickson ’12 graduated from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota with a master’s degree in arts and cultural management. Her thesis was, “Every Child is a Work of Art: Helping Children Heal through the Arts after Multiple Traumatic Experiences.” Andrew Fox ’12 is the new manager of the 180-year-old Mendota, Minnesota, home of Henry Hastings Sibley, Minnesota’s first governor. Fox is the point person in a partnership between the Minnesota Historical Society and the Dakota County Historical Society. The state will own and preserve the Sibley site, while the county will staff and operate the three restored houses on the property. Fox studied medieval history at Augsburg. Kimberly Simmonds ’12, with the MonDak Heritage Center in Sidney, Montana, coauthored the book, “Sidney,” in Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series. 2013 Anthony Gore ’13, Steven Schwartz ’13, Ryan Bachman ’14, and Shea Drenkow ’14, all members of the Minneapolis-based band Porno Wolves, recorded the live album “Young Moon Rising” on a cold evening last winter. The friends formed the rock ’n’ roll band in 2012. 2015 Riley Hunter ’15 has a new position as assistant service desk analyst in the IT department at Securian Financial Group in downtown St. Paul. GRADUATE PROGRAMS Derek Nord ’04 MSW is the new director of the Indiana Institute on Disability and Community at Indiana University. Nord previously was associate director of the Research and Training Center on Community Living, part of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Integration. Dr. Amit Ghosh ’12 MBA placed third in the 2016 District 6 Toastmasters International spring convention held in April in Minneapolis. Ghosh competed in the international speech category. District 6 is comprised of 290 clubs and 5,000 members. It serves most of Minnesota and southern Ontario, Canada. Jeremiah Dagel ’15 MPA has joined the urgent care department at the Essentia Health Saint Mary’s Detroit Lakes (Minnesota) Clinic. As part of the urgent care team, Dagel will treat medical conditions that require immediate attention but that are not life-threatening. AUGGIES HONORED Karim El-Hibri was recognized with the First Decade Award at Homecoming. He is a strategic advisor and founding board member of the El-Hibri Foundation, which focuses on peace education and interfaith cooperation through grants and awards that recognize leadership, and programs that promote learning and inclusion. He holds a BA in international relations from the American University School of International Service, and graduated from the StepUP® Program at Augsburg. El-Hibri lives in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan AUGGIE SNAPSHOTS area with his wife, Carley, and two children, Roula and Sami. Norman and Evangeline Hagfors received the Spirit of Augsburg Award at Homecoming in recognition of their leadership in the campaign for the Center of Science, Business, and Religion. As community leaders and longtime friends of Augsburg, the Hagfors embody Augsburg’s faithfulness to education grounded in the Lutheran faith and relevant to the evolving needs of our students and the world. Norman served as an Augsburg College Regent from 1989-2001, providing active participation during a critical stage of the College’s growth. In October 2005, he was re-elected to the Augsburg Board of Regents. A chapel on the third floor of the new building will be named for Evangeline’s father, the Rev. Elnar Gundale ’33, who graduated from Augsburg College and Augsburg Seminary and went on to serve as a pastor in the Lutheran Free Church and ELCA. Heidi Kammer-Hodge ’00 MSW joined Jackson Recovery Centers in Sioux City, Iowa, as a vice president and chief operating officer. KammerHodge’s position at Jackson comes after serving at Resource in Minneapolis for the past 17 years, where she held many leadership roles, most recently as a vice president. ’07 ’00 ’00 ’08 ’14 On July 23, Brett Cease ’07 married Julia Besser in Grand Portage, Minnesota. Auggies in the wedding party included [L to R]: Micah Erickson ’07, Chris Swanson ’07, Eriks Dunens ’06, and Lava K.C. ’07. ’07 Brian Krohn ’08 and Kari Aanestad ’08 welcomed a baby girl, Seora Eileen Aanestad Krohn, on May 11. ’08 Five Auggies received their white coats this fall as part of the incoming University of Minnesota Medical School class. Congratulations to [L to R]: Anna Weitz ’14, David Bergstrand ’14, Michelle Grafelman ’15, Mahad Minhas ’12, and David Fowler ’14. ’14 ’15 Laura (Swanson) Lindahl ’15 MBA and David Lindahl were married May 21 in Dellwood, Minnesota. ’15 31 In memoriam Philip A. Horne ’40, San Rafael, California, age 99, on August 7. Paul S. Paulson ’49, Spokane, Washington, age 87, on June 12. Robert D. Goodrich ’57, Big Lake, Minnesota, age 83, on April 22. Ruth C. (Kveen) Rydquist ’40, Fargo, North Dakota, age 98, on July 23. Idelle S. (Nornes) Bagne ’50, Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, age 89, on May 6. Judith A. (Sather) Suther ’57, Totowa, New Jersey, age 80, on May 18. Lila A. (Israel) Erickson ’41, Minneapolis, age 97, on May 20. Charlotte A. (Ellingson) Ennen ’50, Dublin, Ohio, age 88, on May 17. Philip H. Johnson ’60, Belleville, Wisconsin, age 79, on June 20. Morris E. Ulring ’42, Minneapolis, age 95, on February 5. Kenneth A. Hengler ’50, Eagan, Minnesota, age 91, on May 19. Ernest I. Knutson ’43, Spooner, Wisconsin, age 95, on May 21. John T. Garland ’51, Saint Paul, age 86, on August 26. Ronald H. Stanley ’60, Balsam Lake, Wisconsin, age 78, on July 22. Gloria (Burntvedt) Nelson ’43, Minneapolis, age 94, on June 21. Olive L. (Nilsen) Zoller ’51, Marine On Saint Croix, Minnesota, age 87, on July 30. Kenneth A. Gilles ’44, Scottsbluff, Nebraska, age 94, on June 2. Ralph W. Hofrenning ’45, Fargo, North Dakota, age 94, on May 31. 32 Rebecca “Becky” A. (Skonnord) Johnson ’52, Valley City, North Dakota, age 86, on April 26. Lois M. (Black) Ahlbom ’47, Saint Paul, age 91, on May 9. Mildred R. (Zustiak) Baerg ’53, Anoka, Minnesota, age 85, on July 15. Myrtle C. (Skurdal) Bar ’49, Williston, North Dakota, age 91, on August 19. Edmund R. Youngquist ’53, Northfield, Minnesota, age 91, on May 30. Augsburg Now Phyllis E. (Ebrenz) Wagner ’60, Minneapolis, age 78, on July 11. Theodore “Ted” P. Botten, Jr. ’61, Rochester, Minnesota, age 77, on June 29. Jacob “Jack” A. Mayala ’61, Kimball, Minnesota, age 77, on June 12. John D. Heruth ’62, Rochester, Minnesota, age 75, on June 25. David L. Faust ’63, Green Isle, Minnesota, age 76, on May 30. Elaine L. (Legaarden) Swanson ’63, Maitland, Florida, age 75, on May 14. Dolores A. (Sheppard) Carrico ’74, Wyoming, Minnesota, age 86, on March 8. Linda L. (Benson) Pederson ’64, Frederic, Wisconsin, age 75, on June 23. Audrey C. (Jorgensen) Hanson ’77, Lewiston, Idaho, age 90, on March 21. Gary M. Ellis ’65, Hendricks, Minnesota, age 74, on June 27. Scott A. Hugstad-Vaa ’77, Apple Valley, Minnesota, age 60, on June 2. Michael J. Marcy ’65, Minnetonka, Minnesota, age 73, on June 16. Paula A. (Beckley) Beckley-Gildner ’78, White Bear Lake, Minnesota, age 65, on June 8. Larry D. Cole ’66, Minneapolis, age 73, on May 18. Mary Kay (Belgum) Nelson ’68, Mendota Heights, Minnesota, age 69, on July 18. Christine A. (Toedt) Olson ’70, Delano, Minnesota, age 67, on June 6. Donald F. Deming ’71, Fort Mill, South Carolina, age 69, on June 14. Lillian M. (Sedio) Mattson ’71, Excelsior, Minnesota, age 67, on August 1. Marian T. (Jauquet) Finger ’83, Baraboo, Wisconsin, age 89, on April 5. Scott E. Herceg ’00, Minneapolis, age 44, on August 12. Cynthia L. (Cramer) Reed ’11, Rochester, Minnesota, age 59, on August 18. Assistant Professor of Music Douglas Diamond, Minneapolis, age 59, on May 27. The “In memoriam” listings in this publication include notifications received before September 19. IT PAYS TO BE AN AUGGIE ALUMNI DISCOUNT Doctor of Nursing Practice Master of Arts in Nursing Master of Arts in Education Master of Arts in Leadership Master of Business Administration (MBA) Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Master of Music Therapy Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies Master of Social Work augsburg.edu/grad/discount GRADUATE PROGRAM TUITION DISCOUNT FOR ALUMNI Many of Augsburg College’s current graduate students are alumni who earned their first degree at Augsburg and returned to pursue further education. Become a part of this growing group and take advantage of our Alumni Tuition Discount—a savings of $80 per credit! Auggie graduates who’ve earned a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree from Augsburg qualify for this alumni discount. gradinfo@augsburg.edu | 612-330-1101 PHOTO BY RICKY TAYLOR ’17 2211 Riverside Avenue Minneapolis, MN 55454 Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Twin Cities, MN Permit No. 2031 Pedestrians take priority This fall, Open Streets Minneapolis allowed community members to stroll, skate, and cycle on roads closed to cars near Augsburg’s campus. Open Streets events held across the city throughout the summer promoted healthy living, local business, sustainable transportation, and civic pride. As an anchor institution in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, Augsburg used the celebration to further its commitment to place-based community building, organizing live music and a fashion show for attendees to enjoy.
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Title: Augsburg Now Summer 2016: Carving the Way Forward
Collection: Alumni Magazine Collection
Search Result: Beyond the scoreboard National champion to local hero Leadership and conflict CARVING WAY THE FORWARD SUMMER 2016 | VOL. 78, NO. 3 INSIDE AUGSBURG NOW AUGSBURG NOW Vice President of Marketing and Communication Rebecca John ’13 MBA rjohn@augsburg.edu Summer 2016 Director of News a...
Show more Beyond the scoreboard National champion to local hero Leadership and conflict CARVING WAY THE FORWARD SUMMER 2016 | VOL. 78, NO. 3 INSIDE AUGSBURG NOW AUGSBURG NOW Vice President of Marketing and Communication Rebecca John ’13 MBA rjohn@augsburg.edu Summer 2016 Director of News and Media Services Stephanie Weiss weisss@augsburg.edu NOTES FROM PRESIDENT PRIBBENOW On thoughtful stewardship Director of Marketing Communication Stephen Jendraszak jendra@augsburg.edu Communication Copywriter and Editorial Coordinator Augsburg’s mission statement says that we educate students to be “thoughtful stewards” as well as “informed citizens, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders.” I imagine some may read “thoughtful stewards” and think about church fundraising campaigns or care for the environment, the typical places we consider stewardship—and both important causes! At Augsburg, though, thoughtful stewardship is a much more compelling claim. It goes beyond simple acts of giving or environmental care. It is a way of living, an ethic that teaches us how to live in the world. And it is at the heart of an Augsburg education—from how we engage students with the community to help them discern their gifts and gain a holistic understanding of the needs of our world (see page 16) to the deep listening and conversation we embed in our classes, such as in the Master of Arts in Leadership course that was integrated with this year’s Nobel Peace Prize Forum (see page 20). Also in this issue of Augsburg Now, you will read about the genuine privilege I had to deliver a major address on stewardship to Cargill employees worldwide. In that address, I said: “… stewardship involves a practice of standing up, speaking up in a manner that reflects—and makes clear—our values. The challenge for the good steward—as a parent or manager or citizen—is to pursue practices that help connect us with the deeply held values and commitments that characterize our personal and corporate lives. “The truth is that many people do not think about the reasons for their actions. They act, and they expect others to accept their action at face value. But good stewardship demands reflection, then the courage to act based on our convictions, and to do so overtly so that we are publicly accountable for how our actions reflect our values. Only in that link is there integrity in human life.” At Augsburg—as reflected in the stories that follow in these pages—we educate students to embrace their many gifts, to understand the obligations they have to steward those gifts, and to appreciate the important work of taking a stand for the values and commitments that honor the gifts and contributions of each of us. Thoughtful stewardship—a way of life for all of us. I give thanks for a teaching and learning community that is blessed with and inspired by our remarkable legacy and mission. I give thanks for the privilege of being a faithful steward of all the gifts that make Augsburg such a rare place. Faithfully yours, Laura Swanson Lindahl ’15 MBA swansonl@augsburg.edu Creative Associate Denielle Johnson ’11 johnsod@augsburg.edu Marketing Copywriter Christina Haller haller@augsburg.edu Production Manager Mark Chamberlain chamberm@augsburg.edu Photographer Stephen Geffre geffre@augsburg.edu Advancement Communication Specialist Jen Lowman Day dayj@augsburg.edu Contributor Ryan Nichols ’16 augsburg.edu Augsburg Now is published by Augsburg College 2211 Riverside Ave. Minneapolis, MN 55454 Opinions expressed in Augsburg Now do not necessarily reflect official College policy. PAUL C. PRIBBENOW, PRESIDENT Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Kailash Satyarthi brought energy and passion to the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Forum sponsored by Augsburg College. Following three days of dialogue on peacebuilding, he and his wife, Sumedha Kailash, joined Forum attendees in a Bollywood-style dance party for the conference’s finale. 02 Around the quad 20 Leadership and conflict 08 From national hampion to local hero 23 Auggies connect 14 Beyond the scoreboard 27 Class notes 16 The city: Course content and classroom 32 In memoriam ISSN 1058-1545 Send address corrections to: alumniupdate@augsburg.edu. On the cover: Construction crews work on the footings for the main lobby of the Norman and Evangeline Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion, an interdisciplinary building that will open in 2018, anchoring the west side of the Augsburg College campus. See page 2. Email: now@augsburg.edu All photos by Stephen Geffre unless otherwise indicated. FROM THE GROUND THIS BUG’S-EYE VIEW captures the April 2016 groundbreaking ceremony for Augsburg’s Norman and Evangeline Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion. The celebration included hundreds of Augsburg College alumni, students, donors, neighbors, and faculty and staff members, as well as city and county officials. The new academic building is slated to open in January 2018. 2 Augsburg Now Pictured [L to R]: Outgoing Augsburg College Board of Regents Chair Dr. Paul Mueller ’84, Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin, Naming Gift Donors Evangeline Hagfors and Norman Hagfors, Augsburg College President Paul C. Pribbenow, National Fundraising Campaign Chair Michael Good ’71, Augsburg College Provost Karen Kaivola, and 2015-16 Day Student Body President Duina Hernandez ’16. Summer 2016 3 AROUND THE QUAD $50,000 grant funds RECYCLING PROGRAM EXPANSION Student-faculty-staff collaboration improves campus sustainability D A U Q E H T D N U O AR NEW RESIDENTS HONORING Retiring Faculty SET MEMORIAL HALL KATHY ACCURSO ABUZZ Instructor, Department of Education— with the College since 2012 KATHERINE BAUMGARTNER Assistant Professor, Department of Nursing—with the College since 2005 Hives installed to bolster honey bee population RONALD FEDIE It has been decades since the last students moved out of Memorial Hall; the dormitory was converted to office space in the late 1960s. However, a new group of inhabitants moved in this spring when The Beez Kneez organization installed beehives on the building’s rooftop as part of an urban apiary partnership program. Augsburg joined the program to further the College’s commitment to environmental stewardship and to creating green spaces within the city. Recently, honey bee populations have been decreasing due to parasites and the misuse of pesticides. The on-campus hives will help rebuild the local population and pollinate Augsburg’s plant life. Those worried about getting stung can rest easy—honey bees are not aggressive and will not sting unless threatened. 4 Augsburg Now Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemistry—with the College since 1996 FEKRI MEZIOU Professor Emeritus, Department of Business Administration—with the College since 1987 VICKI OLSON Professor Emerita, Department of Education—with the College since 1987 CELEBRATING STUDENT Augsburg College can boost its efforts to divert organic and compostable items from trash and other recycling thanks to a $50,000 recycling grant from the Hennepin County Environment and Energy Department. The funding will be used to purchase indoor and outdoor bins, rolling carts, and signage to foster increased composting of organic material and the proper disposal of mixed recyclables. Go to augsburg.edu/green to learn about Augsburg’s Environmental Augsburg’s commitment to offering facilities that are welcoming, sustainable, Stewardship Committee, Facilities and and designed for educational excellence. Custodial staff, and the Augsburg Day Student Government’s Environmental Action Committee collaborated to submit the grant proposal. “Thousands of people touch the campus in some way during the course of one year,” said Amber Lewis ’17 MAE, an Environmental Stewardship Fellow who supports on-campus sustainability initiatives. “In addition to students, faculty, and staff, guests join our community for graduation ceremonies, sporting events, performances, convocations, summer camps, conferences, and workshops. This presents us with an opportunity to share a clear message about the importance of recycling in our community.” SUCCESS Read about the wide range of prestigious academic achievements and awards earned by Auggies during the 2015-16 year at augsburg.edu/now. AUGSBURG EXHIBITION SHINES in Guerrilla Girls Twin Cities Takeover World-renowned feminist art activists the Guerrilla Girls recently “took over” Minneapolis and St. Paul to celebrate their 30th anniversary. Augsburg College was among more than two dozen arts and cultural institutions that hosted exhibits and events highlighting gender and race inequalities and promoting artistic expression. The Guerrilla Girls, who wear gorilla masks and use the names of famous female artists as pseudonyms, were on campus for the opening reception of “Reconfiguring Casta,” a site-specific installation for the Christensen Center Art Gallery. Combining prints and paintings, artist Maria Cristina Tavera addressed the social concept of race and the issue of socio-racial classifications. Tavera, known on campus as “Tina,” also serves as the director of Augsburg’s McNair Scholars program, which seeks to increase graduate degree awards for students from underrepresented segments of society. Augsburg College President Paul C. Pribbenow delivered the keynote address for Cargill’s annual ethics week this spring. Pribbenow is recognized as one of the nation’s most engaging commentators and teachers on ethics, philanthropy, and American public life. His talk, “Promises to Keep: An Ethic of Stewardship,” reached Cargill employees located in Minneapolis and around the world. Summer 2016 5 AROUND THE QUAD ON THE SPOT What does it mean to matter? What does it look like to matter? With the Black Lives Matter movement, questions of racial equity have ignited important—and difficult— conversations in communities and courtrooms, on political campaign trails, and on college campuses. Augsburg College Professor William “Bill” Green studies and writes about history and law. His most recent book, “Degrees of Freedom: The Origins of Civil Rights in Minnesota, 1865–1912,” chronicles conditions for African American Minnesotans and others in the half-century following the Civil War. Today, Minnesota and the nation are very different than they were in the postbellum period that Green examined, but tightly woven threads unite contemporary events with those occurring more than a century earlier. COMMENCEMENT 2016 Students of color, award winners, and former KARE 11 anchor stand out at graduation Augsburg College celebrated students completing degrees in the traditional undergraduate, adult undergraduate, and graduate programs through commencement ceremonies held April 30. The 2016 traditional undergraduate class is the most diverse in the College’s history and comprised of more than 42 percent students of color. Commencement keynote speaker Michael Botticelli, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, addressed ceremony attendees and was awarded an honorary doctorate. Michael Good ’71 also was awarded an honorary degree in recognition of his service to the College. Eleanor Barr ’16 earned the Marina Christensen Justice Award, and Kim Chisholm ’16 received this year’s Richard Thoni Award, recognizing exceptional contributions to their communities. Teaching and learning award winners Augsburg recognizes individuals or groups who have made exemplary contributions to creating an engaging academic learning environment. The 2016 recipients of the Distinguished Contributions to Teaching and Learning awards are: Teaching Former KARE 11 News anchor Diana Pierce ’16 MAL earned her Masters of Arts in Leadership and participated in commencement this spring. “The program at Augsburg gave me exactly what I wanted to add to my skillset for a new adventure,” Pierce said on KARE 11 in April. Joe Underhill, associate professor of political science Research Michael Lansing, associate professor and History Department chair Service Dulce Monterrubio, director of Latin@ Student Services 6 Augsburg Now Q: What prompted your interest in studying the history of African Americans in Minnesota? A: In 1860, a slave woman was freed in a Minneapolis courtroom. In the aftermath, citizens in the communities of St. Anthony and Minneapolis for days walked the streets eyeing their neighbors, waiting for the smallest provocation to spark violence. We were on the verge of seeing our own little civil war erupt in Minnesota over the issue of slavery. Ultimately, Minnesotans’ attention was averted by news of the Confederate bombardment of the federal installation of Fort Sumter. Upon hearing the news, Minnesota was the first state to send volunteers into the Union Army. Seven years later, it would be the first state to extend voting rights to black men, pre-dating the ratification of the 15th Amendment. I felt compelled to understand this dynamic. Q: When Minnesota granted suffrage to people who are black, what implications did this have in citizens’ lives? ELCA college conference Students, faculty members, and staff from two dozen colleges and universities affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America came together this summer as Augsburg hosted the annual Vocation of a Lutheran College Conference. The event featured a partnership with Interfaith Youth Core—an organization renowned for uniting young people of different religious and moral traditions for dialogue around shared values. IFYC Founder Eboo Patel [pictured speaking] discussed the colleges’ role in preparing students for life in a religiously diverse world. ‘Degrees of Freedom’ in Minnesota’s past and present A: [L to R]: Michael Lansing, Dulce Monterrubio, and Joe Underhill. In a practical sense, the implications were non-existent. There simply weren’t enough black voters in Minnesota to influence political leaders or affect public policy. Symbolically, however, during a time of mounting economic dislocation coupled with the spread of white supremacy, it raised the bar, not just in terms of the broader virtue of racial equality, but, more fundamentally, stressing the need for true leadership that called on ordinary people to overcome their baser instincts and choose to act with common decency. Q: And yet you’ve said that race is “written between the lines” of early Minnesota history, rather than spoken about directly. What do you mean? A: The fact that the black population was so small made it easy for historians and opinion makers to draw rosy pictures of racial exceptionalism without needing to be checked by a more balanced reality. Without the “significant other” whose history was hidden in footnotes, it became easy to believe what one wanted to believe. But could it really be true that Dred Scott was the only slave to live in Minnesota? Could Frederick Douglass be the only African American to be denied service in a prestigious hotel in St. Paul, even though the proprietor was a friend of his and an officer in the Union Army? Could the paucity of discrimination lawsuits in the 19th century really mean there was no discrimination in restaurants and taverns? Q: Today’s Black Lives Matter movement involves participatory democracy— participation by many and with more diffuse leadership than the civil rights movements of the 1960s. When you look at the Black Lives Matter movement, what strikes you, considering the lens through which you write your books? A: In 1965 when the civil rights movement pressed for voting rights, the powerful symbolism of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X joining forces placed pressure on the President of the United States to shepherd through Congress the Voting Rights bill and sign it into law. Federal protection of the right to vote was a moral issue. But it was the union of two leaders who embodied opposing approaches to advancing civil rights that heightened a sense of urgency to enact the bill. The moral: As long as there are no “inside”-“outside” forces simultaneously working for the same clearly defined issue, advocates on either side of the spectrum can be marginalized and eventually dismissed. I don’t see a rival force to Black Lives Matter that is pushing for the same ends but through different means. This isn’t the fault of BLM, but the absence of a “significant other” should be a concern to them, nonetheless. History can only provide suggestions on how or even whether to proceed. The Minnesota Book Awards honored Green with the 2016 Hognander Minnesota History Award. Go to augsburg.edu/now to learn more about Green’s research. Summer 2016 7 Devean George ’99 was the first NCAA Division III player ever selected in the first round of the NBA Draft—and he played professionally for more than a decade. Now retired from basketball, he’s gone back to his roots to help revitalize the Minneapolis neighborhood where he grew up. BY CHRISTINA HALLER 8 Augsburg Now November 3, 1999. The Los Angeles Lakers are debuting in their brand new home, the Staples Center, with an unveiling ceremony followed by a game against the Vancouver Grizzlies. A crowd of 20,000 fans is packed inside, waiting for NBA stars Kobe Bryant or Shaquille O’Neal to make opening remarks. But instead, the Lakers players decide to encourage their newest rookie to address the crowd. The lights go down, and all becomes still. In less than 30 seconds, it’s go time. “No, guys, don’t make me do this! I don’t know what to do,” whispers a 22-year-old Devean George ’99. But his pleas were met with laughter. “I just remember shaking in my boots. There are tens of thousands of people here, and I’m going to be out at center court—all eyes on me,” recalls George. “So I get out there, and it just clicked. It was easy.” George credits his education in communication studies from Augsburg for helping to prepare him for that life-changing moment, as well as all of his public speaking engagements from that point forward. “As an NBA player, you have a camera with that big, red light in front of your face every day,” George said. “You have to know how to conduct yourself and communicate effectively. And all those communication classes I took at Augsburg come into play.” After high school, George enrolled at Augsburg assuming he would play basketball for the Auggies, earn a degree, and find a job in business. But his “hoop dreams” became a reality pretty early on in his Augsburg career. “When I recruited Devean, he was about 6'2" and 170 pounds,” said former Augsburg basketball coach Brian Ammann ’85. “Fortunately for Devean, he grew about five inches and put on 50 pounds by his sophomore year. And his hard work paid off in big ways.” George was the first NCAA Division III player ever selected in the first round of the NBA Draft. He was the 23rd overall pick in 1999, chosen by the Los Angeles Lakers—one of the most storied franchises in NBA history. George is now retired from the NBA after playing 11 seasons and becoming only the seventh player in history to win a league championship in each of his first three seasons. He has since found a successful career in real estate development and a passion for giving back. George played for the Los Angeles Lakers from 1999 to 2006. In 2006, he signed with the Dallas Mavericks and played in Texas until 2009. He then joined the Golden State Warriors in Oakland, California, in 2009 until his retirement in 2010. George was raised by devoted, hardworking parents in the Willard-Hay neighborhood of north Minneapolis and still calls the Twin Cities home — a place he loves for its friendly people and four seasons. His current work focuses on helping to improve his childhood community. 10 Augsburg Now Summer 2016 11 After George joined the NBA, he started volunteering his time in schools and after-school programs. He noticed many of the children he visited didn’t have stable housing, which significantly affected their security and education. “That’s when I decided helping kids and families would be the foundation of what I do,” said George, who has two young sons. He founded Building Blocks, a nonprofit organization committed to providing quality housing, community development, and programming for youth and families. “If you don’t have stable housing, you’re not going to care about schooling, safety, or eating healthy. If we get those families into stable housing, then they can focus on those other things,” George said. George’s first affordable housing project opened this spring—The Commons at Penn in north Minneapolis, an income-restricted, 47-unit workforce apartment building that also includes an on-site health and wellness facility, an after-school program, a fitness center, a toddler playground, and a grocery store. Long-term, George would like to help create a more family-friendly community in north Minneapolis—a community that provides greater amenities for its residents. So far, The Commons at Penn has been a successful addition to the neighborhood. “[The] Commons at Penn achieves multiple city goals: creating new, highquality, affordable housing options [and] increased residential density along a key commercial and transit corridor, and bringing in commercial activity and services,” said Andrea Brennan, director of Housing Policy and Development for the City of Minneapolis. “This project sets us on a promising course to continue development at this important north Minneapolis node.” George is planning phase two of The Commons at Penn, which will go up right across the street from the existing mixed-use building. He also is developing housing complexes in South Carolina and Louisiana, and has been contacted by fellow professional athletes who would like to see a change in the neighborhoods where they were raised. In addition to literally helping build a solid foundation for families through stable housing, George also helps build a strong foundation for young people through mentorship programs like Read to Achieve. “The kids think that [NBA players] are not human beings because we know how to play basketball,” said George. “If I can tell a kid to go to school and not to do drugs, and just because I can play basketball he’ll listen to me, I’m going to try to use that to my advantage.” George is also busy instilling the values of compassion and service in his own two sons, ages 7 and 4. For starters, they learn to share by donating their toys to kids who otherwise wouldn’t have any. “They’re still young, but I started teaching my boys early on a way of giving and understanding. I explain to them that this [lifestyle] isn’t normal; they’re in a blessed situation,” George said. “I’ve been able to achieve a lot of things. But I know I’ve had a lot of help along the way.” 12 Augsburg Now WORKFORCE HOUSING offers reduced rent to people who are gainfully employed (and don’t qualify as low-income), yet still struggle to afford market-rate housing. It’s explained by the Urban Land Institute as housing that is “affordable to families earning 60 to 100 percent of area median income.” Workforce housing commonly is targeted for essential workers in a community, such as police officers, firefighters, teachers, social workers, and nurses. Summer 2016 13 BY STEPHEN GEFFRE AND LAURA SWANSON LINDAHL ’15 MBA THE CITY: COURSE CONTENT AND CLASSROOM Each semester, painting and drawing classes typically occur in what originally was an Augsburg College chapel. Old Main 100 is an inspiring place with 25-foot ceilings and soaring windows. On-campus studios offer focused spaces for students to learn about visual art media, methods, and creative expression. For 25 years, Associate Professor and Art Department Co‑Chair Tara Sweeney has taught foundational drawing principles in Old Main with what she calls “as few spectators and distractions as possible,” and in recent years she also has led short-term international travel courses in which students develop the same skills without the support of a traditional studio. This spring, Sweeney and her Minneapolis-based students traveled close to home as they stepped beyond the boundaries of the campus studio, choosing to forgo a controlled setting to embrace learning opportunities present in public areas that are as complex and challenging as they are diverse. “Instead of creating a still life with the same old props, I utilized the city as subject matter and classroom,” Sweeney said. “Students were as actively engaged in creative placemaking as they were in making drawings — effectively shaping the physical and social character of whatever neighborhood, museum, coffee shop, or landmark we chose as a drawing site.” A CORE CHALLENGE In the article “The Power of Experiential Education,” nationally recognized education scholar and professor Janet Eyler noted that a central challenge for liberal arts educators like Sweeney—and indeed the entire Augsburg College faculty—is to “design learning environments and instruction so that students will be able to use what they learn in appropriate new contexts.” That is, to successfully “bridge classroom study and life in the world and to transform inert knowledge into knowledge-in-use.” In a drawing course, for instance, students develop technical skills while exploring individual subject matter and creative expression. It is perhaps the latter of these elements that came into clearer focus when Sweeney took her students out in the community. The artists “made connections with strangers and learned things about themselves in the process,” Sweeney said. They become comfortable creating art in the midst of daily life and finished the course with “real skills and the right tools to continue drawing wherever they find themselves and wherever inspiration finds them.” JUST A GLIMPSE At Augsburg, students across disciplines and degree programs benefit from faculty instruction that integrates experiential learning opportunities with traditional instructional methods, thereby linking course concepts with real-world applications. The pages that follow offer a glimpse at a small sample of the faculty and students who use Minneapolis as their classroom. 16 Augsburg Now Johanna Goggins ’16 works on a sketch in the solarium at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis. Summer 2016 17 ARTS AND THE CITIES ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE ENV 120: Students clad in safety gear and earplugs to dampen the deafening noise weave their way through a Eureka Recycling processing plant. Environmental Science focuses on understanding and resolving problems humans have created in the natural world. The course includes hands-on learning opportunities that make complex scientific concepts more approachable and applicable for students. “The city is the perfect place for these types of experiences to happen—it’s all right at our fingertips: a wastewater treatment plant, power plant, recycling center, and public transit,” said Assistant Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies Emily Schilling. “We can observe the detrimental effects humans are having on the environment, and we also can see some of the ways we are trying to mitigate that impact.” MIS 375: HON 230: Students in Augsburg College’s Honors Program join Minnesota Orchestra performers onstage following a symphony event at Orchestra Hall. As an interdisciplinary course, “Arts and the Cities” unites film, music, theater, and visual art — offering students the chance to peruse Picassos, soak in Shakespeare, and mingle with musicians. Together, students and teachers explore the role of the arts in a culturally dynamic urban setting. “Students enjoy the experiential nature of this course,” said Associate Professor of Music Merilee Klemp ’75. “They often comment that it presents them with opportunities that they would not have on their own and deepens their understanding of the role of the arts in their lives long after the course is over.” 18 Augsburg Now E-COMMERCE Students speak with Abdirahman Mukhtar, a youth program manager at Pillsbury United Communities’ Brian Coyle Center. Mukhtar oversees the Sisterhood Boutique, a secondhand clothing store that serves as a training ground for young women to learn about entrepreneurship, business, community partnerships, and sustainable fashion. Through their discussions with Mukhtar, the Auggies began to apply some of their fundamental course concepts in a real-world setting. Summer 2016 19 2016 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FORUM LEADERSHIP & CONFLICT BY REBECCA JOHN ’13 MBA 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Kailash Satyarthi shared his vision for global compassion during the Nobel Peace Prize Forum. More than 300 students, academics, activists, and thought leaders participated in three days of discussion and presentations to advance peacebuilding. O R G A NI ZI NG PA RT N E RS 20 Augsburg Now MED IA SPO N SO R GRADUATE STUDENTS STUDY GLOBAL COMPASSION AT THE 2016 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FORUM Conflict is a pervasive characteristic of human interaction. This is the opening line of the summer syllabus for Augsburg College’s Master of Arts in Leadership course, “Navigating Local & Global Conflict: Interfaith Dimensions.” The statement underscores how important it is for leaders to develop the ability to navigate and inspire others in the face of conflict and sets the stage for the work of analyzing leadership in the context of real-world situations. By design, the course is integrated with the annual Nobel Peace Prize Forum, for which Augsburg is the host sponsor. “The Nobel Peace Prize Forum is a gem,” said history and leadership studies professor Jacqueline deVries. It’s a oneof-a-kind event that allows students to learn through direct engagement about the contexts and complexities involved in conflict. deVries, who also serves as director for Augsburg’s general education program, co-taught the course with Martha Stortz, Bernhard M. Christensen Professor of Religion and Vocation, and Tom Morgan, professor of leadership studies. Held annually in Minneapolis, the Nobel Peace Prize Forum is one of only three programs officially associated with the Norwegian Nobel Institute. The Forum’s mission is to inspire peacemaking by focusing on the work of Nobel Peace Prize laureates and by engaging students and the wider community with national and global leaders in the process of peacebuilding. The Forum provided the students in the graduate course with direct access to leaders from businesses, nonprofits, and government organizations whose work involves navigating complex, real-world challenges that range from food security to civil unrest to poverty and climate change. The students used examples from the Forum, as well as from their own lives, to analyze conflict involving religious diversity in their communities, examine contemporary issues in a historical perspective, and develop a view on what effective leadership looks like (or might look like) in actual situations. Students come to the Master’s of Arts in Leadership program with experience PEACEB U ILD IN G PARTN ER- SPONSORS Summer 2016 21 AUGGIES CONNECT Martin Olav Sabo ’59 leaves mark on Augsburg College community in both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. In gathering during a lunch break to share reflections about what they were learning at the Forum, the class observed that it is not possible to be effective as a leader without knowing what’s going on in the world. The Forum, they said, was a prompt for thinking about how a leader would approach addressing challenging topics and situations in their work. Too often, people are so wrapped up with their jobs and family and school that they don’t think about the difficulties others are facing in the world. It’s not that people don’t care about these topics, one student said, but they often just don’t pay attention to the issues on a daily basis. Being at the Forum offered a level of understanding that may not happen in a classroom, the students said. In fact, during the Forum the students directly engaged with difficult topics, and it required a conscious choice to hear the tragic stories about topics like child slavery and human trafficking. This is where our general population may be falling short, one student observed—choosing to turn away instead of understanding the reality of these issues. The Master of Arts in Leadership program, however, equips individuals to turn toward—rather than away from— challenging issues in order to seek solutions and inspire others toward a common goal. The program is designed to prepare leaders who are ethically and morally responsible, who can see beyond immediate concerns, and who are sensitive to the complex problems that organizations face. By using the Nobel Peace Prize Forum as a classroom, these students worked to understand both the systems that contribute to conflict and the systems that effective leaders can use to address it. “WE HAVE TO CHANGE THE DEMAND” Top [L to R]: Dean Jarrow ’16 MAL and Dele Odiachi ’17 MAL Bottom: [L to R]: Jacqueline deVries; Margaret PowellMack ’17 MAL; Kevin Stirtz ’17 MAL; Subashini Ambrose ’18 MAL; Tom Morgan; Eric Miamen ’04, ’14 MBA, ’16 MAL; David Nyssen ’16 MBA, ’17 MAL; Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi; Howie Smith ’80, ’19 MAL; Satyarthi’s wife, Sumedha Kailash; MAL Director Alan Tuchtenhagen; and Brad Beeskow ’17 MAL. 22 Augsburg Now For example, some students thought that business was potentially the most powerful force for addressing the issues discussed at the Forum; others argued that the biggest changes will come when consumers demand it, quoting comments by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, who, in his opening remarks, said, “We have to change the demand.” Another student observed that every person has a powerful “what’s in it for me” filter and noted that, if we don’t translate the message in a way that addresses this filter, it will not be effective. And, although the class agreed, the students also recognized that people are often motivated not just by what benefits them directly, but also by generosity and helping others—by what, as one student phrased it, satisfies a need of the heart. BY STEPHANIE WEISS Former U.S. Representative Martin Olav Sabo ’59, who passed away on March 13 at age 78, was a lifelong public servant and renowned Augsburg College alumnus who exemplified the progressive approach and personal integrity that were modeled in his Lutheran upbringing and education. The work he and his wife, Sylvia, devoted to guiding the Martin Olav Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship, the Sabo Scholars program, and the annual Sabo Symposium—all of which create opportunities for civic experiences and skillbuilding inside and outside the classroom—will leave a lasting legacy at Augsburg. Augsburg College President Paul C. Pribbenow said that Sabo’s “life-long commitment to public service is an inspiration to all of us. The Sabo Center gives Augsburg the ongoing opportunity to celebrate the life and work of our dear friend.” One year after graduating from Augsburg College, Sabo—then 22—was elected to serve in the Minnesota House of Representatives. During his tenure, he became the first member of the Democrat-Farmer-Labor party to serve as Speaker of the House—a post he held from 1973-78. He went on to serve for 28 years as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, retiring in 2007. At the same time that Sabo served in Congress, he volunteered 12 years to Augsburg College as a member of the Board of Regents. The College named Sabo a Distinguished Alumnus and awarded him its first-ever honorary degree. Sabo was distinguished in all he undertook and, in 2006, was appointed Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit for outstanding work and dedication to NorwegianAmerican relations. Congressman Sabo and Sylvia Sabo are parents of Auggies Karin Mantor ’86 and Julie Sabo ’90. Summer 2016 23 AUGGIES CONNECT New to the Alumni Board Five Auggies elected to serve three-year terms on the Augsburg College Alumni Board will network with and mentor current Auggies, build community with alumni, and provide a vital link between the College and graduates. TRAVEL IN THAILAND AND CAMBODIA JANUARY 3-15, 2017 To learn more, go to augsburg.edu/alumni/travel. Derek Francis ’08 School counselor, Minneapolis Public Schools “Through the awesome community and volunteer opportunities at Augsburg, I realized I was passionate about working with youth. Augsburg’s value of service to the community transformed my life.” Lori Higgins ’94, ’12 MAL President, MetroNorth Chamber of Commerce “I am eager to give back to the school that has given me so many opportunities, such as political internships with [former U.S. Rep.] Martin Sabo ’59 and MN Sen. Bill Luther, which began my career.” MAKES LASTING IMPACT With its Give to the Max Day gifts, the Biology Department funded new research opportunities for two students: Oksana Burt ’17 and Davy DeKrey ’17 [pictured]. 24 Augsburg Now Business development, Gravie “A continuing passion of mine is to grow our networking efforts, both for employers and individuals as they connect with Auggie alumni.” Online giving day supports students, faculty, programs Auggies last fall made Augsburg College No. 1 in the annual Give to the Max Day challenge. This year, Give to the Max Day is November 17, and the College is calling on alumni to push Augsburg into the top spot for the fourth year in a row. In 2015, in just 24 hours, more than 1,000 Auggies—many of whom were first-time donors—generously stepped up to give more than $240,000 to Augsburg. As a result, Augsburg ranked first among all participating Minnesota colleges and universities, and earned a $10,000 bonus. Alumni support on Give to the Max Day has a lasting impact and supports new opportunities for students. Funds raised last year supported the expansion of on-campus research; the purchase of a 3-D printer for the mathematics and statistics department; production costs for Howling Bird Press, the student-run book publishing project in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program; and trips by athletic teams for competition, education, and community service. This November, alumni also can give to scholarships that honor the legacy of music, research, and civil service at Augsburg. Gifts are being sought to honor the work of Leland Sateren ’35, U.S. Rep. Martin Sabo ’59, the StepUP® program, and the Office of Undergraduate Research and Graduate Opportunity, which connects students with new and existing research and scholarship on campus, across the United States, and around the world. Anyone can donate any amount on Give to the Max Day. Schedule your gifts online at givemn.org beginning November 1. Josh Krob ’08, ’15 MBA Janeece Oatman ’05 Development director, American Diabetes Association “I have a passion for committee-building, and I am interested in networking opportunities, reconnecting with campus, and fellow Auggies.” Brad Randall ’13 Mechanical maintenance planner, Xcel Energy “As a graduate of Augsburg’s Adult Undergraduate program, I am interested in mentoring Augsburg alumni in all fields.” [L to R]: Lewis Istok ’18 and Abigale Enrici ’18 create a two-material print using a 3-D printer purchased with Give to the Max Day funds. Jordan Brandt ’17 throws a pitch on the baseball team’s 2016 spring break trip to Arizona. The team raised more than $17,000 on Give to the Max Day 2015. Back row [L to R]: Josh Krob ’08, ’15 MBA; Brad Randall ’13; Mary Prevost ’12 MBA; Cyrus Batheja ’08, ’10 MBA; Jay Howard ’03, Nick Rathmann ’03; Hanna Dietrich ’05; Rick Bonlender ’78; Patricia Jesperson ’95; Melissa (Daudt) Hoepner ’92; Howie Smith ’80, ’19 MAL; Marie (Eddy) Odenbrett ’01; Greg Schnagl ’91. Front row [L to R]: Adrienne (Kuchler) Eldridge ’02; Meg (Schmidt) Sawyer ’00; Adriana Matzke ’13; Janeece Oatman ’05; Chau “Tina” Nguyen ’08; Jill Watson ’10 MBA. Not pictured: Derek Francis ’08; Lori Higgins ’94, ’12 MAL; Nick Swanson ’09 Q&A with tour guide and Professor of English Kathy Swanson Q: A: How many times have you traveled to Thailand? What keeps bringing you back? My husband and I lived in Thailand as Peace Corps volunteers for two years and have returned eight times since. We return because we feel Thailand is our “second home.” We love Thailand’s beauty—from the huge city of Bangkok to the mountains of northern Thailand in Chiang Mai to the small beach town where we lived. We also have many dear friends, some former students and colleagues, with whom we love to reconnect. Q: A: Can you share with us a memory from a trip you led with Augsburg students? We have shared our love of Thailand with Augsburg students during five trips and have so many good memories. Former Auggies still share their memories and pictures of the trips with us. Some of these students became English language learner teachers because of their experience teaching English in our former school. I remember one student, for example, who was hesitant about going so far away from home and to such an unfamiliar place. She had been my student in several classes and seemed to trust me when I encouraged her, so she took the big step. We are still in contact after many years and she has written about her trip to Thailand as being “lifechanging.” She stepped out of her comfort zone and experienced things she could have never imagined, gaining confidence and self-awareness. Q: A: Who should take this trip? Anyone who values expanding a worldview, learning about a new culture, and experiencing beauty. Summer 2016 25 ALUMNI CLASS NOTES AUGGIES CONNECT Martin Sabo ’59 leaves a lasting legacy. See page 23. 1960 Rev. Dennis Glad ’60 and Barbara Glad of St. Francis, Minnesota, have led nearly 1,000 volunteers on mission trips to 14 Caribbean islands, Costa Rica, and Belize over the past 25 years. Working on a volunteer construction team, the Glads and their crew have built schools, clinics, churches, orphanages, and more. In April, the couple received WCCO Radio’s Good Neighbor Award, and they are now in the station’s Good Neighbor Hall of Fame. In 1999, Rev. Glad retired after serving in the United Methodist Church for more than 40 years. empowering dreams Travelers EDGE® grant affords students pathway to success In March, Augsburg was awarded a $115,000 grant to continue offering Travelers EDGE (Empowering Dreams for Graduation and Employment), a program that provides underrepresented students with scholarships, paid internships, and mentorship in an effort to break down barriers and provide long-term opportunity. The highly successful program, now in its sixth year at Augsburg, is poised to have 15 Travelers EDGE scholars on campus this fall—its largest cohort yet. This prestigious program—open to only 12 colleges in the United States—has lifetime payoffs for students, including the chance to find challenging and rewarding careers in the insurance and financial services industry. To get there, each Travelers EDGE scholar works with a career coach and a professional mentor at Travelers and participates in financial literacy programming. Marlene Ibsen, vice president of community relations at Travelers, said Augsburg was already doing great work and made for a natural Travelers EDGE partner. “Everything and everyone we encountered at Augsburg, including President Pribbenow and throughout the organization, made us think, ‘This is a team of people who really get it and would be outstanding additions to the Travelers EDGE collaborative,’” said Ibsen. Students in the program receive financial 26 Augsburg Now scholarships and something that, in the long run, pays even greater dividends— networking contacts. “Once they begin immersing themselves in the professional development workshops and start to build relationships with Travelers employees, students quickly learn that the networking and professional coaching they are getting will be of significant use to them in the long term,” said Janet Morales, Augsburg’s director for the program. So far, Augsburg has had 23 Travelers EDGE scholars participate in the program and some have gone on to accept full-time positions with Travelers. Dustina Granlund ’14 is one of the Travelers EDGE alumni who works at Travelers. Granlund had two internships at the company, including one in Hartford, Connecticut. As an intern, she helped develop new and more efficient reporting systems that are still in use today. Granlund said her mentor helped her understand how school applies to the real world by encouraging her to accept and take on challenges, to network, and to push herself beyond her comfort zone. “My Travelers EDGE scholar work taught me business etiquette, interviewing techniques, and résumé writing,” she said. “It helped connect me with resources at Augsburg that I didn’t really know about.” Travelers EDGE connected Granlund with staff in Augsburg’s Clair and Gladys Strommen Center for Meaningful Work who helped Granlund become more comfortable seeking regular advice on graduate school. Morales sees that the value of the program goes far beyond job experience. “Travelers EDGE is confidence building,” she said. “Our scholars do not typically have any corporate experience prior to becoming a part of Travelers EDGE, nor do they have family members with that experience, so starting their professional journey within insurance and financial services can be intimidating. However, Travelers EDGE gives the scholars opportunities to learn and build their skills within a safe space. The end result is that they can imagine themselves with a career in insurance and financial services, which they couldn’t before.” 1964 Roger Johnson ’64 was presented with the Donald Clark Memorial Award at Minnesota Hockey’s annual banquet in April. The award is given to an individual who has been dedicated to the grassroots growth and development of youth hockey in Minnesota. Johnson was the head coach for boys’ hockey in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, from 1965 until 1972 and then was varsity assistant and junior varsity head coach for the next 27 years until 1999. He is a substitute teacher and a volunteer general manager for the boys’ hockey team. 1969 Royce Helmbrecht ’69 graduated with a degree in education. Today, 47 years later, he works as a substitute teacher with students who struggle to get through school. He also teaches jail inmates for the GED program. fundraisers. Her leisure activities include gardening, walking, biking, and reading. Michael Good ’71 celebrates at groundbreaking ceremony. See page 2. jazzy food songs. Sullivan attended Augsburg as a flute student, studied broadcasting at Brown Institute, and has worked in radio and as a voice-over artist. After appearing at venues that draw swing dancers, she teamed up with Laurie to create the duo Retro Swing Sister. Three years ago at Valley of Peace Lutheran Church in Golden Valley, Minnesota, three parishioners took on a Lenten art project to create a mosaic for their church entry. Led by Barb (Durkee) Mikelson ’71, the committee also included Emilie Moravec ’07 and Jon Daniels ’88. The design, primarily Mikelson’s work, echoed the stained glass window design in the church’s sanctuary created by the late August Molder, an Augsburg professor. Mikelson served the past 12 years as director of her church’s early childhood education center, All God’s Children Learning Center, and retired in January. The school’s leadership is now in the able hands of another Auggie, Courtney GadboisBrumbaugh ’95. From the Auggie Connections blog. Read more at augsburg.edu/alumni/blog. He says the Lord intervened in his life and directed him to Augsburg, and he feels blessed to have followed the Lord’s direction. 1971 Mary (Soulen) Johnson ’71 is the new branch assistant at Minnesota’s Aitkin Public Library. She especially enjoys working with children at the library and at the Aitkin Children’s Center. As a volunteer at Wild and Free in Garrison, Minnesota, she helps with feeding animals and assists with Merilee Klemp ’75 uses the city of Minneapolis as her classroom. See page 16. 1982 Maryann Sullivan ’82 and Rhonda Laurie have been entertaining listening audiences and swing dancers for the past three years. In February, the two performed “Swingin’ a la Carte” as part of the Jazz@ St. Barney’s concert series at St. Barnabas Lutheran Church in Plymouth, Minnesota, reflecting the singers’ love of cooking through Scott Whirley ’82 and Henry Gerten ’98 were inducted into the National Wrestling Coaches Association Division III Hall of Fame in a ceremony in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, prior to this year’s NCAA Division III Wrestling National Championships. Whirley and Gerten are the ninth and 10th Auggies to be inducted into the NWCA Division III Hall of Fame. Dr. Paul Mueller ’84 breaks ground on Augsburg’s new, signature academic building. See page 2. AUGGIE SNAPSHOTS 1967 In March, the Rev. Terry J. Frovik ’67 and his wife, Pauline, were invited by Archbishop Nemuel Babba to participate in the installation service for the Rev. Peter Bartimawus, who was elected Bishop of the Gongola Diocese of the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria (LCCN). The service took place in Bartimawus’ home village of Guyuk. 1992 Rosanne Newville Bump ’92 plans events, including the St. Paul Winter Carnival as president and CEO of the Saint Paul Festival & Heritage Foundation. She received her MBA in 2010 from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. She has stayed in touch with many of her Auggie classmates over the years, and is pleased that both the St. Paul Winter Carnival and the Cinco de Mayo organizations benefit from the help of Augsburg interns as they plan events. She lives with her husband of 28 years, Jeff Bump ’85, and their three daughters (Madelyn, Ella, and Julia) in River Falls where she served for nine years as CEO of the River Falls Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Bureau. Summer 2016 27 2000 ALUMNI CLASS NOTES Brian Ammann ’85 reflects on one of the standout athletes he coached. See page 8. 1988 Building hope In March, Bob Strommen ’74 volunteered for a Habitat for Humanity project in Nicaragua. He joined cousins Tim ’70 and Dawn (Hofstad) ’70 Strommen, and Judy (Knudson) Strommen ’77, and was overwhelmed by the magnitude of poverty in the small village where they worked. The trip was Tim’s third visit to the same site. Bob writes, “Prior to our venturing out, we had an orientation led by our Nicaraguan Habitat leader, Aleandra, who reported that there was a need for more than 600,000 homes in Nicaragua—either new builds or fixing up existing homes in desperate need of repair. And we were going to build one home. At the time I thought, ‘What difference will this make? How do you tackle such an overwhelming need?’” Upon meeting the eventual homeowner, her daughter, and grandchildren, Bob soon learned that their work in that one week would make a lifechanging impact for the family. He’d considered the impact they would make on the family of the house, but did not comprehend the impact that the people and volunteering would have on him, saying: “My goal is not to be better than anyone else, but to be better than I used to be.” Jeff Judge ’88 successfully defended his doctoral dissertation at Minnesota State University. His thesis was “Spirituality in Higher Education: A Narrative Analysis of its Use by Leaders for Decision-Making.” Judge graduated from Augsburg with bachelor’s degrees in music education and Spanish, and received a master’s in Spanish from Middlebury (Vermont) College. He lives in Minnetonka, Minnesota, with his wife, Jeannie, and their three teenagers: Nico, Danny, and Clare. He is the dean of the humanities division at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota. 1989 Troy Bakker ’89 received a doctorate of science degree from Dakota State University in Madison, South Dakota. Stephen Hindle ’89 has been appointed practice lead at the partner level for Aon Hewitt’s assessment and leadership practice for Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. He also is the face of Aon Hewitt in these markets. His responsibilities include commercial management of all assessment and leadership business across 14 countries as well as all operations, solution development, and mergers and acquisitions activity in these markets. He is based in Singapore with his wife of more than 21 years, Adean, and their two daughters, Claudia and Madeleine. 1996 As twin sisters, Kaja Foat ’96 and Zoe Foat ’96 have shared a lot in life—a last name, a love of color and nature, and a vision for a more ethical world. In 2002, the sisters followed their shared vision to create FOAT. Their goal was to offer a refreshing, eco-conscious alternative in women’s fashion, starting with yoga apparel. Since then, they’ve expanded their designs to additional lines of one-of-a-kind garments and wedding gowns, and their workspace to studios in Minneapolis and Charleston, South Carolina. Devean George ’99 builds neighborhood pride alongside community housing in north Minneapolis. See page 8. 2000 Augsburg theater alumni Stephanie Lein Walseth ’00, Quinci Bachman ’15, and Jorge Rodriguez ’15, and Professor Emerita Martha Johnson participated in the Full Circle Theater Company’s return engagement of “Theater: A Sacred Passage.” Lein Walseth and Johnson are two writers of this original performance piece, devised by the core artists of Full Circle from their personal journeys into theater. Their stories embody the challenges and transformational experiences they have had in becoming theater artists and how their lives and work reflect the changes in the theater community during the past two decades. The piece incorporates acting, storytelling, choreography, and music. Bachman was production coordinator, stage manager, and sound designer. Rodriguez served as set and technical director and lighting designer. Johnson was dramaturge and assistant director. Visit augsburg.edu/alumni/blog to read more. 1992 Heather Johnston ’92 (second from left) was invited to speak at the annual conference of the Municipal Finance Directors of Israel in Eilat, Israel. Johnston is president of the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada. Johnston serves as the city manager for Burnsville, Minnesota. 28 Augsburg Now 1999 [L to R]: J. Roxanne Prichard, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience, and Jeanne “Birdie” (Ramacher) Cunningham ’99, associate director of health and wellness, have created and launched the Center for College Sleep at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. 2005 Jon Dahlin ’05 participated in track and field at Augsburg, and he set a national record in the hammer throw that still stands. He went on to compete nationally and internationally in Highland games. He competed in states including California, Florida, and Texas, and he also competed in Iceland. He traveled to Gyor, Hungary, as part of Team USA for the 2015 World Highland Games Championship where he squared off against 15 athletes from around the world. He was pleased to record one of his best performances ever in caber (tossing a 175-pound wooden beam), and finished in seventh place. Dahlin lives in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and works as a software developer at Barr Engineering, focusing primarily on creating web applications. He also is a sports photographer who covers NFL games. Jenni Fisher ’05 and Jade Boettcher ’15 MAE were united in marriage on January 20 in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Boettcher received his Master of Arts in Education from Augsburg and is a special education teacher at John Marshall High School in Rochester, Minnesota. Fisher received her bachelor’s from Augsburg and is a clinic assistant at Planned Parenthood in Rochester. Brandon Green ’05 is a new managing partner at MG Resources. Before joining the company, Green spent nearly 18 years with Griffiths Corporation. 2007 James Lekatz ’07 wrote the music for “The Snow Queen,” which was presented at Stages Theatre in Hopkins, Minnesota, in March. This summer, Lekatz worked with a group of students with autism on a production of “The BFG” as part of a program called CAST, Creative Accepting Sensoryfriendly Theatre. He will be assistant director on a production called “Twinkle Twinkle,” as part of Stages Theatre Company’s theater for the very young, and he will compose Stages’ next dance/ ballet piece, “The Velveteen Rabbit,” to be performed next spring. 2008 Andrew Webb ’08 volunteers his time to assist local and global communities as they recover from natural disasters and tragedies. He encourages others through a letter-writing campaign and invites groups, such as area high schools, to join him in his dedication to this mission. Sara (Quigley) Brown ’00 received her chaplain badge for the Alaska Police and Fire Chaplains Ministry, a statewide nonprofit that serves police and fire personnel. The program follows a strict training that mirrors the training of police officers. Brown will return to the Twin Cities in August to attend a clinical pastoral education residency through which she will receive certification to become a hospital chaplain. 2000 Ross Murray ’00, ’09 MBA, has been issued a call from the Metropolitan New York Synod in New York City to be consecrated as a diaconal minister and focus on LGBT advocacy at GLAAD. He and Richard Garnett ’07, ’09 MBA were married in April. 2001 Sarah (Grans) Peterka ’01 married Erik Peterka on December 12. Several Auggies were at the celebration including: Carrie Lind ’01, Skylar Hanson ’01, Laura Hahn ’02, Erica ’01 and Jason ’01 Bryan-Wegner, Ben Hoogland ’00, Larye ’98 and Melissa (Moyle) Pohlman ’00, Lenise Butler ’01, and Birgitte Simpson ’13. 2010 Jennifer (Mathwig) Ortloff ’10 became joint owner of the public accounting firm of Peterson Juergensen Hemerick & Co. in Hutchinson, Minnesota, after five years with the firm. Prior to becoming an owner and before earning an accounting degree at Augsburg, she worked on the administrative side of the company. Ortloff is a native of Brownton, Minnesota, and worked for the city of Brownton while completing her degree. 2005 When Claire Pettry ’05 moved to Ohio in the fall of 2015, her Augsburg College connection played a key role in helping her form friendships in her new locale. She met Chris Ascher ’81 and wife, Susan, and the three became fast friends who completed a 5K run on Thanksgiving. 2003 Megan and Jay Howard ’03 welcomed their son, Elias John, on April 28. Lisa Svac Hawks ’85 sees Augsburg College as a “pillar of faith,” one of the reasons she chose the College and why she continues to be involved. She served six years on the Alumni Board and is a founding member of Augsburg Women Engaged. Hawks is vice president, external communications, for United Healthcare Services. She is focused on helping simplify the complicated health care landscape for the consumers so that they can live healthier lives. In her spare time, Hawks enjoys gardening, cooking, and playing golf and other sports. She also enjoys coaching her 10-year-old son Andrew’s baseball team, which she has done for the past three years. From the Auggie Connections blog. Visit augsburg.edu/alumni/blog to read more. ALUMNI CLASS NOTES 2011 Patrick Siegel ’11 is the proud owner of Robusto & Briar cigar store and lounge in Lakewood, Ohio. The establishment is made for all who appreciate a fine cigar and conversation-worthy décor. He got hooked on the cigar business when, as a student at Augsburg, he was hired by the Golden Leaf shop, where he bought his cigars. He and wife, Nicole, who grew up in Rocky River, Ohio, decided to settle in Lakewood. Robusto & Briar specializes in hand-rolled products that are kept in a 15-by30 foot humidor. The shop offers about 400 types of cigars and about 50 kinds of tobacco. 2012 The Minnesota Women’s Press published an article on Interfaith Youth Connection, a program for high school and college-age youth that promotes interfaith understanding and service. The article includes comments from Fardosa Hassan ’12, Muslim student program associate at Augsburg College and program coordinator of Interfaith Youth Connection. By holding regular conversations and yearly service events, the group seeks to give youth “a way to be proud of who they are in whatever faith background they [believe], while reducing prejudice and misconception,” Hassan said. “In the midst of what is going on today, this is something we need.” Patrick Sayler ’12 is the new general manager of Co-op Natural Foods in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Before returning to Sioux Falls three years ago, he spent 16 years in the Minneapolis area managing cafes and retail shops. As the general manager of Co-op Natural Foods, he will oversee an established business that employs approximately 20 people and does more than $2 million a year. He is completing work on a degree in business management/marketing and project management at the University of Sioux Falls. 2014 Allison Zank ’14 has been named a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow for 2016-17. Zank will receive a $34,000 annual stipend and $12,000 costof-education allowance to assist her in achieving a research-based graduate degree. An NSF GRFP indicates to graduate schools that a student is a top undergraduate scientist in the nation. Zank conducted summer research on biofilms with Augsburg Associate Professor Jennifer Bankers-Fulbright as well as at the University of Minnesota’s Dental School. Zank also has spent time conducting research in industry. At Augsburg, she was named an URGO Scholar, McNair Scholar, AugSTEM Scholar, and Goldwater Scholar. She plans to pursue a master’s degree in clinical microbiology at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse this fall. GRADUATE 2015 Katie Clark ’10 MAN, ’14 DNP presented at a breakout session for Fairview Health Services’ Somali Cultural Health Day in April. Her topic was “Critical decision making and chronic illness.” Clark connected her previous bedside nursing experience with her current experience working with Somali community members at the Health Commons in the CedarRiverside neighborhood. Her focus was to teach health care providers to deliver culturally congruent care to marginalized populations. She concentrated her efforts on reducing the role of stereotypes and assumptions in the patient-provider relationship. Jordan Holm ’15 competed in the 2016 Olympic trials in the 85-kilogram weight class for Greco-Roman wrestling at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa, on April 6. Holm was one of three athletes automatically earning the No. 1 ranking. He graduated from Augsburg with a business degree in marketing. Duina Hernandez ’16 lets dirt fly at an Augsburg groundbreaking ceremony. See page 2. Evan Berg ’10 MBA was hired as assistant vice president and loan officer at the Janesville State Bank in Janesville, Minnesota. He has a bachelor’s degree in economics/ business administration from Winona State University and an MBA from Augsburg, as well as eight years of experience in credit analysis and lending with Farm Credit and several banks. AUGGIE CONNECTIONS: a new, personalized newsletter Whether it be in the classroom, cheering on your favorite Auggie team, or supporting the on-campus groups that mean the most to you, Augsburg College emphasizes a direct, personal experience for its students and alumni. In today’s world where information is coming from all angles and at all times, personalized, meaningful information is more important than ever. The Alumni Association recognizes this and is taking a step to provide more pertinent and timely information about what’s happening at Augsburg. Beginning this summer, Augsburg is offering a personalized e-newsletter that will be delivered on a schedule of your choosing, in a format you want. No more monthly Now@Augsburg emails. The Auggie Connections newsletter is now in your hands. Choose the topics you are most interested in: Auggie athletics? Theater and music? Science? Want to hear it all? With your new, improved Auggie Connections newsletter, you won’t miss a thing. The first personalized Auggie Connections newsletter arrived in your email inbox in late June. If you haven’t yet set your preferences, check your email for the message titled “Augsburg College - delivered YOUR way,” to get started. To update your contact information, email alumniupdate@ augsburg.edu. 2009 Benjamin Austin ’09 and Michelle (Anderson) Austin ’11 were married December 19 in St. Paul. They met at Augsburg during her sophomore year and his senior year. Schuyler (Dunhaupt) Tilson ’10 graduated from Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul in January with a focus in Indian law. She recently passed the Minnesota bar and became a staff attorney for the Ho-Chunk Nation Trial Court. She holds undergraduate degrees from Augsburg in history and American Indian studies. 2012 Muneer Al-Hameed ’12 won the Dancing with the Twin Cities Celebrities Charity Ball in February. Augsburg alumna Carla Beaurline ’91 was a judge this year and a 2015 Dancing with the Twin Cities celebrity dancer. FRESH LOOK, INCREASED INTERACTION Nic Thomley ’06 MBA was named to the 2016 Class of Henry Crown Fellows and the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute. This growing network unites a worldwide community of entrepreneurial leaders from business, government, and the nonprofit sector who share a commitment to enlightened leadership and to using their creativity, energy, and resources to tackle the foremost societal challenges of our time. Thomley is an accomplished entrepreneur in the human services industry and the founder of companies that provide an array of services to persons with disabilities and senior citizens. Thomley is the founder and 30 Augsburg Now CEO of Morning Star Financial Services and the founder and chairman of Summit Fiscal Agency and Pinnacle Services, Minneapolis. Thomley was named a 2015 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist and, in 2006, was named to Inc. Magazine’s “30 Under 30, America’s Coolest Young Entrepreneurs” list and to the Minneapolis/ St. Paul Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” list. In 2010, Thomley was presented with Augsburg’s First Decade Award, which honors graduates of the past 10 years who have made significant progress in their professional achievements and contributions to the community. Enjoy several new features on the Augsburg Now magazine’s companion website. Thanks to a site upgrade, it’s possible to: • Read articles on mobile devices with ease • Share favorite stories and photos on social media • View exclusive slideshows and videos • Manage your magazine subscription and delivery method • “Go green” by opting for digital content instead of print • Submit class notes and share good news SUBMIT A CLASS NOTE Tell us about the news in your life—your new job, move, marriage, and births. Visit augsburg.edu/alumni/connect to submit your announcements. Mike Polis ’10 has started Backboard Media, based in Northeast Minneapolis. Check it out at backboardgroup.com. 2010 augsburg.edu/now Entrepreneurial leader recognized 2010 2013 Kuoth Wiel ’13 cofounded the NyaEden Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to provide basic survival necessities to disadvantaged women and children throughout Africa. She is an actress, model, and humanitarian whose debut film role was in “The Good Lie,” a drama starring Reese Witherspoon that tells the story of a group of Sudanese refugees who are offered shelter in the United States. Wiel was born to a Sudanese mother and father in an Ethiopian refugee camp following her parents’ escape from war-torn Sudan. As a young adult, Wiel moved to Minneapolis to attend Augsburg and study social psychology. Visit nyaedenfoundation.org to learn more about the organization’s work to foster girls’ and women’s safety, empowerment, independence, dignity, self-esteem, and self-respect. Fall 2015 37 Summer 2016 31 In memoriam Chester R. Heikkinen ’40, Robbinsdale, Minnesota, age 99, on November 24. Helen (Quanbeck) Nichols ’44, Monticello, Minnesota, age 94, on April 27. Frederick “Fred” M. King ’71, Onalaska, Wisconsin, age 73, on February 5. Helen E. (Berg) Peterson ’46, Minneapolis, age 92, on November 23. Martin O. Sabo ’59, Minneapolis, age 78, on March 13. Kenneth J. Dahlberg ’80, Colorado Springs, Colorado, age 62, on December 21. Doris M. Rear-Hustad ’46, Blanchardville, Wisconsin, age 90, on March 18. Gary A. Hoonsbeen ’60, Crystal, Minnesota, age 77, on March 7. Brenda L. Fredrick ’82, Strawberry Point, Iowa, age 57, on April 23. Loren M. Thorson ’46, Green Valley, Arizona, age 96, on March 8. Robert N. Martin ’61, Dracut, Massachusetts, age 81, on March 22. Janice C. Olson ’84, Lakewood, Washington, age 79, on January 19. Robert “Bob” E. Lee ’47, Hallettsville, Texas, age 92, on March 3. Norbert W. W. Mokros ’61, Duluth, Minnesota, age 77, on January 25. Melissa A. Lawrence ’88, Minneapolis, age 59, on March 1. Aagoth E. (Hanson) Hansen ’48, Willmar, Minnesota, age 89, on January 4. Sherman P. Coltvet ’62, Rochester, Minnesota, age 75, on January 30. Marilyn J. (Cederstrom) Teubert ’88, Waconia, Minnesota, age 84, on November 23. Paul D. Hilton ’51, Cumberland, Wisconsin, age 86, on January 28. Eugene M. Nelson ’51, Colorado Springs, Colorado, age 86, on January 11. Lillian K. (Ysteboe) Ose ’51, Benson, Minnesota, age 87, on January 5. Leonard E. Dalberg ’52, Solvang, California, age 90, on April 21. Randall “Randy” Fischer ’52, Lynchburg, Virginia, age 85, on February 5. Robert C. Ingman ’54, Minneapolis, age 85, on September 3. Charles “Bob” R. Hudgins ’62, Burnsville, Minnesota, age 75, on December 12. Charles W. King, Jr. ’62, Sun City West, Arizona, age 76, on December 17. Philip O. Sidney ’63, St. Paul, age 75, on April 10. Mary M. Lindgren ’64, Minneapolis, age 74, on March 15. David A. Mallak ’65, Austin, Texas, age 72, on February 10. Steven H. Steinke ’65, Pequot Lakes, Minnesota, age 68, on January 26. Robert R. Benson ’67, Preston, Minnesota, age 70, on December 23. Karl B. Lunder ’70, Red Wing, Minnesota, age 69, on March 12. SAVE THE DATES: SEPTEMBER 22-24 New events and schedule! William “Bill” J. Schutt ’75, Watertown, South Dakota, age 74, on February 2. Richard “Dick” L. Berg ’57, Minneapolis, age 85, on February 3. Vera C. (Alberg) Hafstad ’50, Owatonna, Minnesota, age 86, on March 11. Augsburg Now Dayne W. Sather ’55, Maple Grove, Minnesota, age 86, on January 25. Joyce I. (Engstrom) Spector ’70, Minneapolis, age 68, on April 1. Mary (Mortensen) Nelson ’45, Minneapolis, age 92, on January 22. Arnold H. Skaar ’48, Edina, Minnesota, age 91, on February 2. 32 Dale W. Quanbeck ’54, Grand Forks, North Dakota, age 84, on January 18. Carol R. (Pasquarella) Liedtke ’89, Shorewood, Illinois, age 73, on December 5. Diane P. Ondrey ’94, Minneapolis, age 80, on February 19. Jean W. (Thompson) Rondeau ’94, Minneapolis, age 77, on April 12. Sandra K. Berg ’98, Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, age 69, on January 26. Conrad D. Meyer ’98, Merida, Mexico, age 66, on April 3. . S E I G G U A E B . D U O PR E B . D E L BE CAL Barbara (Steinle) Huckle ’00, Burnsville, Minnesota, age 55, on April 16. Jason C. Magnon ’13, Georgetown, Texas, age 25, on January 15. Go to augsburg.edu/homecoming to register and see the new events this year. The “In memoriam” listings in this publication include notifications received before May 10. 2211 Riverside Avenue Minneapolis, MN 55454 Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Twin Cities, MN Permit No. 2031 The Augsburg Choir joins Barry Manilow on stage The exceptional talent and hard work of the Augsburg Choir was rewarded with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sing backup during Grammy-award winner Barry Manilow’s farewell tour. Members of the choir sang three of his hits in an encore at the Xcel Energy Center: “I Write the Songs,” “Miracle,” and “Copacabana (At the Copa).”
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Title: Augsburg Now Spring 2016: High-Impact Learning
Collection: Alumni Magazine Collection
Search Result: Navigating uncharted waters Playing it forward An exploration of faith HIGH-IMPACT LEARNING SPRING 2016 | VOL. 78, NO. 2 INSIDE AUGSBURG NOW Vice President of Marketing and Communication Rebecca John ’13 MBA rjohn@augsburg.edu Director of News and Media Services Stephanie Weiss weis...
Show more Navigating uncharted waters Playing it forward An exploration of faith HIGH-IMPACT LEARNING SPRING 2016 | VOL. 78, NO. 2 INSIDE AUGSBURG NOW Vice President of Marketing and Communication Rebecca John ’13 MBA rjohn@augsburg.edu Director of News and Media Services Stephanie Weiss weisss@augsburg.edu NOTES FROM PRESIDENT PRIBBENOW On serendipity in education I vividly recall the moment in 1977 when a conversation with a religion professor at Luther College, my alma mater, offered me a way of thinking about my vocational journey that has changed my life. When I admitted my doubts about following my dad’s path to the ministry, the professor shared his own journey to divinity school and the study of theology, the sort of study I had begun to explore in his class. The rest is history, as they say. I went on to study ethics and theology in divinity school and to pursue my own calling for leadership in higher education. A moment of serendipity that changed my life—unexpected, unplanned, and so very meaningful—made possible by a teaching and learning community and a teacher that created the opportunity for such moments. Such serendipity in education is a hallmark of the educational experience at Augsburg. I’m sure you have your own stories of the faculty or staff member, maybe the fellow student, or perhaps the community member who offered you the insight, the experience, the counsel, or the challenge that shaped your path. This issue of Augsburg Now reminds us of the people and experiences that continue to offer Augsburg students the promise of serendipity in their education. From award-winning teachers and researchers like Phil Adamo of the History Department and Henry Yoon of the Psychology Department to inspiring guest speakers like LeVar Burton (yes, the “Star Trek” and “Reading Rainbow” star) and Dr. Donald Warne (an American Indian medical doctor challenging us to pay attention to public health issues on reservations). From nationally recognized efforts like our StepUP® program for students recovering from addiction to the Nobel Peace Prize Forum that inspires all of us to be peacemakers in our communities. Serendipity in education happens for all of us because of these people and programs, and because of this College’s deep commitment to such experiences. One particular moment from last fall stands out for me. Our groundbreaking River Semester gave 12 students the educational experience of a lifetime as they spent the entire semester on the Mississippi River (see page 16). When I went to St. Louis to meet with the River Semester students and faculty halfway through the semester, I heard tale after tale of serendipitous experiences along the river. But then one student took me aside and said that for Associate Professor Joe Underhill, who organized the class, this was the trip he had always dreamed about, given his passion for the river. And, the student continued, Joe could have done the trip with his family or friends—surely an easier way to spend nearly four months on the river? Instead, the student said, he chose to do it with us, his students. He chose to do it with his students. That, my friends, is the “stuff” of serendipity in education. Teachers who choose to create the space for serendipity to happen—in the classroom, in the cafeteria, on the playing fields or performance stage, even on the Mighty Mississippi. May it always be so. Faithfully yours, Director of Marketing Communication Stephen Jendraszak jendra@augsburg.edu Communication Copywriter and Editorial Coordinator Laura Swanson ’15 MBA swansonl@augsburg.edu Creative Associate Denielle Johnson ’11 johnsod@augsburg.edu Marketing Copywriter Christina Haller haller@augsburg.edu Production Manager Mark Chamberlain chamberm@augsburg.edu Photographer Stephen Geffre geffre@augsburg.edu Advancement Communication Specialist Jen Lowman Day dayj@augsburg.edu Contributor Kate H. Elliott augsburg.edu Augsburg Now is published by Augsburg College 2211 Riverside Ave. Minneapolis, MN 55454 Opinions expressed in Augsburg Now do not necessarily reflect official College policy. ISSN 1058-1545 PAUL C. PRIBBENOW, PRESIDENT Send address corrections to: alumniupdate@augsburg.edu. Email: now@augsburg.edu AUGSBURG NOW Spring 2016 02 Around the quad 08 Playing it forward 14 An exploration of faith 16 Navigating uncharted waters 24 Auggies connect 27 Class notes 32 In memoriam On the cover: Auggies paddle past the Gateway Arch in St. Louis as part of a semester-long journey following the Mississippi River from St. Paul to New Orleans. See page 16. Photo by Whitney Curtis. Correction: In the Fall 2015 issue of Augsburg Now, the story “From Riverside Ave. to Riverside, CA” omitted that Matthew Dunn ’08 was among several recent Augsburg College graduates to pursue an advanced degree at the University of California-Riverside. All photos by Stephen Geffre unless otherwise indicated. Augsburg College students walk through Lindell Library—a building that will connect to the future Norman and Evangeline Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion. Learn more about the Hagfors Center on page 3. AROUND THE QUAD IGNITING PASSION, FINDING HARMONY Convocation Series sparks conversation 2 Augsburg Now The Augsburg College Convocation Series each year offers the community a chance to hear from leaders and visionaries who spark important discussion and educate about the challenges and opportunities of today’s generation. The first event in 2016 was the Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation in January, featuring Chuck D, leader and co-founder of the legendary rap group Public Enemy, and his presentation, “Race, Rap, and Reality: Supporting Our Youth in the Spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as They Face the Unique Challenges of Today.” The Batalden Seminar in Applied Ethics in February welcomed Dr. Donald Warne—professor and chair of the Department of Public Health in the College of Health Professions at North Dakota State University, and senior policy advisor to the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board—whose presentation was “Traditional Lakota Approaches to Health Disparities: Connecting People and the Environment.” The Koryne Horbal Lecture in March featured Nekima Levy-Pounds, attorney, law professor, and president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP. Courtesy Photos Hip-hop pioneer and best-selling author Chuck D addresses hundreds of attendees at the 2016 Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation. AROUND THE QUAD Exterior rendering of the Hagfors Center E L A S N O TICKETS CONSTRUCTION STARTS In May, Augsburg College will begin the construction of its newest and largest academic building, the Norman and Evangeline Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion. The interdisciplinary Hagfors Center embodies Augsburg’s commitment to student learning, urban placemaking, and thoughtful stewardship. The building design features classrooms and labs that are configurable to support experiential learning as well as other teaching and learning formats. These spaces will be constructed on a modular framework that allows for flexibility to meet the College’s long-term needs. The building will anchor the west side of campus and welcome the College’s neighborhood with an “open arms” design facing the adjacent residential community and embracing the on-campus community gardens. The Hagfors Center also will be the most environmentally friendly building on campus, seeking a LEED Silver certification for its Mock-up offices sustainable design. As part of the building planning process, Augsburg constructed life-size models of two proposed configurations for faculty and staff offices. The office concepts were on display in Lindell Library so community members could stop by to check out the look and feel of the spaces. Students (and even some faculty members) made themselves at home in the offices by taking time to study, check email, and read, all the while bringing new meaning to the phrase, “open-door policy.” Children’s rights advocate to keynote peace-building event Augsburg College will host the 28th annual Nobel Peace Prize Forum June 6–8, inviting global leaders and the general public to explore pressing peacemaking issues faced by people across the globe. This year’s forum will honor and feature a keynote address by Kailash Satyarthi, joint winner of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. For decades, Satyarthi has been tireless in his advocacy for child rights, education, and child labor reform in India. While in Minneapolis, Satyarthi will join other peace-building experts to explore human rights and democracy, disarmament, sustainability, and inclusivity. Courtesy Photo THIS SPRING College moves forward on new academic building Get tickets and learn more at nobelpeaceprizeforum.org. The first classes will be held in the Hagfors Center in January 2018. Go to augsburg.edu/hagforscenter to keep track of project developments. Spring 2016 3 Historyapolis project wins ALICE SMITH PRIZE Twin Cities middle schoolers participate in a Somali debate initiative led by the Minnesota Urban Debate League. [Top to bottom]: Kirsten Delegard, who serves as a scholar-in-residence in the Augsburg College History Department, and Michael Lansing, associate professor of history, were presented the Alice Smith Prize for best public history project completed in the previous calendar year by the Midwestern History Association. The Historyapolis Project was created when Delegard realized that the citizens of her hometown of Minneapolis craved complex stories about the city’s past that would help them understand how it became the wonderful and intricate place that it is today. Augsburg students are deeply involved with the project, which aims to make the city’s history accessible and helps instigate community dialogue around challenging aspects of local history. Visit historyapolis.com for more information. Signature urban debate program REACHES MILESTONE Augsburg College’s Minnesota Urban Debate League program provides services, support, and materials to more than 750 students engaged in competitive academic debate at 40 high schools and middle schools across the Twin Cities metro area. This year marked the first time that the state debate championship featured two teams from the Minnesota Urban Debate League: St. Paul’s Highland Park and Minneapolis’ Washburn high schools. Led by Executive Director Amy Cram Helwich and Faculty Adviser Robert Groven, an Augsburg communication studies professor, the program helps increase school engagement and connectedness, which boosts young people’s confidence in their academic abilities. The program’s impact is shown through a 100 percent on-time high school graduation rate and a 99 percent college acceptance rate for debaters. “No other out-of-school program accomplishes such significant gains,” according to Groven. 4 Augsburg Now Photo courtesy of Lisa Lynch Minnesota Urban Debate League participants dominate 2016 state championship The Historyapolis Project invites Augsburg College students and community members to conduct research to help interpret the history of Minneapolis. [L to R]: Citizen-researcher Rita Yeads and Anna Romskog ’15 view city planning photographs from the 1930s in the Minneapolis City Archives at City Hall. AROUND THE QUAD Professor Phillip Adamo peers out of his office in Memorial Hall. Phillip Adamo named 2015 Minnesota Augsburg College was named No. 6 on Best Value Schools’ 2015 list of 20 Best Value Colleges or Universities in Minnesota. eetable Rankings are based on graduation rate, net price, acceptance rate, #AuggieP and 20-year net return on investment. e rid Augsburg College’s Phillip Adamo, professor of history and director of the Honors Program, was named the 2015 Minnesota Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). Adamo was recognized for his accomplishment in a proclamation by Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges who declared November 19, 2015, “Dr. Phillip C. Adamo Day in the City of Minneapolis.” Adamo is the second Augsburg College faculty member to be honored by Carnegie/CASE. In 2004, Professor Emeritus of Sociology Garry Hesser earned the prestigious award. Tw PROFESSOR OF THE YEAR Augsburg deemed a ‘best value’ college Spring 2016 5 ON THE SPOT Henry Yoon examines addiction risk Augsburg College Associate Professor Henry Yoon oversees the biopsychology major and leads the Augsburg Biopsychology Lab. One area of his research involves studying disorders related to the inability to inhibit socially inappropriate or even illegal behaviors such as the use of illicit substances that can lead to addiction. Yoon uses neurophysiological techniques including EEG to capture and analyze the brain’s electrical activity to identify telltale signs of biological or genetic risk for substance dependence. Yoon works collaboratively with the StepUP® Program, Augsburg’s residential recovery community, and the University of Minnesota’s Department of Psychology. Ultimately, Yoon’s research may help refine the biological tools used in the diagnosis of substance addiction. Q: A: What prompted your interest in studying addiction? Substance use disorders are both common and costly—many of us have personal issues with substance use or know someone who does, including our family members. Plus, addiction is often connected to other major psychiatric disorders in systematic ways. It is important to understand the core factors underlying addiction for intervention and treatment purposes. Q: One of the brainwaves you focus on— the P3—has been studied in relation to childhood disruptive disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, adolescent substance dependence, and adult antisocial behaviors. What’s the link among these areas? A: Collectively, these disorders reflect a tendency toward behavioral disinhibition, which may be expressed in various ways over development through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Evidence shows that this tendency is highly heritable—in other words, influenced by genes. The P3 brain measure is significant because it may signify who is at risk for these disorders. For instance, my colleagues and I showed that P3 is itself highly heritable and can be used to predict who will develop these types of disorders over a 12-year span. So, we reason that the P3 can serve as a red flag. 6 Augsburg Now Q: Despite recognition of the biological and genetic nature of substance use disorders, social stigmas persist. Could improved scientific literacy play a role in reducing these stigmas? A: I think a cautionary tale from my field’s history can help address this question. In the 1940s-70s, the concept of the “schizophrenogenic mother” was popular in the psychiatric literature. This term implied that mothers who interacted with their children in a cold, rejecting, and aloof manner caused schizophrenia in those children. Another version of this, in relation to autism, was the “refrigerator mother,” which carried a similar implication. Later scientific research rejected these incorrect and harmful notions and instead showed that such disorders largely involve genetic/biological factors. The same trend can be observed with regard to addiction. For instance, it is now known that substance use disorders are influenced by genetic background to a degree comparable to other complex medical conditions such as diabetes or coronary heart disease. Of course environmental factors are also important, but overall this shows that combating addiction is not a matter of willpower or flawed character. Go to augsburg.edu/now to learn more about Yoon’s research. This colorful graph shows a representation of the P3 brainwave activity that Henry Yoon has been investigating in relation to behavioral disinhibition. Abnormalities in the P3 wave have been shown to correlate with addictive behaviors. AROUND THE QUAD StepUP Gala ® Research, study, and offer your two cents breaks fundraising record In March 2015, Melissa Motl, circulation coordinator in Augsburg’s Lindell Library, started posing questions to students on a whiteboard as a way to gain more information about how students use and view the library. She asked questions like, “What can you get at the library that you can’t get anywhere else?” and “What would you like to see the library do differently?” It garnered such great feedback that she decided to continue asking questions as a fun and interesting way to find out more about Auggies. Each year, Augsburg College’s StepUP Program supports dozens of students as they achieve academic success and sustain lives of recovery from substance use disorders. Augsburg is home to the largest collegiate recovery community in the United States, and its work receives generous support from numerous corporations, foundations, individuals, and families. The program received a noteworthy boost this year when its philanthropic gala raised $419,000 from ticket sales, sponsorships, and individual gifts—a sum that nearly doubled the amount raised the previous year. Former WCCO TV anchor Don Shelby was the master of ceremonies and the featured keynote speech was by Anne Thompson Heller ’08, a StepUP alumna who has founded [L to R]: Broadcaster Don Shelby joins and championed recovery U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Augsburg organizations at collegiate, College President Paul Pribbenow state, and national levels. at the StepUP Gala. Who ever came up with this question is EVIL!! You can’t make me choose! :( wars “We have some really creative and thoughtful students here at Augsburg, and I think that’s why we always get great responses. Some are thoughtful, and some are silly or witty,” said Motl. Who ever came up this question “Your lackwithof is EVIL!! You can’t make me choose! :( faith disturbs me!” -Darth Vader wa wars SPIRITSH Star Trek Voyager! make me choose! :( wars both Who ever came up with this question is EVIL!! You can’t forever! make me choose! :( rever! foELEVATES Who ever came up with this question Who ever came so upfar One of Motl’sYou favorite questions is EVIL!! can’t with this question has been,me “Star Wars or:(Star Trek?” make choose! is EVIL!! You can’t “Your lack of faith disturbs me!” -Darth Vader r a t s Sports Extravaganza rssets record,star Amanda Koltes ’17 MAE works with Sports Extravaganza participants. wars Star Trek Voyager! Who ever came up with this question "Yourlack lackofof “Your is EVIL!! You can’ “Your me lack faith " of faith disturbs me!” ars disturbs w make me choose! faith disturbs me!” -Darth Vader -Darth Vader -Darth Vader P H P both b s tarrs swtaarrs Star Trek both Voyager! wa s tarrs wa forever! Star s ta Trek wa Voyager! fore both H P “Your faith -Darth H wars H P forever! forever! Whoever came up At the 15th annual Sports Extravaganza, Augsburg College physical with this question education and exercise science students used knowledge gained in the is of EVIL!! You can’t “Your lack rs wa classroom to deliver smiles to a record 307 grade-school and middle-school makeme!” me choose! :( faith disturbs children with physical, cognitive, and learning disabilities. For the event, -Darth Vader Auggies created activity stations in the Augsburg athletics dome and assisted children as they played. The Star Tribune published several Sports Extravaganza photos and described participants’ enthusiasm as “Flying high without leaving the ground.” Visit augsburg.edu/now. V Spring 2016 7 PLAYING IT FORWARD AUGGIE COACHES CREATE CYCLE OF GIVING BACK BY CHRISTINA HALLER Division III athletics is the sweet spot for student-athletes—they compete on teams and nurture deep, meaningful relationships with their coaches and peers, and at the same time have the freedom and time to explore other activities and passions while having a strong focus on academics. These reasons, among others—the competition, camaraderie, discipline, and love of the game—are why more than 500 Augsburg students participate in varsity and intramural sports every year. The welcoming and supportive Augsburg College Athletics Department has had a profound impact on many student-athletes, which in return has sparked a desire in many former players to give back to youth as leaders, mentors, and friends. Here is a glimpse into the lasting influence of Auggie athletics on alumni through the decades. 8 Augsburg Now Whitney Restemayer ’10 is the first woman in the state of Minnesota to coach a team to a hockey state title, the 2015 Minnesota State High School Girls’ Hockey Tournament Class A Championship. I’ve always enjoyed working with kids, teaching the game, and mentoring players off the field. Being a student-athlete at Augsburg taught me many valuable lessons and allowed me to strengthen my leadership skills. Many people from my athletic upbringing have influenced the way I teach young men about soccer and life. I must admit, Auggie soccer coaches Greg Holker, Jonathan Schaefer, and Nate Hitch had a profound influence on me during college. The most gratifying thing about coaching is seeing my boys grow into young men and become contributing members of the community. I was a kid who was influenced in so many positive ways by several people in my athletic path. For me to have the opportunity to give back a fraction of my time is the most gratifying thing in the world. VAN HONG ’11 Enterprise risk analytics consultant at Deloitte & Touche LLP in Minneapolis; youth soccer coach at Park Valley United and co-founder of Spam F.C. College Scholarship Foundation in St. Louis Park, Minnesota SUE (MEIER) ZIEGLER ’80 Physical education and health and wellness teacher and head volleyball and track coach at Lincoln Lutheran Middle/ Senior High School in Lincoln, Nebraska Photos by Matt Ryerson I was involved with basketball and track as an Auggie. I would credit the whole Augsburg Health–Physical Education Department and coaches for supporting me—people like longtime athletic director and men’s basketball coach Ernie Anderson ’37 were always looking out for athletes’ best interests. I believe I received a quality education in a Christian environment, and feel blessed to be in a similar situation now. I hope I have had an impact on helping shape young people’s lives through education and athletics, too. Students teach me life lessons every day. The impact that they have had on my life has been invaluable—on relationships, commitment, and learning. I love seeing where my former students and athletes go on in the next step of their lives— from college to starting their families to excelling in their careers. Spring 2016 11 Everything I got from sports as a player— the love of the game, the friendships, the teamwork, the cohesion—sparked a desire in me to coach. I started playing sports at a young age and experienced coaches who I really clicked with, and I knew that I wanted to be able to give back to athletes in the same way. I had a great experience at Augsburg. Playing two sports, being a health and physical education major, and working within the Athletics Department allowed me to meet many people who had a great influence on my life. I have been very lucky to achieve a lot of success in my short coaching career. Being able to be a part of something so great on ice allowed me to also be a part of something great off the ice. The relationships that I have developed with many of the girls I have coached is second to none. WHITNEY RESTEMAYER ’10 Physical education teacher at Challenger Elementary School and assistant girls’ softball coach and head girls’ hockey coach at Lincoln High School in Thief River Falls, Minnesota JAMELL TIDWELL ’05 Assistant administrator, athletic director, and middle school football and track coach at Valley Middle School of STEM, and high school wrestling coach at Apple Valley High School in Apple Valley, Minnesota I feel like God put athletics in my life to keep me out of trouble so that I could get to where I am today. If I didn’t have wrestling in my life, there’s no way I’d currently be working toward my doctorate. I didn’t have a dad growing up, so when I was a studentathlete at Augsburg, Auggie wrestling coaches Jeff Swenson ’79, Sam Barber, and Donny Wichmann ’89 took me under their wings and taught me how to be a student, how to be an athlete, how to be a man, and how to be successful. I hope that by being a coach, I can show kids that, through athletics and working hard in school, you can achieve anything. I always tell my players, you have to be a student first and an athlete second. AN EXPLORATION OF FAITH PRESTIGIOUS $467,000 GRANT FOSTERS STUDENTS’ ENGAGEMENT IN YOUTH THEOLOGY INSTITUTE BY STEPHANIE WEISS “J esus is in the generosity business,” said Amber Kalina ’15 when she quoted from Walter Brueggeman’s theology of abundance at an Augsburg College chapel service. “That means being constantly alert to any mismatch between the generosity of God and the needs of people.” Certainly, Augsburg was given a great and generous gift this winter when the College was awarded a prestigious three-year Lilly Endowment Inc. grant of $467,000 for the Youth Theology Institute. This residential summer camp program explores deep and meaningful questions of faith and vocation through classes, service work, and reflection. The competitive grant ensures that this program will continue the work of helping young people discern their vocations. Kalina’s homily was part of a visit to her home state of Minnesota to pursue the next step in her vocational journey: Attending seminary to become ordained as a minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The journey of this youth and family ministry graduate, however, started in the the summer of 2010 14 Augsburg Now when she was a junior in high school in Perham, Minnesota. It was then that she attended Augsburg’s Youth Theology Institute at the encouragement of her youth pastor. “I would grill my youth director about everything. He had heard about the Augsburg College Youth Theology Institute, and he encouraged me to attend because I just couldn’t stop asking questions,” Kalina said. “At the Institute, I was challenged and pushed to think about and explain what I actually think about faith.” DIVERSE EXPERIENCES IN A DIVERSE ZIP CODE The 13-year-old Youth Theology Institute engages young people in grades 10-12 in deep theological questions and vocational discernment through community-based and classroom learning, worship, reflection, and solitude. The program, which has touched more than 200 young people since its inception, is an example of how Augsburg College lives out its vision to educate people for lives of purpose across disciplines and beyond the classroom. “This grant supports Augsburg’s continued commitment to intentional diversity and to modeling what it means to be a Lutheran college of the 21st century, located in the heart of one of the nation’s most diverse ZIP codes. It equips young people with theological and vocational skills and helps them learn what it means to practice their faith, with its commitments to education, radical hospitality, and serving your neighbor,” said Augsburg College President Paul Pribbenow. LEARN, PRAY, AND PLAY TOGETHER Since its inception in 2004, the Youth Theology Institute—a program of Augsburg’s Bernhard M. Christensen Center for Vocation—has explored themes germane not only to the College, but also to current events. Augsburg’s emphasis on interdisciplinary learning shaped the 2015 program, which explored interfaith action, a deeply compelling topic for participants and the College, particularly given Augsburg’s setting in the midst of a neighborhood with a growing Muslim population. The Lilly grant will allow the Augsburg College Youth Theology Institute to expand upon its history of success while increasing programmatic goals, including: • Development of a cohort of youth ministers from regional churches, synods, and multicultural and ethnic-specific congregations, interested in enhancing vocational discernment and theological reflection among youth. Photo by Mark Chamberlain Amber Kalina ’15 serves Abundant Life Together, a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. This Alt Year program in Toledo, Ohio, provides young adults a chance to explore in community subjects including vocation through reflection, leadership, relationships, and service. • Growth in the number of participants from 20 in 2016 to 40 by 2019 while also strengthening relationships with attendees, their families, their pastors, and their churches. • The creation of a mentor program to allow college-age students to help high school students develop practices and skills for theological reflection. • An increase in connections to the four synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that form Augsburg’s governing structure—Minneapolis, St. Paul, Southeastern Minnesota, and Northwest Wisconsin. • Continuation of scholarships for Youth Theology Institute alumni to attend Augsburg College. “We learn together, pray together, play together, explore the city together, and discern God’s work in our world together.” − Jeremy Myers Youth Theology Institute program director and associate professor of religion Participants in the program are respectfully challenged in every activity to dig deep into their perspectives and biases to uncover their beliefs. “We learn together, pray together, play together, explore the city together, and discern God’s work in our world together,” said Associate Professor of Religion Jeremy Myers, the Youth Theology Institute program director. For her part, Kalina hopes the grant prompts others like her to find their paths. “Young people are so eager to learn,” Kalina said. “But if there is nothing at home to welcome their questioning or to guide them, it is difficult. Home church congregations have to be involved. Participation from our churches provides a chance for all of us to show young people that abundance exists in Christian community and that abundance is meant to be shared with everyone.” Augsburg College will welcome the 2016 class of Youth Theology Institute students to campus from June 19–24. Participants from across the country will explore meaningful questions related to social and environmental justice, the role of the congregation in these questions, and how one can both love and be frustrated by community. To learn more, visit augsburg.edu/acyti. Spring 2016 15 Navigating uncharted waters First-ever River Semester pushes boundaries of experiential learning By Kate H. Elliott The River Semester was billed as an experiential learning opportunity: engage in a full load of political, environmental, and physical education courses—reinforced by a research project—while canoeing down the Mississippi River from its headwaters in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. But for the 12 Augsburg College students, two faculty members, teaching assistant, and two guides who completed the first-of-its-kind trek from August to December, it was so much more. For it was on those waters that the crew learned to appreciate the quiet, to be curious about the world around them, and to seek knowledge. They learned to be prepared, to make friendship a fine art, and most importantly to enjoy the 8 Augsburg Now moment. And they didn’t just learn about the river so much as become enamored of it, so much so that many of them feel unsteady back on solid ground. The Mississippi became their muse, teacher, personal trainer, and confidante. They dreamt alongside its calming waters and paddled through its more turbulent channels. Soon, its problems became their problems: urban stormwater runoff, the economic decay of river towns, and invasive flying carp smacked them—literally—in the face. And so, what started as an interesting, immersive experience has become a sobering call to restore and protect one of the United States’ most iconic natural wonders. Spring 2016 17 Ricky Taylor ’17, a film and graphic design major, captured the crew’s three-month journey and many of the social, economic, political, and cultural forces gripping the river as he gathered footage for a feature-length documentary. He plans to premiere “Learning to Listen: Our Semester on the River” this summer. “We learned by living, meeting the people, and witnessing the issues that illustrate the complexities plaguing the river,” Taylor said. “We met Carl, a shrimper who once walked on land that is now six feet beneath water, and we paddled past sediment that was filling in the river’s largest lake (Lake Pepin near Red Wing, Minnesota). We read about levees being ‘big bad wolves’ but then saw them protect families just trying to make their way through life. A portion of Louisiana is being swallowed up by the ocean, a culture disappearing into the Gulf of Mexico, largely due to agricultural practices that help feed our nation. “Somewhere along the way, I slipped out of the boat and into the Big Muddy. Every day I think about the river—about the paddling, the friends, the food, the learning—longing to be back there. Mud runs through my veins, and the only word I can find to describe the experience is ‘love,’ and that’s not a word I take lightly.” A gripping odyssey The trip had all the elements of any good adventure story: There was a steadfast leader, Joe Underhill, who has been engaged in environmental politics for 30 years and had been dreaming about this trip for almost as long; an epic journey paddling nearly 700 miles in 24-foot handmade cedar-strip voyager canoes; and a compelling cast of characters, including the student who’d never camped, the chipper morning person, and a student about to drop out who found his calling en route. There were unexpected moments, including an emergency appendectomy outside Mark Twain’s hometown, an open mic night harmonizing with the locals of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and a visit to the Michael Brown memorial in Ferguson, Missouri. And finally, there were lots of emotions—all of them, really. Underhill knew the trip would be an odyssey in every sense of the word. The professor of political science, environmental studies, and international relations had been planning “ Mud runs through my veins —Ricky Taylor ’17 and networking for 15 years to realize the River Semester. He tested the waters in 2001 by organizing a three-day field trip from St. Cloud, Minnesota, to St. Paul. Five-day and 10-day excursions followed before he proposed the semester experience in 2012. “This is where Augsburg stands out from other institutions,” said Underhill, who has organized interdisciplinary trips throughout the world. “Augsburg values experiential learning, place-based pedagogy, and innovative approaches so much that it wasn’t a matter of ‘if’ we can make this happen but ‘how.’ Yes, we had three years of sorting out logistics, but the College continues to empower and support faculty to engage in this type of work, and you only have to talk with one of these students to grasp the impact.” Once logistics were in place, Underhill’s years of contacts at organizations such as the National Park Service rushed in to participate— offering guest lectures, exclusive tours of historic sites, hot meals, and lodging. Wilderness Inquiry, a Minneapolis-based outfitter that has partnered with Augsburg for years, provided logistical expertise and risk management planning as well as guides, food, and equipment. Erik Ophaug, a Wilderness Inquiry program manager, said the outfitter is proud to be at the forefront in creative endeavors that increase students’ access to and connection with the natural world. “This was the longest expedition we have run, in terms of number of days on the river, in our 40-year history of supporting educational and expeditionary outdoor adventures,” Ophaug said. “It was inspiring to watch these students truly soak up and process all of the little moments that make up the culture, politics, ecosystem, and history of the Mississippi River watershed.” Guide Emily Knudson ’15 had paddled with Underhill on a 10-day canoe trip as part of a River Politics course her senior year. When she learned the semester-long excursion wouldn’t materialize until after she would graduate, the determined triple major in environmental studies, English literature, and Spanish secured a job with Wilderness Inquiry in hopes of gaining a staff position on the trip, which she did. Charged with almost every logistical task, from planning mileage and booking campsites to grocery shopping and monitoring weather conditions, Knudson also served as a supplemental instructor and intern for Augsburg. She led study sessions and presented lectures in their outdoor classrooms (or the nearest city’s laundromat or public library in bad weather). “Educational experiences like this are important because they make you think so much more deeply about the course content. Instead of memorizing facts about the lock and dam system for a test, we were paddling through the pools the dams created, hearing stories from locals, and camping on the islands built to replace those flooded out decades earlier. In a couple years, I will forget almost everything I memorized, but I will never forget my learning in action,” said Knudson.  Guitar  Headlamp  Rain gear  French press  Rubber boots Visit augsburg.edu/now to learn which items the River Semester crew couldn’t live without. Self-discovery on the riverbanks Glen Gardner ’17 was considering taking a year off from school when he saw the River Semester publicized in the cafeteria. He signed up, and somewhere along the pilgrimage, the Montana native realized he wants to teach art. Gardner is back at Augsburg this semester, majoring in studio art and art education. “Having the time to unplug and reflect about my life helped me realize my passion for art education. I have always been interested in the arts, but I hadn’t really thought about teaching until I discovered that I loved spreading the feelings I find in art to other people as much as I enjoy making art,” Gardner said. “I want to extend my knowledge and passion beyond myself and use art to promote living in a way that is not wasteful to the world.” Spring 2016 19 Hearing this, Underhill is proud. Provoking self-exploration was not his motivation for organizing the trip, but the sense of vocation students found down river is certainly the journey’s most fulfilling outcome. Admittedly, he took a leap of faith selecting the crew. He didn’t pick a team of students with similar interests, backgrounds, maturity levels, and outdoor experience. He picked a team that reflects Augsburg’s commitment to nurturing a diverse community of resilient, driven, and faith-filled citizens. As you can imagine, the initial weeks included some whining and a few cold stares, but before long, this dynamic group evolved into a harmonious tribe. Forging lasting bonds Taylor was nervous about the trip, not because of the physical demands or the elements (he was an Eagle Scout and grew up a “river kid” in north-central Wisconsin). As the crew’s videographer and documentarian, Taylor was most concerned about getting his new Nikon, Sony video camera, and two GoPros wet. But even more so, he was terrified of the quiet—for those moments when people would start sharing information about their lives. He was finishing up his second semester at Augsburg in the College’s StepUP® Program, the nation’s largest residential collegiate recovery community. Now sober for two years, Taylor said he burned bridges between himself and others before he entered recovery. “My peers on the River Semester were some of my first friends in a long time. It was truly a fresh start,” he said. “On the trip, I heard things that were strange to my ears: ‘Ricky, you’re a good person,’ ‘You’re kind,’ and ‘I’m amazed by you.’ I always looked around, thinking, ‘Are you sure you’re talking to me?’ It was the first time in years that I felt good, felt worth, and felt confidence. People trusting and caring for me is more precious to me than anything, and I developed everlasting bonds with this crew.” Brian Arvold ’80 witnessed that closeness when he welcomed home his daughter, Hannah, who was one of the first two students to sign up for the trip. When the crew stepped off the train at a welcome home rally in midDecember, Arvold said, the students ran into their families’ arms, and then they all ran back—to each other. 8 Augsburg Now “It was touching for all of us to see,” said Arvold, who was waving a canoe paddle painted with “River Semester” as the train slowed to a halt. “You may want a lot for your child, but lifelong friendships are at the top of the list. Knowing that these students will be there for each other through life’s ups and downs is comforting. “We’d talk to Hannah along the trip, and we could hear her growing more socially and culturally aware, but we also detected a real sense of confidence. Paddling that entire river empowered our daughter as she was placed in settings where she had to stand up for herself, push through, and create solutions. Augsburg is truly on the forefront—a small college doing great things. It’s neat to see them embrace learning without four walls.” Wading through analysis, navigating partnerships Hannah Arvold ’18 was able to channel her professional pursuits into a research project focused on nutrition and the environmental impacts of farming. On the first leg of their trip, she calculated the caloric intake and expenditure of her peers, noting which foods provided the best sources of energy. Near the end of their voyage, she recorded the agriculture industry’s negative impacts on the river, including gasoline and pesticides seeping into groundwater. “Caring about the health of your body,” Arvold said, “is just as important as the health of the land it is grown on. “I created an ‘I  the Mississippi’ bumper sticker and gave it out to people along our trip for freewill donations,” Arvold said. “We donated $500 of the money raised to purchase science equipment for the International School of Louisiana where we presented many of our research findings to more than 160 fourth- and sixth-graders.” Each student conducted a research project, and many of them involved collaborations with external partners throughout the United States. Noah Cameron ’17 worked with Minnesota artist Monica Haller, known for the “Veterans Book Project,” which captures interviews and data from dozens of soldiers, refugees, and journalists affected by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cameron used a hydrophone to record underwater noises while on the river and then paired them with social and cultural recordings, which he plans to use for future collaborations with Haller. “It seems that intense, mindful listening is a difficult task nowadays, and some people have no reason to listen. I was given a reason, and I learned much about the nature of sound, silence, noise, and listening,” the political science major said. “My project acknowledges that the river has something to say, which it certainly does. One thing the river told me was that it is polarized; its waters are either filled with the sounds of mechanical engineering or with quiet ecological or hydrologic characteristics. “Similarly to how I thoughtfully listen to the systems of the river, I realized that we—as a society—should thoughtfully listen, which is not the same as agreeing, to our government and each other. I viewed the river like our government—this massive, daunting entity that we seem to have little effect on. However, as we moved down that river and as we took classes about both the nature of the river and the nature of democracy, we learned that we do affect that river, and we do affect our government.” Blair Stewig ’18 connected with the river on a molecular level, studying how the concentrations of various chemicals influence ecosystems. Throughout the trip, she collected water quality data like that of the National Park Service’s “State of the River Report.” She also collaborated with Reuben Heine, a geology professor at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, to gather sonar data about subaqueous dunes, or sediment bed forms at the bottom of the river. “My main focus was on the accumulation of nitrates in the Mississippi and its effect on the Gulf of Mexico. The molecule, commonly found in fertilizers, seeps into the river system from agricultural and urban runoff, feedlots, sewage treatment plants, and more. This excess results in a ‘Dead Zone’ in the Northern Gulf of Mexico each late spring and summer,” said Stewig, who is majoring in biology and chemistry. “What does that mean? An influx of nutrients results in an algae bloom. When these algae die, they sink to the bottom of the ocean, where they are consumed by bacteria, which depletes the area of oxygen. Some marine life sense the lack of oxygen and leave, but others die as a result. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Dead Zone costs the U.S. seafood and tourism industry $82 million per year.” Lark Weller, who collaborated with Stewig on behalf of the National Park Service, said Stewig’s data will inform brochures and fact sheets about excess nitrates in a river system that provides water for upwards of 15 million people. The research these students conducted is compelling, Weller said, but their connection to the river is even more impressive. “I suppose it’s possible to complete a college degree without really ever understanding the broader context of the world around you—but not for River Semester students. It is clear the experience dramatically changed the lives of every single student who accepted the challenge. They have returned with a new and expansive sense of self, place, and world,” said Weller. Memories keep rollin’ along The next leg of this journey: The documentary. Taylor produced several short videos chronicling the trip, which are at augsburg.edu/river, and he’s looking forward to sharing the experience through his forthcoming feature-length film. For now, the River Semester crew continues to process the issues they know and to reflect upon their moments together: rows of sleeping bags dotting the shore as they looked up at an ebony sky studded with millions of heavenly diamonds; waking at 3 a.m. to paddle from darkness to dawn; and swaying in hammocks tied to the tall willow trees of remote river islands. So, if you see members of this motley crew sleeping outside, don’t judge. They’re just longing to be back on the water, where they grew stronger and a bit wiser, having realized that the issues gripping the Mississippi River are as sophisticated as its ecosystems. That enlightenment has influenced the way they now see the world, with varying shades of compromise and understanding. They reenter their lives with renewed purpose, fueled by an empowering sense of community, the ability to adapt, and the ache for life’s next adventure. “ It feels good to say, ‘I know the Mississippi.’ But, of course, you don’t—what you know better is yourself and the Mississippi has helped. —River Semester student journal entry From trickling headwaters to the WIDE AND MIGHTY OCEAN River Semester participants share memorable events along the river Beginning in 2003, Augsburg College Associate Professor Joe Underhill began incorporating short Mississippi River trips—three-, five-, and 10-day excursions—into his environmental politics curriculum. He first presented the idea of a semester-long trip to College leadership in 2012, and then three years of logistical discussions and planning followed. This past fall, Underhill and biology instructor Thorpe Halloran shoved off from St. Paul with 12 students, two guides, and a teaching assistant. Here are a few highlights from their journey. AUG. 28-30: Held an orientation at the Mississippi River headwaters to introduce courses, review canoeing and water safety basics, and discuss topics such as American Indians’ perspectives on the environment and sustainability. 1 SEPT. 1: Chris Coleman, mayor of St. Paul, joined nearly 100 Auggies, family members, and high school students at the launch of the nation’s first-ever River Semester. Dozens of attendees paddled in a flotilla of 24-foot voyageur canoes to South St. Paul. 2 SEPT. 5-7: Studied the water quality and impact of farming, including increased sediment load on the river. Sampled water alongside fisheries biologists with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. 3 “Without a current and with a brutal head wind, paddling Lake Pepin was probably one of our most challenging days.” —Lily Moloney ’15 SEPT. 12-17: Joined faculty and students from Winona State University for stream ecology labs and discussion on the impact of the lock and dam system. 4 OCT. 3: A rough paddle through the pool above Lock and Dam No. 13, one of the widest pools on the upper river. The crew struggled through fierce winds to avoid submerged tree stumps left over 5 from before the dam was built. One of the canoes sustained a bad crack, which the crew repaired at camp. OCT. 7-10: Met with local farmers and a nonprofit environmental group that organizes river cleanups, tree plantings, and other conservation efforts. The crew also engaged a field lab with Reuben Heine, geography professor at Augustana College in Illinois. 6 OCT. 20-21: When the crew paddled into author Mark Twain’s hometown, Izzie Smith ’18 began to suffer from stomach pain. By midnight, she had been diagnosed with appendicitis, and the next morning she had surgery. Two weeks later, Smith rejoined the group in Memphis. Even with all the excitement, the team still engaged in a lively discussion about Huck Finn and literary figures born along the Mississippi. 7 OCT. 29: The last morning of their journey on the upper river, the crew woke up at 3 a.m. to paddle for a few hours in the dark to catch the sun rise over the river. They ended their sunrise paddle on the Mississippi’s banks north of St. Louis, from which vans shuttled the crew past the Chain of Rocks, an exposure of bedrock in the Cuivre River. 8 9 NOV. 2: As part of Underhill’s course, Democracy in the American Heartland, students traveled to the Michael Brown Memorial—the site of the August 2014 shooting death of a black teenager by a white policeman, which prompted national commentary on racial discrimination and gun control. President Paul Pribbenow joined the group for a tour through the city and discussions with residents. “Standing at that memorial in the middle of the road was a deeply unsettling experience— there was no way it could or should have been otherwise.” —President Paul Pribbenow NOV. 16: The team paddled past expansive sandbars and islands full of wildlife at the confluence of the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers. Waters in this area can rise and fall as much as 70 feet and swirl around canoes. 10 NOV. 26: Thanksgiving in New Orleans: The crew enjoyed an abundance of fried turkey and comforting side dishes at their hostel as they visited with fellow travelers from more than a dozen countries. 11 12 DEC. 11: Travel by train to Chicago. “The train back to Chicago was spent doing a lot of work on our finals, but it was also a time to reflect on everything we experienced on the trip.” —Blair Stewig ’18 1 ITASCA STATE PARK, MN HARRIET ISLAND, ST. PAUL 2 LAKE PEPIN 3 4 WINONA, MN CLINTON, IA HANNIBAL, MO 5 6 CHICAGO, IL 12 QUAD CITIES 7 LOUISIANA, MO 8 FERGUSON, MO 9 10 CHOCTAW ISLAND, TN DEC. 14-15 The crew traveled by train from Chicago to the Twin Cities and joined in a “good-bye” hug upon arrival at Union Depot in St. Paul. As part of the River Semester welcome back celebration, Augsburg graphic design and typography students created an interactive gallery exhibit chronicling the voyage. Learn more at augsburg.edu/now. NEW ORLEANS, LA 11 Spring 2016 23 AUGGIES CONNECT FROM THE ALUMNI BOARD PRESIDENT Dear alumni and friends, JILL WATSON ’10 MBA, ALUMNI BOARD PRESIDENT 24 Augsburg Now Courtesy Photo T oday’s Augsburg College students seek to make a difference, and it’s been a privilege to interact with them as they gather to meet alumni, discuss vocation, and pick up targeted professional advice at recent events. Last fall, the Clair and Gladys Strommen Center for Meaningful Work hosted a Career and Internship Fair and welcomed young Auggies who sought to make connections with employers and internship hosts. Shortly after the event, nearly two dozen Augsburg alumni returned to campus to join panel discussions about their academic and career stories across a range of disciplines and professions. These events were part of a five-week major and career exploration series that provided nearly 175 students the opportunity to explore a wide variety of degrees and occupations. This series was made successful thanks, in part, to the Augsburg College alumni who served as panelists. Thank you to all Auggies who shared your vocation and insight with students! Most recently, I was humbled by the talent, drive, and thoughtfulness I saw all around me at the annual Alumni-Student Networking event in February, where hundreds of alumni mingled with current students and faculty, received free professional profile photos, and listened as alumni addressed the importance of informational interviewing, mentoring, and using social media to connect. Regardless of where we are in our professional lives, I think we all have something to offer to or gain from such events. Events like these make me proud to be an Auggie. If you shared your experiences with students in the past year, you helped to inspire Auggie pride. Whether you’re connecting with students, networking with graduates of all class years, contributing to The Augsburg Fund View videos that illustrate the to support College initiatives, or planning a impact of student internships gift to fund an endowed scholarship, we are so at augsburg.edu/now. grateful. As Augsburg moves into the future, alumni can help the College live out its vision—to educate students for lives of purpose—across the disciplines, beyond the classroom, and around the world. You can engage your employer in identifying Auggies as candidates for employment, internships, or mentorships by posting opportunities at your company on the AugPost job board found at augsburg.edu/alumni. I joined the alumni board because I wanted to see Auggies help other Auggies and make a difference. Each time I attend an Augsburg event, I learn more about what current students are up to, and I want to do everything I can to help them succeed. Won’t you join me? UNIQUELY AUGSBURG TRAVEL IN THAILAND AND CAMBODIA JANUARY 3-15, 2017 In January, English Professor Kathy Swanson and her husband, Jack, will lead an educational trip through Thailand and Cambodia. After arriving in Bangkok, travelers will tour the Grand Palace, visit the temple at Wat Po (the Reclining Buddha), shop for tropical produce, and sample local cuisine cooked on boats at a floating market. From there they will continue to Chiang Mai to ride elephants, perfect their culinary skills with a cooking class, and volunteer at an orphanage. The trip will conclude in Siem Reap, Cambodia, at Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world. This thought-provoking tour has been customized specifically for Augsburg alumni, parents, and friends, and there’s still time to learn more and participate. Contact Katie Koch ’01, director of Auggie Engagement, at kochk@augsburg.edu or 612-330-1178 if you are interested in learning more about Augsburg’s travel opportunities. To learn more, go to augsburg.edu/alumni/travel. AUGGIES CONNECT ALUMNA COMBINES CREATIVITY AND CHEMISTRY through career at 3M Capstone dinner celebrates SUCCESSFUL BUILDING CAMPAIGN This winter, as part of the annual Advent Vespers festivities, Augsburg College held a dinner to celebrate the successful completion of the largest capital campaign in the institution’s history and to recognize the generosity of all who made the Campaign for the Norman and Evangeline Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion possible. More than 200 donors attended, including members of the Board of Regents and many alumni supporters. President Paul Pribbenow offered his sincere thanks to Norman and Evangeline Hagfors and all donors to the new building. Chair of the Board of Regents Dr. Paul Mueller ’84 shared his gratitude and recognized the incredible leadership and commitment of Mike Good ’71 [pictured above], who served as national chair for the campaign that exceeded its $50 million goal. After becoming involved with the 3M STEP program as a high school student, Audrey Sherman ’97 [pictured] became an inventor at age 20. Now a scientist with 3M, Sherman is credited with nearly 80 patents, some created with other Augsburg alumni working at the Minnesota-based company. Sherman’s most recent patent is for a versatile material with the potential to improve cosmetics, insulation wrapping, and electronics. Two of her favorite patents involve using pressure-sensitive adhesives to transport light and making a solvent-free duct tape. She also helped discover a new solution for restickable diaper tape. Sherman feels that her Augsburg minor in art has been an important factor in pursuing her inventions, enabling her to blend creativity with her skills in chemistry. Today she mentors St. Paul high school students interested in science and gives talks to juniorhigh and middle-school students about careers in science and technology. Share your ideas for AUGSBURG’S 150TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION SESQUICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION years Augsburg alumni, parents, friends, faculty, and staff are invited to help celebrate the College’s 150th anniversary in 2019. What aspect of your Augsburg history would you like to celebrate during the sesquicentennial year? Were you connected to a team, a club, or a department that made a difference? Would you like to see a reunion for your favorite activity—whether it was the Echo newspaper staff, a sport, Lutheran Youth Encounter, the Augsburg Choir, or theater? How best would you like to honor Augsburg’s past, present, and future? Visit augsburg.edu/150 to submit your ideas and find monthly updates on planning already underway for the sesquicentennial celebration. Spring 2016 25 AUGGIES CONNECT ALUMNI ASSIST STUDENTS on their path to physician assistant career [L to R]: Augsburg College alumnus Tom Towle ’14 MPA leads thenstudents Scott Harder ’15 MPA and Christina Pekoske ’15 MPA through the steps of starting an IV. 32 26 Augsburg Now I n the classroom and in the field, Augsburg College alumni help today’s physician assistant students gain a glimpse into the professional world they’re preparing to enter. Through clinical work and course instruction, alumni share their experience in a high-demand field. Augsburg’s Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies program was the first of its kind in Minnesota and admitted its inaugural class in 1995. The full-time graduate program educates generalist physician assistants oriented toward service to underserved populations in rural and urban settings. The physician assistant (PA) concept has evolved over time but continues to increase in relevance. In alignment with health care industry demand, the PA’s role continues to expand. The Augsburg PA program’s long history in Minnesota is advantageous, according to Jenny Kluznik ’13 MPA, assistant professor of physician assistant studies. PA students spend approximately half of their graduate program in a didactic—or classroom—phase. The latter half of the program is spent in the community where students complete clinical rotations that change every five weeks. Augsburg’s PA alumni serve as educators and lecturers for a course series in clinical medicine and also serve as hosts for the hands-on field work. Meredith Wold ’07 MPA is a guest lecturer for the program and an adjunct faculty member. She works as a hospitalist PA with an internal medicine team at Regions Hospital in St. Paul. As an undergraduate, Wold was focused almost exclusively on medical school, but during her final year in college she was struck by the teamwork she witnessed between a doctor and a PA in surgery. Now, after nearly a decade in her profession, Wold values the team-based work of taking care of hospitalized patients. She weaves clinical episodes from her career into her lectures, which serve to remind students of the whole patient—not just the upcoming exam. Melissa Oeding ’10 MPA, another guest lecturer, agrees. “As a recent graduate, I can relate to the student experience, understand how students learn, and provide real-world insight and advice regarding what to expect as a practicing PA,” said Oeding, who works at Minneapolis’ Hennepin County Medical Center. She’s stimulated by the chance to sit on the other side of the lectern. “It renews an excitement for my work and career and reminds me just why I started out in the program,” she said. “I feel extraordinarily blessed to have been trained and trained well at Augsburg.” Guest lecturer Olga Trouskova ’13 MPA sought out Augsburg’s PA program in part because of its emphasis on serving the underserved. “I went into medicine to provide answers and to heal,” Trouskova said. “Now I understand that great medicine cannot happen without building relationships and trust with my patients.” She also is a hospitalist PA at Regions and, during her weeks off, serves as a family practice PA at Westside Community Health Services/La Clinica, a community clinic. Trouskova makes a point of including real patient stories in her presentations to remind students that PAs treat patients, not diseases. For students, there’s no match for hearing these types of lessons from alumni, according to Wold. “It shows a level of alumni commitment toward the program and the next generation of Augsburg PAs,” she said. “Early on after graduation I felt a duty, a professional responsibility really, to give that back.” And teaching is its own kind of gift, according to Trouskova. “By teaching others, I have learned as well,” she said. ALUMNI CLASS NOTES 1960 Lowell “Zeke” Ziemann ’60 continues to write. His newest book, “Gunslingers and Baseball,” is a collection of Western historical fiction, essays, and baseball stories. It is available on Amazon. 1965 From his time at Augsburg, Allen Anderson ’65 fondly remembers his music professor Leland Sateren ’35, the Burgundy Singers, dorm life, and choir tours. Today, Anderson is still involved with choral music and enjoys golf, woodworking, activities in his community and at his church, travel, and participation in Lutheran Men in Mission. He and wife, Joyce, have two children who graduated from Augsburg. They travel to New Zealand on occasion to visit their son and his family. Gary Blosberg ’65 says that his current position is “reclined.” He is retired after 26 years as a finance manager at General Electric and 23 years in the U.S. Navy. He thanks chemistry professor Courtland Agre for sharing his wisdom when he said: “You don’t need to know everything; you just need to know where to find the answers.” Blosberg still sings with the Centennial Singers, the Masterworks Chorale, and other groups. He is proud to be a father and grandfather. Connie (Ekeren) Cameron ’65 teaches at Honors Mentor Connection, is on the Fringe Festival Board, sings in the St. Joan of Arc Choir, and is involved in politics, travel, and the League of Women Voters. Her fondest memories of Augsburg include the Kappa House girls, professor Anne Pederson’s literature wonderful teachers and role models. Among Dietrich’s most treasured Augsburg memories are the excellent convocation speakers and the great friendships she made. Today, she and husband, Franklin, enjoy their grandsons, their involvement at Central Lutheran Church, and traveling. She also volunteers with literature; and professor of history Carl Chrislock ’37 for his effective use of anecdote to enliven history. Dyrud spends his time reading, golfing, and traveling. He and wife, Marilyn, have three children who are all involved with theater, and they enjoy seeing their children’s work. In October, Janis “Matty” Mathison ’69 was honored by the American Planning Association’s Wisconsin Chapter as its Citizen of the Year for her leadership in working with local residents and planners to promote healthy living and active lifestyles in eastern Wisconsin’s Shawano County. Last year was the third year of Bike the Barn Quilts, an area bike tour that she spearheaded. From the NOW@Augsburg blog. Visit augsburg.edu/alumni/blog to read more. classes, and her roommate of four years Carol (Welch) Langness ’65. Cameron thanks the team behind the Christmas smorgasbords; Ailene Cole, speech professor; Orvald Haugsby, math professor; Leland Sateren ’35, music department head; and Phil Quanbeck Sr. ’50. She and husband, Bill, have three sons and one grandchild. Eunice (Bergman) Dietrich ’65 thanks home economics faculty Ruth Segolson, Ruth Sonsteng, and Katherine Peterson for being daughter, Kari, at Dakota City, the 1900s village in Farmington, Minnesota. The Dietrichs also have a son, Hans. The faculty members who most influenced David Dyrud ’65 as a student were philosophy professor Paul Sonnack ’42 for his intensity; New Testament Greek and Latin professor Mario Colacci for his flamboyance; professor of English Gerald Thorson ’43 for his Hush Puppies (Dyrud’s favorite shoes); professor of English Anne Pederson, for her affection for Mark Gjerde ’65 retired in 2004 from 3M. He enjoys traveling with wife, Jan (Lunas) Gjerde ’68, and spending time with their grandchildren at a lake home. He remembers Gerald “Jerry” Pryd ’66 and Paul Dahlen ’66, his friends who died in a plane crash while they were Augsburg students. Gjerde was influenced by professor of math George Soberg ’26 and professor of philosophy Paul Sonnack ’42. The Gjerdes lived in Brussels from 1995-97 while Mark worked for 3M. They have two sons and four grandchildren. AUGGIE SNAPSHOTS 1960 This group of alumni were friends during college but had little contact since graduating. They were reunited at the 2015 Homecoming celebration and barely scratched the surface in terms of catching up. Now retired, the five Auggies plan to get together again soon. [L to R]: The men and their previous careers: Arden Flaten ’60 (science teacher), Myron Carlson ’60 (pastor), Don Gilberg ’60 (band teacher, piano tuner), Iver Christopherson ’60 (high school principal), and Neuman Berger ’60 (attorney). 1974 The National Tile Contractors Association recently honored Janet (Durkee) Hohn ’74 with its Tile Person of the Year award. Hohn was the third woman to receive this honor in the six decades it has been presented. For more than 20 years, Hohn has operated a one-person, high-end residential tile and stone installation company. She has served as president of the Twin Cities Local Tile Contractors Association, as a board member and technical methods and standards committee member for NTCA, and most recently as chairperson of the NTCA training and education committee. Spring 2014 2016 Fall 2014 17 27 37 ALUMNI CLASS NOTES One Augsburg College memory treasured by Glenn Hamberg ’65 is the teaching style and effectiveness of W. LaMarr Kopp in German class. Other faculty members who influenced Hamberg as a student were Mario Colacci from the department of New Testament Greek and Latin, Courtland Agre from chemistry, Gerald Thorson ’43 from English, and Paul Sonnack ’42. Hamberg’s present interests include crossword puzzles, computers, movies, Jeopardy, volunteering, travel, and spending time with his grandchildren and wife, Sandra (Edstrom) Hamberg ’66. Jerry Hamlin ’65 works part time. He likes to volunteer and to travel in his free time. He treasures his memories of Augsburg basketball games, the convocation with Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling, and feeling like every day was a good day. He was most influenced by Donald Gustafson and Carl Chrislock ’37 in history, and Sheldon Fardig in education. Hamlin and wife, Jari, have four children and 10 grandchildren. James Harbo ’65 has a full-time dental practice in New York. He enjoys visiting his two grandchildren in Pennsylvania, doing church work, reading theology, participating in a book club, and aging well! He fondly remembers his dorm friendships, baseball, Augsburg Choir concerts, and soaking up the culture of Minneapolis. The past 50 years have heightened his appreciation of his years at Augsburg where, he says, there was “much goodness and inspiration.” Harbo and wife, Amy, have three children. Today you can find Peter Jacobson ’65 woodworking, volunteering, or traveling. He and wife, Lynne, have two children and two grandchildren. His fondest memories of Augsburg include dorm life all four years, Augsburg basketball, being a resident assistant, and spending afternoons in the physics lab. He was most influenced by physics professor Theodore “Ted” Hanwick. 28 Julie (Gudmestad) Laudicina ’65 and husband, Joe, love to travel and recently celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary with a cruise on the Danube River. She also enjoys gardening, reading, leading a book club, and living in New York City. She has been a civil wedding officiant for 10 years and has married more than 300 couples from around the world. Some For 12 years, David Raether ’78 wrote for TV comedy sitcoms, including “Roseanne.” After building his career, he took a break to focus on his family and found the job market had changed completely when he attempted to return to the field. After struggling and becoming homeless, he says, he discovered that he was far more resourceful and resilient than he had ever dreamed. Raether delivered a TEDxAmherst talk and wrote a book about his experiences titled, “Tell Me Something, She Said.” From the NOW@Augsburg blog. Visit augsburg.edu/alumni/blog to read more. of her memories of Augsburg include listening to choir practice, freezing at football games, enjoying her many friends, and participating in student government and chapel. She was most influenced by faculty members Phil Quanbeck Sr. ’50, professor of religion; Anne Pederson, professor of English; and Philip Thompson, professor of art. She also remembers Dean of Students Glen Johnson and Dean of Women Fern Martinson. Laudicina would most like to thank her parents, both Augsburg alumni, for encouraging her to live and learn with a strong set of values. Sharon (Dittbenner) Klabunde ’65 plays in a mountain dulcimer band, and loves to travel and garden. She remembers chapel time from her days at Augsburg and also living in a house as a freshman where, she says, there were three women to a room who shared one dinky closet. She enjoyed working in the cafeteria. Bette (Bodin) Leeney ’65 and husband, Jack, love their home in Florida. They have a pool and use it a lot. She likes to garden and to welcome the family, mostly in the winter! Her treasured memories of Augsburg focus on the good values she learned and kept with her. She remembers the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and how difficult that was. She admired Dean of Students Peter Armacost, who supported her when her father passed away. Her psychology and social work professors inspired her to get her master’s degree in social work. She and Marie (Bergh) Sandbo ’65 met freshman year and have remained friends for 50 years. They share the same birthday. Carol (Welch) Langness ’65 and husband, Gary, spend every January to April in the East African city of Iringa, Tanzania, along with their synod partners in the Iringa Diocese. They have two children and three grandchildren. As a student, John Luoma ’65 was influenced by Mario Colacci, professor of classical languages; Carl Chrislock ’37, professor of history; and William “Bill” Halverson ’51, professor of religion. He treasures memories Augsburg Now of chapel, serving as student body president, and Augsburg’s emphasis on vocation, service, and faith active in love. Luoma is a minister of education at Hope Lutheran, The Villages. He is a Via de Cristo coordinator, a Diaconate teacher, and likes to travel and bowl. He and wife, Gracia (Nydahl) Luoma ’66, have two sons. Their oldest son, Aaron, passed away in January 2015. LeRoy Martinson ’65 retired in June 1998 after 33 years of teaching math and coaching skiing. Now he stays active with tennis, volleyball, and five grandchildren. He lives with wife, Micki, in Cross Lake, Minnesota. His memories of Augsburg are of his math teachers, his coaches, and student teaching with Ms. Anderson. He was influenced by professor of math George Soberg ’26, professor of physical education Howard “Howie” Pearson ’53, and Coach Edor Nelson ’38. Martinson is a member of the Minnesota State High School Coaches Hall of Fame. Dan and Mary (Tildahl) Meyers ’65 met during their freshman year at Augsburg. The couple celebrated their 50th anniversary, Dan has worked for AdvisorNet Financial for 50 years, and it’s been 50 years since he graduated from Augsburg. Dan remembers playing basketball and baseball, and he was influenced most by Ernie Anderson ’37 and Edor Nelson ’38. He would thank Milt Kleven ’46, if he could, for funding his scholarship. Dan keeps busy with work, golf, reading, and basketball. Mary enjoys walking, reading, caring for a grandson, and traveling. She treasures the friendships she made at Augsburg and meeting Dan there. Carl Chrislock ’37 and her world history class helped her realize she wasn’t a history major. Mary says that Augsburg has been an influence in their lives for 50 years. Whether they return for athletic games, homecoming or concerts, it always feels like coming home. The Meyers have two children and three grandchildren. Larry Nelson ’65 thanks Theodore “Ted” Hanwick, of the Physics Department, for his challenging and thorough classes. Nelson’s Augsburg education provided a solid foundation for his career in science education. He enjoyed teaching various areas of biology, in addition to wilderness-based experiential education. His fondest Augsburg memories are of morning chapel, convocations, studying in the library, concerts, sporting events, and social activities. Nelson says Augsburg also prepared him for continued spiritual growth. Today, he likes to travel, read, garden, volunteer, do house maintenance, and spend time with his family. He and wife, Marilyn, have two daughters and five grandchildren. Becky (Walhood) Nielsen ’65 remembers her good friends from Miriam House. She and husband, Steve Nielsen ’64, have three daughters, 10 grandchildren, and a great-grandchild. Their granddaughter, Morgan Kenny ’17, attends Augsburg. Lois Peterson ’65 would thank Mimi Kingsley, professor of Spanish, for telling her that she had “a gift for language.” Peterson is fluent in Spanish, and she visited Mimi in Chile prior to her death. Today, Peterson enjoys traveling and has been to Costa Rica, Mexico, Norway, and Spain. She remembers being in a class Bill Halverson ’51 taught in Old Main when the news came of President John F. Kennedy’s death, and watching the Beatles for the first time while in The Grill. She loves life in Denver, where her children live nearby. Leland Sateren ’35 most influenced Sharon (Bjugstad) Ronning ’65, and she has spent her life involved in music. She sings in the Masterworks Chorale, directs a church choir, and teaches piano. Other activities include knitting, spending time at her cabin, and enjoying her four children and eight grandchildren. She met husband, Don Ronning ’66, in the Augsburg Choir. Don passed away in 2000. Marie (Bergh) Sandbo ’65 and husband, Hans Sandbo ’63, will celebrate 50 years of marriage this year. Marie likes to travel, spend time with grandchildren, and serve on the Heritage Committee at church, all while continuing to run a small business from home. Her treasured memories of Augsburg include the friendships made and her studies in library science. Don Gustafson, Martha Mattson ’28, Ruth Aaskov ’53, Dick Husfloen ’60, and Pat Parker are the faculty and staff who most influenced Marie. Two of the Sandbos’ three children graduated from Augsburg. 1991 On October 13, 2015, David Johnson ’91 was promoted to Colonel in the North Dakota Army National Guard. He is a senior Army chaplain for the state. Johnson also is an ELCA pastor serving as a full-time chaplain for the North Dakota Army National Guard. He has been serving in this call for the past 12 years. Previous to this role, he served parishes in central and eastern North Dakota. Terry Simonson ’65 and wife, Patricia, live in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where he serves as a half-time chaplain at a residence for seniors. Three generations share their home, and his three granddaughters are the joy of his life. The memories of Augsburg that he treasures are good times spent with roommates and learning Greek and Latin (his major). Erwin Mickelberg ’54 was influential in Simonson’s decision to attend Augsburg. These days, he is interested in quantum physics and continues to explore the subject. 2006 Heather (Nystrom) Finholm ’06 and husband, Jeffrey, announce the adoption of their twin sons, Joseph and Matthew, born April 30, 2015, and adopted on July 27, 2015. 2007 Lázaro G. Payano Stark was welcomed into this world at home with the help of his midwives on April 3, 2015. He is the son of Jenessa Payano Stark ’07 and Geomar Payano Stark. The family resides in south Minneapolis. This fall, seven Auggies served on the varsity football coaching staff at Osseo (Minnesota) High School and helped lead the team to its first Class 6A state championship. The group of Augsburg alumni included Jack Osberg ’62, Derrin Lamker ’97, Mark Joseph ’01, Andy Johnson ’04, Jordan Berg ’09, Royce Winford ’09, and David Tilton ’12. From the NOW@Augsburg blog. Visit augsburg.edu/alumni/blog to read more. Spring 2014 Fall 2014 Spring 2016 17 37 29 ALUMNI CLASS NOTES Win Stiefel ’65 taught school in Alaska and now lives with wife, Gracia (Olson) Stiefel ’66, in Glennallen, Alaska. He spent 10 years teaching at a Bible college and 10 years in Russia helping Evangelical churches. These days he drives a school bus, enjoys 10 grandchildren and a great grandchild, cuts firewood, and volunteers at missions. He remembers traveling with the wrestling team, canoeing on the Mississippi River, and listening to the Basin Streeters. If he could thank someone, it would be the old man outside Cedar Ave. Mission who asked him and others whether or not they were saved. Steve Strommen ’65 likes to spend his days playing “Old Timer” softball, bird hunting, appreciating winters in San Diego and summers at a Minnesota cabin, performing home renovations, and enjoying his family and grandchildren. He has many memories from athletics at Augsburg, including three championship basketball teams and a championship in baseball. The most influential people during his time at Augsburg were Carl Chrislock ’37 and coaches Ernie Anderson ’37 and Edor Nelson ’38. He and wife, Chynne, have two children and five grandchildren. Sharon (Topte) Taeger ’65 and David Taeger ’65 recently moved to Camrose—a city in Alberta, Canada—after living for 19 years in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Sharon likes to read, paint, and socialize. David likes to listen, watch, and marvel at the growth and development of children, especially their four grandchildren. He also enjoys reading and being with friends. David received his M.Div. from Northwestern Theological Seminary. He was most influenced by Mario Collacci and Carl Chrislock ’37 while at Augsburg. Sharon and David have two children. Virg Vagle ’65 would thank Ernie Anderson ’37, Edor Nelson ’38, and Ed Saugestad ’59 for being influential during his time at Augsburg. Vagle enjoys golfing, traveling, and being with his grandchildren. He and wife, Pat, have seven children and 12 grandchildren. Lyndy West ’65 fondly remembers playing in the concert band and in the Basin Streeters, a group that performed for Augsburg basketball games. He entered Luther Seminary after graduating from Augsburg and served parishes in Los Angeles, inner-city Chicago, and Minnesota. He officially retired in 2012. He says the smartest thing he ever did was to marry Diane Haas in 1969. They have four children and four grandchildren. They like to bike, travel, read, participate in music at their church, and lead polka services. He thanks his parents for encouraging him and his siblings to attend Augsburg. 1967 John Schwartz ’67 is in his sixth season with the acclaimed Apollo Chorus of Chicago, which was formed in 1872. Schwartz serves as vice president of its board. Auggie singers in the Chicago area can audition to join this 130-member chorus. Details can be found at Apollochorus.org. 1975 Glen Teske ’75 is enjoying the adjustment to retirement after working for 40 years in the IT department at Hennepin County. Among his treasured memories as a student at Augsburg are business administration classes, tutoring other students, and the friendships he made. He also remembers playing four years of basketball and winning the MIAC conference title in 1975. He thanks professor of history Khin Khin Jensen, adviser and professor of business Keishiro Matsumoto, mentor Jeroy Carlson ’48, and coaches Butch Raymond ’63 and Erv Inniger for their impact on his life. 1979 Laura (Rolfe) Matuska ’79 has been selected as WeCAB’s part-time community outreach fundraiser. WeCAB provides door-to-door supplemental transportation in the Westonka and eastern Carver County service areas for people who are unable to drive to medical appointments, church, social events, the grocery store, or the food shelf. Matuska has significant experience working with seniors and clients, providing case management to support transitions through all levels of senior living. She has launched volunteer programs, developed a hospital-based domestic abuse intervention program, and is a successful grant writer. Matuska also has worked with many volunteers in a variety of positions. 1980 The new Bill Simenson Quintet recently debuted at The Nicollet. Leader Bill Simenson ’80 (trumpet) has been performing professionally in the Twin Cities for nearly 30 years. After earning his degree in music and political science at Augsburg, he attended the University of Trondheim in Norway where he studied music at the graduate level. Catch the Bill Simenson Orchestra, a larger ensemble, once a month at Jazz Central in Minneapolis. 1981 Rob Hubbard ’81 tells the story of the hilarity, irreverence, and imagination of the Brave New Workshop in his new book, “Brave New Workshop: Promiscuous Hostility and Laughs in the Land of Loons.” The book, from The History Press, celebrates the marvelous, unexpected, and absurd history of this one-of-a-kind comedy institution. The owners of Brave New Workshop are John Sweeney and Jenni Lilledahl ’87. 1987 Tammy Jo Rider ’87 received a 2015 Leadership Award from the 2015 2013 Amanda Rowan ’13 and Jordan Lakanen ’14 married August 8, 2015. Auggies in the wedding party included: Eric Lakanen ’02, Stephanie Nelson ’13, Rachel Rixen ’13, and Ashley (Carney) Wolke ’13. 30 Augsburg Now Top row [L to R]: Tyler Dorn ’15 and Alisha Esselstein ’15 were married on June 20, 2015, at Sugarland Barn in Arena, Wisconsin. Many Auggies participated in and attended the wedding. Bottom row [L to R]: Best man Alex Obanor, Augsburg Department of Public Safety officer; Dustin Parks ’16; Keisha Barnard ’16; bridesmaid Alia Thorpe ’15; bridesmaid Lily Moloney ’15; maid of honor Rachel Shaheen ’15; ceremony musician Becky Shaheen ’11; and officiant Rev. Mike Matson ’06. ALUMNI CLASS NOTES After graduation, Joshua Harris ’08 moved to Baltimore drawn to the service opportunity of working with Alpha Phi Alpha, the oldest inter-collegiate communityservice-oriented fraternity founded by African-Americans. Harris serves as managing editor of APA’s journal, “The Sphinx.” He works with other community leaders in Baltimore on many initiatives, including one to build a network of individuals, businesses, and organizations that can provide internships, scholarships, and mentorship opportunities for high school students. He returned to Minneapolis in fall 2015 to speak on a panel at the Augsburg Young Alumni Council’s networking event at Surly Brewing Co. Harris is running for mayor of Baltimore. Learn about his campaign at harrisforbaltimore.com. From the NOW@Augsburg blog. Visit augsburg.edu/alumni/blog to read more. Southeast Minnesota affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. 1991 Bill Koschak ’91 was hired as the chief financial officer at YA, which is an industry market leader in delivering omni-channel marketing promotions for the nation’s most respected brands. Before joining YA, Koschak was vice president of finance and CFO for the convenience and foodservice business at General Mills. 2000 Lewis Nelson ’00 joined the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business MBA for Executives. He blogs about the experience at wanderingveteran.com. 2007 Barrozo is studying the development of novel gene therapy treatments for human diseases caused by persistent viral infections and mutations of the genome. The goal of his research is to develop safe and effective strategies for treating these diseases. He also has worked as a Post-Baccalaureate Research Program Scholar at the University of Georgia. 2015 Hannah Frey ’15 has an AmeriCorps position in the Community Technology Empowerment Project, which helps bridge the “digital divide” for new immigrants and low-income communities in Minneapolis and St. Paul. She serves at Roseville (Minnesota) Library as a digital literacy coordinator for adult technology programming and outreach. Kati (Tweeten) Bergey ’07 married Brandon Bergey on October 18, 2014. Kati teaches sixth grade for MabelCanton Public Schools in Mabel, Minnesota. Heidi Heller ’15 has accepted a job as a historian and researcher with Hess Roise Historical Consultants. 2012 GRADUATE Lauren Grafelman ’12 graduated with her MBA from Hamline University in August 2015. William “Billy” Hamilton ’12 graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in May and received news that he passed the Minnesota Bar Exam in July. He began work as a public defender in training at the Hennepin County Public Defender’s Office. He has found his vocation! 2014 Enrico Barrozo ’14 is pursuing a doctorate in genetics and genomics at the University of Florida, supported by the McKnight Doctoral, UF Graduate School, and Top-Up fellowships. Ava Beilke ’14 MBA formed her own social media consulting business, Paragon Social (paragonsocialco.com or @paragonsocialco on Twitter), with the desire to help individuals and small businesses excel in social media. Beilke studied communications in undergrad and pursued her MBA to round out her business expertise. She now fuses her creative skills with her business savvy to create the most effective social media efforts. Katie Koch ’01 is the new Director of Auggie Engagement at Augsburg College. Koch comes from a diverse background of performing arts management, having most recently worked at The O’Shaughnessy Auditorium at St. Catherine University as an event and administrative manager. Koch worked for nearly five years at the Guthrie Theater as an assistant to former director Joe Dowling, where she supported the Guthrie Board of Directors and highprofile visiting artists. During her time at Augsburg, Koch was a member of The Augsburg Choir, Augsburg Concert Band, and Augsburg Jazz and Gospel Praise. She served as an admissions ambassador, a student coordinator for new student orientation in 1999 and 2000, and wrote for the Augsburg Echo. Spring 2016 31 In memoriam Dwight E. Elving ’37, Mercer Harvard E. Larson ’50, Island, Washington, age 99, on September 17. Greeley, Colorado, age 86, on September 14. James K. Horn ’59, Lino Lakes, Minnesota, age 83, on November 26. Isabella “Bella” (Frazier) Sanders ’73, Park Rapids, Evelyn B. (Wibeto) Stone ’41, Alexandria, Minnesota, age 98, on November 26. Wesley N. Paulson ’51, Eugene “Pete” S. Peterson ’59, Gregory J. Semanko ’73, Altoona, Wisconsin, age 88, on December 2. Jackson, Minnesota, age 78, on October 17. Dassel, Minnesota, age 64, on September 16. J. Maurice “Maury” Erickson ’42, Vermillion, South Dakota, age 95, on September 10. Walter L. Dilley ’52, Paynesville, Minnesota, age 88, on October 14. Peter M. Locke ’60, South St. Paul, Minnesota, age 82, on November 30. Brent M. Amundson ’78, Colorado Springs, Colorado, age 61, on December 3. Helen L. (Fevold) Nelson ’43, Woodrow W. Wilson ’53, Gayle J. Arvidson ’61, Newburgh, Minneapolis, age 94, June 4. Lincoln, Nebraska, age 97, on September 11. Indiana, age 84, on December 25. David C. Eitrheim ’79, Menomonie, Wisconsin, age 58, on January 1. Chester E. Hoversten ’44, Northfield, Minnesota, age 93, on November 16. Joyce E. (Gronseth) Limburg ’44, Erling B. Huglen ’54, Roseau, Minnesota, age 83, on December 19. Harvey L. Jackson ’61, Park River, North Dakota, age 78, on September 28. Morgan S. Grant ’82, Willmar, Kelly M. Williams ’92, Edina, Minnesota, age 45, on August 25. River, North Dakota, age 51, on October 13. Apple Valley, Minnesota, age 93, on October 10. Allan J. Kohls ’54, Minneapolis, age 87, on October 4. John D. Sorenson ’62, Hickory, North Carolina, age 75, on November 2. Elise H. (Hoplin) Anderson ’45, Marvin S. Undseth ’54, Salem, Lee E. Keller ’63, San Edina, Minnesota, age 96, on October 13. Oregon, age 90, on October 12. Bernardino, California, age 80, on August 27. Edgar A. Emerson ’46, Minnesota, age 81, on September 30. Perham, Minnesota, age 90, on December 3. Guilford “Guy” L. Parsons ’47, Minneapolis, age 94, on September 17. Ruth E. (Thompson) Larson ’48, Clearbrook, Minnesota, age 92, on December 26. Rolf Heng ’55, Fergus Falls, Elmer Karlstad ’55, Warroad, Minnesota, age 91, on November 14. Alfred E. Kaupins ’57, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, age 88, on November 25. Joyce (Hanson) Holbrook ’65, Lincoln, California, age 72, on December 27. Edythe “Edie” (Berg) Johnson ’65, Stillwater, Minnesota, age 72, on October 1. Marilyn J. Larson ’65, Estes Park, Colorado, age 73, on November 3. Lawrence “Larry” C. Pratt Jr. ’57, Joyce A. (Schuchart) Hagerty ’66, Minnesota, age 88, on October 16. St. Anthony, Minnesota, age 81, on July 12. Oneida, Illinois, age 72, on December 4. Paul I. Roth ’49, White Bear Eldri R. (Johanson) Salter ’57, Lake, Minnesota, age 90, on November 21. Pocatello, Idaho, age 80, on September 8. Philip “Phil” A. Walen ’70, Stillwater, Minnesota, age 67, on September 9. Arne Simengaard ’49, Dennis F. Gibson ’59, Edina, Russell “Jeff” J. Quanbeck ’71, Fridley, Minnesota, age 88, on November 28. Minnesota, age 83, on September 5. Bloomington, Minnesota, age 67, on December 1. Allen J. Moe ’48, Dawson, Minnesota, age 85, on October 1. Minnesota, age 55, on August 28. Thomas D. Orstad ’93, Park Earl R. Kinley III ’94, Eagan, Minnesota, age 55, on December 18. Christine L. (Quandt) Edinger ’99, Madison, Wisconsin, age 49, on December 19. Judith A. (Gretz) Roy ’99, Minneapolis, age 68, on September 24. Traci M. Singher ’12, ’15 MSW, Minnetonka, Minnesota, age 44, on December 1. Dustyn B. Hessie ’13, Minneapolis, age 27, on June 15. Augsburg College Women’s Basketball Head Coach William “Bill” L. McKee, New Brighton, Minnesota, age 62, on August 27. The “In memoriam” listings in this publication include notifications received before January 10. 32 Augsburg Now EXPERIENCE AUGSBURG NOW ONLINE Fresh look, more interaction Enjoy several new features on the Augsburg Now magazine’s companion website. Thanks to a site upgrade, it’s possible to: • Manage your magazine subscription and delivery method • Read articles on mobile devices with ease • Share favorite stories and photos on social media • View exclusive slideshows and videos • “Go green” by opting for digital content instead of print • Submit class notes and share good news AUGSBURG.EDU/NOW 2211 Riverside Avenue Minneapolis, MN 55454 Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Twin Cities, MN Permit No. 2031 LeVar Burton encourages the next generation Actor, director, writer, producer, and educator LeVar Burton—best known for his roles in “Roots,” “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and “Reading Rainbow”—inspired prospective students to make positive change in the world. Burton’s presentation took place this winter during Scholarship Weekend, an annual event where prospective students compete for the President’s and Fine Arts scholarships.
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Title: Murphy Square 2016, Page 060
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: while lying on the ground,but he worked his way to his feet and began his pathetic attempt to ﬂee the scene. We were completely dumbfounded. \Ve all groaned with disappointment as we watched him limp away to the backyard. He did not make it far with a collapsed lung, but he made it farther than...
Show morewhile lying on the ground,but he worked his way to his feet and began his pathetic attempt to ﬂee the scene. We were completely dumbfounded. \Ve all groaned with disappointment as we watched him limp away to the backyard. He did not make it far with a collapsed lung, but he made it farther than we thought was possible. David didn’t need to break a walking stride, let alone a sweat, to catch up to Nemo. The two appeared from the side of the house, and we led him to the paramedics. Nemo immediately began defending his pride, or his stupidity, or something to the paramedics. “I don’t need to go in the ambulance. If you guys could just check out my arm here that would be great. My arm really hurts.“ \Vhen the para- medics asked him when his birthday was, he said, “That’s not the point." After looking at each other confused and annoyed, the paramedics walked around to Nemo’s back and began leading him toward the right side of the ambulance. As they walked away, we heard Nemo ask if the ambulance ride was going to cost a lot of money. Both of the paramedics snorted and laughed. We all stayed outside and watched as the ambulance drove off and wondered how Nemo was going to tell his parents that he fell off of a roof, and we worried that they would either make him move back home or that they would come live with us to make sure nothing like this ever happened again. \Ve also wondered if Nemo would change his ways after ﬁnally being confronted by the fragility of life, but we knew he would continue to seek his small excitement at even the biggest cost. \Vhen we visited him in the head trauma section of the hospital the next day, he smiled and laughed when the four of us 58 walked through the door. After asking him what happened, he glowed when he said, “The doctors said that if 1 would have landed any other way that I would haw died!" Som- ber and still shaken, all we could say was, “We‘re just happy you‘re alive, man.“
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Title: Murphy Square 2016, Page 117
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: 115

Title: Murphy Square 2016, Page 087
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: be nice." It was a Saturday afternoon, October. The sky was sharp and blue. Remy andJim were walking together past the Hines County roller rink, to the movie theater. They weren't holding hands, but two blocks past, the rink shrinking behind them, she bumped his ﬁst with her own as if on accident...
Show morebe nice." It was a Saturday afternoon, October. The sky was sharp and blue. Remy andJim were walking together past the Hines County roller rink, to the movie theater. They weren't holding hands, but two blocks past, the rink shrinking behind them, she bumped his ﬁst with her own as if on accident. He glanced at her sideways, smiled, and linked his pin— ky with hers, answering the question she didn’t ask, 85
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Title: Murphy Square 2016, Page 024
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: his porch the next morning, they looked like they were visiting with their long lost father. \Vith all ofJackal’s rowdy past adventures, they very well might have been. “What do I know about God?”Jackal had invited them to sit in his ‘ofﬁce’, a massive liquor cabinet disguised as a living room. ...
Show morehis porch the next morning, they looked like they were visiting with their long lost father. \Vith all ofJackal’s rowdy past adventures, they very well might have been. “What do I know about God?”Jackal had invited them to sit in his ‘ofﬁce’, a massive liquor cabinet disguised as a living room. “Well, as far as I know, God isn’t a person like you or me. He’s more like an idea or a feeling. Some people tell me he‘s like pure, unlimited energy, like a bright light that can do anything. Other people say he’s a bit more concrete. From what I gather, he‘s more like an alterego that people use like a funhouse mirror to make themselves feel bigger and better than they really are. That help you out any?” After an uncomfortably long silence, Rex spoke up. “I don’t understand anything you just said, Jackal.” The others echoed conﬁrmations. “Yeah, you lost me, man.” “No clue,Jackal.” “Alright, let’s try again,”Jackal chuckled to himself. “Say, what’s this all about anyway? You trying to get with some church gals, or what?” “Ah, it ain’t like that,” Rex answered. “We found out that God‘s been looking to kill us. \Ve just want to get to him ﬁrst." Jackal took a moment to read their faces and look for some sign that they were teasing him. They were cold serious, and scared. He furrowed his brows for a while. They were watching him intently and he began to recognize a certain desperation in their eyes. Sometimes any answer is the right an- swer. He sat forward, rested his elbow on his knee, and spun them the tale they needed to hear. 22 “1 ever tell you boys about touring with Ozzy through Paraguay back in ‘79?” He hadn‘t. They listened with unﬂinching attention. u\Vell, Ozzy was always worrying about God too, back then at least. He would tell me how everywhere he went everyone was telling him how God was gonna get him and how he should try to make nice with God and shit. But, that was never Ozzy’s style, to back down like that. Anyway, we were in Paraguay and, really nice folks down there ifyou ever get the chance, and Ozzy had this terrible dream the night before the gig. Kept him up sweatin‘ and the whole works. He dreamt that God ﬁnally caught up with him and, well, all the nasty stuﬂ'that follows. He was in ﬁt, talkin‘ about calling olfthe whole show and heading home for good, that he'd had enough. Well, Lemmy and his boys were with us down there and Lemmy wasn‘t going nowhere. So, he asked around and found out that the locals there had this wooden statue that they worshipped and that this statue was God. Now Lemmy, being the practical type, offered to smash up the statue, but the locals wouldn't go for that. So, he convinced them that he wouldn't smash it up ifthey would let us keep it locked up in a chest in the tour bus. That way Ozzy didn’t have to worry about God chasing him down, and we could get on with the show. So that’sjust what we did." i Rex and the others exhaled for what seemed like the ﬁrst time since the previous night. Axel was still a bit hesitant. “WaiLJackal? What happened to God after the tour?” he asked. “Shoot, what am I thinking? Right. Ozzy, of course, didn’t want to keep the damned thing and Lemmy sure as hell wasn't gonna keep it neither.
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Title: Murphy Square 2016, Page 061
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: PORCALEIN GODDESS Aaron Boger You are my pomclain gtx‘ldess. Now I stand up, I'm so glad to come home to you: turn around, and ﬂush; beautiful and smooth; I didn‘t men have to wipe urine OH the seat! cool to the touch, but bringing such warmth up and out of me to form a sunny pool. My fair,...
Show morePORCALEIN GODDESS Aaron Boger You are my pomclain gtx‘ldess. Now I stand up, I'm so glad to come home to you: turn around, and ﬂush; beautiful and smooth; I didn‘t men have to wipe urine OH the seat! cool to the touch, but bringing such warmth up and out of me to form a sunny pool. My fair, perfectly formed deity: a statue tojoy, caring for me in my times of need, comforting me when 1 get the “utge”. My eyes delight in your sight, my body can release. Sitting in your soft lap, I feel more open than ewr, able to sing, hum or whistle how I will. 59
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Title: Murphy Square 2016, Page 123
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: SFW’INU Srcphamr an Ink and (‘opu Mmkm

Title: Murphy Square 2016, Page 134
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: I7Nl‘FRN ATII THF .‘\R( ~H Hannah Sthmlr lhguul I’humgmph)

Title: Murphy Square 2016, Page 139
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: NEW YORK Malena Larsen Flashing broadway signs and lights from towers Like sunshine Shined on your skin. Changing pictures ﬂashed on your check: As they raised from your smile. The city is so bright and busy 1 mean; the city was so bright and so busy. \Ve got pushed through the Cunt-m into pizza...
Show moreNEW YORK Malena Larsen Flashing broadway signs and lights from towers Like sunshine Shined on your skin. Changing pictures ﬂashed on your check: As they raised from your smile. The city is so bright and busy 1 mean; the city was so bright and so busy. \Ve got pushed through the Cunt-m into pizza companies and coffee shops with tiny espre$o mugx “bmen dragged themsehes through the street on wedges and high heels Towering above In We were young We were young and in the city. The stars hid and slept under blankets The towers smoked like people And we watched all of it. We could stand there forever I wear, we stood there former. 137
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Title: Murphy Square 2016, Page 017
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: &PLEASE.; lazmin Crittenden “Can you see me?“ She pR’SSCS her lips, her hand, her body to the mirror. The ice cold minor. “Please saw me!” She saw Pounding on the glas so that her reﬂecﬁon rippled. “Save me,” She cried—tracing her ﬁngers on the but she still had no answer. Their ice cold eyes...
Show more&PLEASE.; lazmin Crittenden “Can you see me?“ She pR’SSCS her lips, her hand, her body to the mirror. The ice cold minor. “Please saw me!” She saw Pounding on the glas so that her reﬂecﬁon rippled. “Save me,” She cried—tracing her ﬁngers on the but she still had no answer. Their ice cold eyes from on anotheﬁ as a tear sneaked their cheek. I love )ou, She begged. Only to fall to her knees 15
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Title: Murphy Square 2016, Page 108
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: 106

Title: Murphy Square 2016, Page 126
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: LORNA Ryan Nichols The house, it seemed, had made a clearing in the woods for itselfto occupy; it sat in the middle of a nearly-spherical orb of empty space bounded by vegetation that only dared to venture within a dozen yards of its dreary, darkened walls. Massive oak trees bent their limbs over...
Show moreLORNA Ryan Nichols The house, it seemed, had made a clearing in the woods for itselfto occupy; it sat in the middle of a nearly-spherical orb of empty space bounded by vegetation that only dared to venture within a dozen yards of its dreary, darkened walls. Massive oak trees bent their limbs over its failing roof, as ifby command, to form a patchwork canopy that held back all but the brightest ofdaylight. Wildlife also seemed terriﬁed by some speciﬁc odor or aura it emanated.Folks who ventured into the depths ofthe forest experienced a peculiar response; they began to worry that they had lost their way, that their destination must certainly lie in the opposite direction. Over time, as a result ofthis severe isolation, the house was entirely forgotten and lost.Even as the houses near the edge ofthe forest multiplied and the forest itselfwas gradually reduced to a fraction of its original acreage, the house and its clearing remained untouchedEventually an entire 124 metropolis had been built. The forest was soon bordered by avenues and called a park. No one was aware ofits existence within the city. No one, that is, except its occupants. Father never lets the sunlight touch. Lorna was remembering what Amelia had said before she left for the city again. Haven't You noticed that Father never lets the sunlight touch his face? It wasn’t precisely true. She had memo- ries. The three ofthem, ﬂoating on their backs in the lake. There was sunlight then, and Father had smiled. They were very little then,just girls. But it was true now. How had she not realized? Amelia always knew, not like Lorna. Lorna had feelings, suspicions, but they were always vague and she never knew how to speak them until Amelia did for her. Lorna hated it.The slow, close-lipped smile Amelia would give. Her own importance. So what ifit was true? It was also true that they never saw him touch things anymore.Never
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Title: Murphy Square 2016, Page 069
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: :a couple chewy treats. He purred and rubbed his nose against her pant leg He decided then that he didn’t hate her for intruding upon his routines; in fact, he rather liked having her around. A couple months after that ﬁrst night, Allison had bought a small house in a quiet neighborhood. Angus...
Show more:a couple chewy treats. He purred and rubbed his nose against her pant leg He decided then that he didn’t hate her for intruding upon his routines; in fact, he rather liked having her around. A couple months after that ﬁrst night, Allison had bought a small house in a quiet neighborhood. Angus spent his days in the spare bedroom upstairs. The room had large windows with ﬂat, shelf-like sills that he could stretch out on and nap while warm sunlight wrapped around him like a blanket. Vanessa often spent the night with Allison. She became a regular pan of their new routine, which involved a bit less time spent cuddling on the couch. Angus slowly realized that Vanessa didn‘t pay as much attention to him as she had that ﬁrst night. This didn't bother him much. Allison‘s affection was all he really wanted, but he couldn‘t help wondering if Vanessa’s earlier kindness was genuine or just an attempt to win his approval. At night, the two women would shut their bedroom door, leaving him to sleep on the couch or in the window sill. Even this he took without complain. One day Allison picked him up and held his face close to her own as she lay on her back in bed. ‘She was smiling and animated as she snuggled his nose with hers. “Guess what,buddy?” she asked. “Vanessa‘s gonna come live with us!" She squeezed him close and squealed out a rambling sentence about how happy she was and how great everything was going to be. He had never seen her act this way and wasn't really sure what type of response she was hoping for. He purred lightly. “Vanessa is a painter, Angus. She needs a bright place to work and can't have any kitties getting into ‘her tools." It was the morning after Vanessa had moved in and Allison was explaining the closed spare bedroom door to a distraught Angus. “\Vhy don’t you go to the couch?” The weels that followed were regrettable. While Allison was away at work, Vanessa would lock herself in her new studio Dejected, Angus would paw at the door, begging to lay in the sun. After a few minutes of this, Vanessa would emerge, upset, from the contested territon and shoo him away. Eventually, she tried to pick him up. He hissed and scratched defensively at her arms. She went to a closet and armored herself with a winter coat and gloves. She ﬁnally managed to grab ahold of him after chasing him around the house for ten minutes. He soon found himself locked in the bathroom. He waited for hours, curled up on the cold tile ﬂoor, until he heard Allison open the bathroom door. He rushed to her, pleading forjustice and purring against her calves. She picked him up, and as she turned they both saw Vanessa holding out her arms, which were covered in band-aids. “Look what your cat did while you were gone," Vanessa said. Angus waited eagerly for what he assumed would be Allison’s valiance defense of his actions. “I’m sorry, babe. I’ll have to think of some- thing. ] guess for now we'lljust have to keep him in the bathroom while I’m at wor .” Angus couldn’t believe what he was hearing. \Vhy wasn’t she sticking up for him? It was ohm"- ous he had acted in self defense, wasn’t it? Didn’t she want to hear his version of the events? For the first time in their friendship, he hissed at Allison. He Hailed in her arms until she dropped him. He ran and hid under the couch, feeling betrayed and alone. In the weeks that followed, he acquainted 67
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Title: Murphy Square 2016, Page 136
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: Sponge —Howewer appealing and self-indulgent— is that every once in awhile—and it all depentt on the \igilance of the one cleaning how oftenia sponge gets swung out. .. But I sit here, and I watch, and exeryone tears each other apart, and human cruelty, and the simple miseries of the day that I...
Show moreSponge —Howewer appealing and self-indulgent— is that every once in awhile—and it all depentt on the \igilance of the one cleaning how oftenia sponge gets swung out. .. But I sit here, and I watch, and exeryone tears each other apart, and human cruelty, and the simple miseries of the day that I can't escape and that I can’t wring out... Eventually they get to me. I wish I could say there was a point to it all. But I can’t see one. All I see '5 that you lose friends no matter what you do, and no matter how little you allow yourself to express, and sometimes men those you didn’t really get to know can hurt you. 134
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Title: Murphy Square 2016, Page 146
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: THE GIFT HORSE Bryce Kadrlik 144 we once had a discussion on the nature of receiving gills and how when handed the reins to a stallion i would push it away and mumble about the idea of “deserving” and once i talked so much about how i deserved nothing that i wanted and little that i had that i...
Show moreTHE GIFT HORSE Bryce Kadrlik 144 we once had a discussion on the nature of receiving gills and how when handed the reins to a stallion i would push it away and mumble about the idea of “deserving” and once i talked so much about how i deserved nothing that i wanted and little that i had that i left the imprints of teeth on my wrist. and now you may wonder why i seem so afraid but darling, you are a gift.
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Title: Murphy Square 2016, Page 007
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: FRESH WHITE NOISE, Lindsey LaCasse . . . 89 I (AM)ERICA, Brendan Brophy. . . 90 STATE FAIR, Audrey Campbell . . . 92 WORLD AROUND TOWN, Michael Torreson . . . 93 THE GOOD-OLDAYS IN WAR, Brendan Brophy. , . 97 III CHERRY WINE 4, Mary Cornelius . . . 101 OEDIPUS STILL APPLIES, Sarah Mueller . . ....
Show moreFRESH WHITE NOISE, Lindsey LaCasse . . . 89 I (AM)ERICA, Brendan Brophy. . . 90 STATE FAIR, Audrey Campbell . . . 92 WORLD AROUND TOWN, Michael Torreson . . . 93 THE GOOD-OLDAYS IN WAR, Brendan Brophy. , . 97 III CHERRY WINE 4, Mary Cornelius . . . 101 OEDIPUS STILL APPLIES, Sarah Mueller . . . 102 FAQ, Stephanie Frey. . . 106 GIVE US NOW OUR DAILY SPREAD, Leslie Hutchinson . . . 107 NIGHT IS FALLING, Andrew Jewell . . . 108 CHAPTER 3: THE PLOT THICKENS, Melony Q. Kundersrein . I . 109 BUTTERFLY, HaIIe Bliss Chambers . . . 111 BREATH, Hannah Schmit . . . 112 FACES (3), Katherine Gripne . . , 114 FACES (4), Katherine Gripne . . . 115 HOW TO SURVIVE A HURRICANE, Patti Lindaberry I . . 116 OVERLOAD, Monica DeRee . . i 119 RAINY DAY TEA CUPS, Eve Taft . . . 120 SEWING, Stephanie Frey. . . 121 WONDER. DE. Green . . . 122 [REMEMBER THE TIME, Lindsey LaCasse . I . 123 LORNA, Ryan Nichols . . . 124 SOMETHING LIKE HOME, Jazmin Crittenden . . . 127 SOOT, D.E. Green . . . 128 THE CANAL, Steven Custer . . . 129 UNDERNEATH THE ARCH. Hannah Schmit . . . 132 THE SPONGE, Aaron Boger . . . 133
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Title: Murphy Square 2016, Page 122
Collection: Literary Journals
Search Result: RAINY DAY TEA CUPS Eve Taft My father and I don’t notice when clothes wear out Relying on my mother to remind us of the team And bring us out of our worlds for a moment To mutter “Huh,” at the stains and rips Rainy days ﬁnd us in the kitchen My father and l, watching lightning \Ve brew strong tea...
Show moreRAINY DAY TEA CUPS Eve Taft My father and I don’t notice when clothes wear out Relying on my mother to remind us of the team And bring us out of our worlds for a moment To mutter “Huh,” at the stains and rips Rainy days ﬁnd us in the kitchen My father and l, watching lightning \Ve brew strong tea and steep the hours away Talking about what kind of apples are best Irish tempers and stories We have so many times cause all kinds of trouble My father and I, righteous rebels \Vith eyes full of mischief and laughter Artists, they say, with a sigh But I think a better word is “world-seer" lost in our heads, talking aloud and forgetting the little things we are seeing and crafting and thinking Apple munching, tea drinking, my father and l
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