Interview with Mary Laurel True
Interviewed on 3/16/2015
Augsburg College Oral History
Project Interviewed by Bethany Brown
MT – Mary Laurel True
BB – Bethany Brown
Time Log
0.10
BB: Hello, my name is Bethany Brown, I’m here with Mary Laurel True
at the Sabo Center, at 624 21st Avenue Sou... Show more
Interview with Mary Laurel True
Interviewed on 3/16/2015
Augsburg College Oral History
Project Interviewed by Bethany Brown
MT – Mary Laurel True
BB – Bethany Brown
Time Log
0.10
BB: Hello, my name is Bethany Brown, I’m here with Mary Laurel True
at the Sabo Center, at 624 21st Avenue South. [Um] Mary works
here...has worked here for about 20 years–
MT: –Five, twenty five.
0.30
BB: Twenty five years [um] and I will be interviewing her today. [Um] the
date is March [MT whispers date] sixteenth, 2015, and the time is 12:07.
[Um] so my first question is, where did you grow up?
MT: I grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, in [ah] Central Mass, from
the time I was six until I was eightteen, when I came to the Twin Cities to
go to St Catherine’s University.
BB: Oh, I also went there!
MT: Oh, you did, ok!
BB: Ah, what years did you go to St Kates?
MT: I went there from ‘77 to 1981.
BB: And what did you study while you were there?
1.00
MT: I studied [um] Spanish and Communications, and [um] I actually was
a student [um] in Cuernavaca through Augsburg College, through the
Center for Global Education. And I, and I studied Spanish in Sevilla,
Spain, too.
BB: So your trip to Mexico was through St Kates, or through Augsburg?
Time Log
1.20
MT: It was an Augsburg trip, but through St Kates, so [false start] it was
the very first year of the Augsburg Center for Global Education–
BB: Gotcha.
MT: –in which students could [um], you know, they could get credit
through their own institution, but it came, [uh] it was an Augsburg
program.
BB: So is it kind of like [um] I don’t remember if the status of those two
schools were kind of the way they are now these days–the Associated
Colleges?
MT: Yes, mm-hmm, right.
BB: Okay! That’s awesome!
MT: Yeah!
BB: [Um] So, in your...tell me about your trip to Mexico, in ‘79.
1.54
MT: Sure. Well, I [um], [false start] I thought about this a lot because it
had a huge impact on the rest of my life, and what happened was I, you
know, I was interested in Spanish and I saw this table in the, you know,
you think these tables are not that important and, and like, we have them
in Christensen, and someone was advertising for a trip to Mexico. And it
just so happened to be Augsburg, I didn’t really know much about
Ausgburg at all, signed up for the trip, and I was with [um] sixteen other
students from around the country, mainly Augsburg students. But [um]
[false start], so we loaded up, Augsburg had a van, and all of us got in the
van–
BB: You drove down?
2.33
MT: –and we drove down with the director of the program Joel Mugge,
who [um] was a professor here at Ausgburg who started the program, and
his wife and their 2-year-old–
BB: Oh, wow.
2.41
MT: –and [um] we spent the whole semester there, and it was a crazy
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semester because it was, you know, 1978, it was [um]...there was a lot
going on in Latin America, but it was an-it was a life changing
experience, it was incredibly good and [um] that program’s still in
existence here at Augsburg, it’s gotten really well known, and [um] I still
know a lot of the people that were on my trip, and [um], it-it was just–and
I learned a lot about Augsburg, I learned about its commitment to
experiential education, which I’m involved with now [um], and I learned
how much students knew about the whole workings of the college, which
I–the students at Augs- [corrects herself] at St Kates really didn’t know,
you know, they didn’t know the president, they didn’t know the director
of financial aid, and all the Augsburg students knew everyone at the
college, and-and I learned about all the other cool things students got to
do for credit, you know, it was just, it was am-amazing, so [um] [false
start]...When I came back from Mexico, I spent a lot of time on the
Augsburg campus, and [um] on the West Bank, ‘cause I was really
interested in social justice issues, and the West Bank is much [um] more
robust for issues going on than [false start] the area around St Kates, and
so...so I got to know [um] like the North Country Co-op was here, [um] I
lived with some friends in a house, a lot of the houses were [um], are no
longer–ALL of them are no longer here, and including– these are the last
two [referring to Sabo Center and the former Center for Counseling and
Health Promotion] that are going to come down in a couple months, so
[um]–
BB: So was that, with-with the North Contry Co-op [false start] were
these houses, these two houses, in that vicinity?
4.21
MT: Yeah, well the Co-op was right where [um] the Library is, well
actually OGC [Oren Gateway Center] is on the corner of 22nd, yeah it
started there, and [um] it was the first location of the Co-op, that’s the
mother of all the other co-ops in the Twin Cities, too, North Country. And
[um] so it was on the Augsburg campus for years, we owned the building,
and so people, a lot of students would got there and it was really great to
be here in the [uh] late seventies or early eighties.
BB: Why did they decide to tear that building down, or any of the other
buildings? I mean, just to expand the college?
4.58
MT: All the houses, yeah, a lot of the houses were in disrepair because
students could live in them, like you could, it was like Anderson, that’s
why they modeled Anderson the way it is now, in town house model,
because students, like 8 or 15 students would say, let’s get a house and
they’d get a house and they‘d have the greatest parties and trash the
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houses [laughing] so I went to great parties here, even though I was a St
Kate’s student. And [um] so I got to know the Seward neighborhood too,
and around that time the Seward Co-op was coming, and I worked there,
and then I actually had a boyfriend from Augsburg so there was a house
right out [false start] it was called the Chi House, a lot of guys, all the
guys, crazy guys lived there [laughing] and so they, they had like stolen
the pictures from the, the pictures that are now in the [um] I think they’re
in the Marshall Room, but we [stutter] all the Augsburg presidents in the
frames, th-they stole like some of those and put them up in this room, they
had this rubber couch up there, and it was just like, [BB laughing]
insanity. Throwing garbage out the second story window into the
dumpsters, I mean it was fun times around here, and then eventually each
one of those houses was just in so much disre[stutter] disrepair, it couldn’t
be fixed, and little by little they came down, but that was sad, yeah. It’s
funny too, because there was a house called the Jane Addams house,
which, she’s–
BB: That sounds familiar.
MT: Yeah, it was on the corner down over here [points out north-facing
window to behind the house] and [um] Jane Addams, you know, is the
President Pribbenow’s [um], the pers-you know, the focus of his
dissertation, a lot of his work is on Jane Addams, it’s [uh] kind of ironic
that that house existed and now it doesn’t. But, anyway.
BB: That sounds like you had a lot of fun here.
MT: I did. And I had a lot of fun in all the West Bank bars, too, because
there was so much good music mainly, you know, it wasn’t the drinking, it
was more the–and there was a little bar right here [um] if you go to
Jimmy Johns and take a left going toward downtown, there was a little bar
called Cullough’s, and there was a woman named Ma Cullough who
owned it, and all the Augsburg students knew here, and she was like their
mother, and they loved her. Ma Cullough, yeah. And it was–
BB: Did you guys call her that?
7.04
MT: Yeah, they did! Everyone did! And, and people played pool and it
was a three-two joint so [um], but people use to crawl home from
Cullough’s, you know, it was so close to campus, but it had like old
wainscoting, it was a really cool bar, and that was torn down probably in
the mid-80s, maybe, yeah. And then Willie Murphy, the great [um] jazz
and blues musician, you know, who started with Bonnie Raitt years ago,
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he-he was on her first album, he lived next door to Cullough’s, in this
really entang-it had all this-it was like the woods, practically. Right next
door. So, there were a lot of characters, you know, a lot of counter culture
and West Bank hippies and, and still some-a lot of those, I mean some of
those people exist but it was, yeah, so.
BB: It seems like it’s definitely...not died down...a little bit from where–
MT: Yeah
BB: But, you know, it’s–maybe those people have gotten older and things
have, like, simmered down? Or…and plus a lot of the...
8.02
MT: Yeah, you can still seem ‘em in Palmers and [um] [BB assents]
mainly Palmers is the one you can still see–
BB: Like the one haven that’s leftover?
MT: The Nomad, but not as much. And then 400 closed, and the Viking
was the best, though.
BB: Yeah, that’s been closed for a while.
MT: Uh-huh. Actually it was an Augsburg student who’s parents owned
that, ‘cause I was doing a Aug-Sem tour one time, of the neighborhood,
and I was talking about the Viking, and how I was there on the night it
closed and everything, and one of the students piped up and she said “My
parents own that bar,” and I knew her parents, too, from going to the
Liquor Pigs there on Friday nights.
BB: That sounds like fun, I wish I was alive at that point.
MT: Yeah, I know!
BB: And of age!
MT: Yeah right, right
BB: That would have been wonderful.
MT: Yeah!
BB: So, after you graduated in ‘81, [um] how did you kind of make the
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transition to getting involved in Augsburg’s [um] like their [um] service
learning program? Or was that something that already existed ‘cause it
sounded like it was with your Mexico trip. So how did you become
involved in that?
9.08
MT: Well [um], actually when I, in the late 70s, early 80s the internship in
cooperative education program existed, under the direction of Gary
Hesser, [um] the great socialogist, who is also just retired [um], so when I
left [um] St Catherine’s, ‘cause I was still a St Kates student even though
I’d taken a lot of classes here, [um] I, in fact, I took a course with Don
Gustafson, the historian here, and on India, it was an interim course and it
was so great, so when I came back years later it was just funny to see him
and talk with him again. And he just retired! But anyway, [um] so I left St
Kates and I immediately went to the Minnesota Cuban Refugee
Committee, in ‘81, and [um] that was in West St Paul, and it was at the
time that Cuban refugees were coming, the-the Mar-they called them
Marielitos in the Mariel boat lift in the early 80s, and [um] one of my
professors was on the board, and he said “This would be a good job for
you,” and so it was crazy because I was translating for [um] you know
new Cuban arrivals in, like, [false start] Immigration, in the courts, people
having babies. I didn’t-I didn’t have a car, I lived in uptown at the time,
and I took the bus, it took an hour and a half to get to West St Paul. And
then I worked in the basement of this, this church [um] and then I did that
for several years. And then [um] I left, in ‘83 and went back to
Massachusetts. And I, and I at the time didn’t think I was coming back to
Minnesota, I thought I was going home. [Um] so I went back to
Massachusetts and I stayed there for 6 years, and I got married, and I had
a baby, and my husband, who’s now my ex-husband, decided to go,
wanted to go to chiropractic school. And there were only about 10 schools
in the country, one of them was here in Minnesota. And he was a
midwesterner too, and he said, “Let’s go to Minnesota!” and I said
“Great!” You know, and it seemed like it was a lifetime ago that I had
been here in Minnesota, ‘cause it was, it was six years, but it seemed like
it was forever, ‘cause I had a whole life in between. You know, and when
you’re twenty, ah, three years old, it is part, you know, thirty, you know
it’s like a huge part of your life.
BB: It is.
11.32
MT: Yeah. So anyway, so we landed back here in 1989, and I saw this
[uh], so my husband was in chiropractic school, I had a two and a half
month old baby, and we had no money, of course. Still don’t, but anyway
[laughing] [false start] We didn’t have, so, it was like, well, Mary you
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have to work, you know, because of course. So I was looking for a job
and [um] I just happened to open the newspaper one day, I feel like it’s
divine intervention, ‘cause I opened the newspaper, and it said Augsburg
College, and I was like “I love Augsburg!” you know, I had such fond
memories. I was living in way South Minneapolis [um] down by 49th
and Bryant. And, yeah, because we had to be close to Bloomington,
that’s where the chiropractic school was. So, it was January of 1990, and
I saw this job, and it said, “coordinator of community service learning”
and I said, what in the world is service learning? I’d never heard the
term, it was a new term at that time, and [um] and it said, you know, the
skills, it was, in the mean time, I forgot to say that I went to graduate
school in Mas-in Conneticut. So when I was in Massachusetts I-I went
and got an MSW [um] in community organizing when I came back and I
had worked at U-Mass Medical School [uh] with medical [um] with
residents trying to get them involved with the community. So, it really
was service learning, I didn’t know the term then, but the idea was get
[um] these future doctors to understand the homeless community, ‘cause
that was around the time when [um] homelessness was becoming more
and more prevalent because of, you know, federal laws about-and federal
housing decisions. And so there are all these people in the streets and all
these homeless shelters are being developed. And so U-Mass students
[uh] that were medical residence, I was setting up [um] clinics in the
shelters. And so, they were getting involved, so I was working part time
for the medical school and part time for the shelters, kind of getting the,
making this [uh] opportunity available for students. And so when I got
here, and I saw this position, I didn’t know what service learning was,
but I did know that, the kind of things they were asking for, I had done,
you know. And I was excited about Augsburg I was excited that [um]
you know that it was here in the West Bank and so I applied, and [um] I
didn’t hear, I don’t think I-I don’t know if I got a rejection letter, but I
didn’t hear, and so I thought, well, [sigh], I was sad, and then one night,
at like 10:30 at night, Gary Hesser calls me up, and he says, “Hey can
you come in for an interview tomorrow?” [BB laughing] And I said,
“Sure! Yeah, I’d love to!” And so, [um] I-I came in the next day, and I
guess what had happened is the person they had wanted to hire, had a
PhD and you know, and she ended up going to the education department,
she’s no longer here, but to be in the education department and then the
position was open again. And so, like, people that were, like, Nancy
Gibauld, the director of counseling and health promotion was on my
hiring committee, Pastor Dave Wold, who just retired, was on the
committee, [um] who else was, Gary of course was on that committee.
There were two students that started the Link, the student community
service organization, and that doesn’t exist anymore, [um] it hopefully
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will be revived again but, so, [um] so there’s a big huge team of people
and they liked I think what they liked was they liked that I’d been at
Ausgburg, you know, connected with Augsburg [BB assents] and-and
anyone who goes through that CGE program is-is going to know a lot
about justice issues and, and really be savvy about what Augsburg up to,
so that and then, the MSW was important, I had done the community
organizing and this position was a lot about community organizing. So
anyway, that’s [um] I was hired and the rest is history as they say, yeah,
so [um]...So that was January of 1990 and I’ve been here since then. So
that’s–if I–that’s about 25 years.
BB: January is when you got hired here?
MT: Mm-hm, January 22nd, I think it was.
BB: Could you describe community service learning a little bit–
MT: Sure.
BB: –in general what that looks like?
MT: Mm-hm, sure, so…
BB: That’s probably a very large term to kind of cover [laughing]
16.00
MT: It is! That’s true. No, it’s really, it is. So, in the mid 80s, I think I’m
correct in saying this, the term came into being because people had done
a lot of work, and especially Augsburg was already good at experiential
education. So this idea of learning from experience, you know, of
engaging, and then reflecting on [um] being engaged in the world. And
so, you know, we had a pretty sophisticated system of, already, of co-op
ed, which involves work related to what you’re interested in. That term
isn’t used as much anymore, and then internships because of Gary and
Lois Olson was a really important person too, she just retired, she was
here for over 25 years [um] doing internships. And [um] so, the idea that
you could integrate these mini-experiential components, or that–it
wouldn’t have to be many–but in courses, in course-embedded service
learning. So, the idea is that [um] my task was to work with faculty to
figure out what they were teaching, and then help them do something
related to that, that has to do with the community. And what I-what my
task was to find out, first of all, figure out what was going on here at
Augsburg already, there was a strong student movement, they were
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working a lot with, actually with Our Savior’s Shelter, and with [um]
some other groups here in the neighborhood, and then figure out what
was going on in the community, and kind-bring those two things
together. And then bring them together through courses and faculty, not
[um] [false start] students doing things outside of the classroom. And so,
that was [um] my task, and because Gary was here and he was [false
start] also really connected with the National Society for Experiential
Education, which was the national organization that was really [um]
knowledgeable about this field, and kind of cutting edge around the
country, what people were doing, and Gary was connected with a lot of
faculty and a lot of the gurus in the field. Very quickly we were able to
jump on board with service learning nationally, and [um] we had some
of the first conferences in Minnesota related to service learning, we had
some really good faculty that started doing th–well Gary was one of
them, and then Norm Ferguson in Psychology, Cass Dalglish in English,
[um] let’s see who were some of the early pioneers…
BB: Was it mostly people in the humanities that kind of started doing it?
18.30
MT: Mm-hm, and Social Work, uh-huh, but quickly we got other [false
start]–Bob Stacke in music, we got a lot of good people involved, and
[um], and then...so then I–but I was involved with student group the
Link, I was involved with [um] the faculty, and then I kind of, being a
community organizer, I got involved in all kinds of things related to the
college, you know, and the community, ‘cause I really had to get
engaged, and at that time, the Somali community wasn’t here, you know,
w–the Somali community’s so prevalent–but it was really an immigrant
neighborhood, but it was mainly [um] [false start]–the Vietnamese and
East Asian community, and [um] of course the Native American
community was here at the time, we were working with the Native
American community, with the Latino community, and [um] worked
always with the Brian Coyle Community Center, they’ve been our
partner for actually over a hundred years…
BB: Where is that community center located?
19.34
MT: It’s, it’s here in Cedar Riverside, and it’s [um] you go on Riverside
and then it continues into 4th St, [um] which is [uh] where Mixed Blood
is, and then you turn the corner, it’s right there, on the right hand side.
And so, it actually at the time it wasn’t even–that building hadn’t been
built, it was called the Currie Center, and it was part of Pillsbury United
Communities, and Pill House was the first settlement house here in the
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Twin Cities, and that was here in Cedar Riverside, and so it was [um] it
was–I don’t know when it was changed to Currie House, but it was
changed to Brian Coyle and named after a [um] city councilor, who
actually died of AIDS, and [um] was really well-loved by this
community, and so they named that neighborhood center after him. And
so, we were working with Our Savior’s Shelter, ‘cause it had-we had-it
had the Lutheran connection, [um] and it’s located in Phillips on Chicago
and 22nd, we were working [um] always with Trinity Congregation,
because they’re right here on 20th and Riverside, and actually Trinity
brought Augsburg College to Minneapolis, over a hundred and...twenty
five maybe, thirty years ago?
BB: Wow!
MT: [Uh] Yeah, and so, we worked a lot with Trinity, and [um], I should
look up the list of all the places we were, but we worked with pretty
much anyone we-who wanted to work with us in the neighborhood, and
slowly developed these deep long-lasting relationships. We started City
Service Day, so we started working with neighborhood organizations
around that, and [um], started the Halloween Safe Block, in the early
90s, and a lot of these things got started and still are part of what we do
today.
BB: So, [um] just even listening to how you even talk about Augsburg’s
relationship to the community back then, it seems like it was pretty
strong, would you say? Even before you started working here?
21.34
MT: It was...it was getting stronger, you know, when I was here in the
late 70s, [um] there were a lot of, [um] you know, organizers because of
the Riverside Plaza and the urban redevelopment, that idea, and a lot of
counter culture hippies and people who were frustrated with the way
things were going in this neighborhood, and that the city was, you know,
[false start] kind of trying to take over, and redo things and tear a lot of
housing down, and build–that, that Riverside Plaza was supposed to be
five times the size it is right now. And so there were a lot of activists that
were trying to make change, and they were really frustrated with
Augsburg because of all of the dilapidated housing we owned. And
because [um] we were taking [false starte] more–we kept taking more
houses or buying them, and then taking over, and then students trashing
them, and being really rowdy in the neighborhood and then saying we
were a slum lord and stuff like that. So there was a lot of that going on.
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BB: Sounds like a lot of tension.
22.38
MT: Yeah, it was, it did feel like tension, but I’m sure, you know, Gary
lived, always lived in Seward, and so he was working on a lot of good
community things at the time. And so were other people. [Um] but it...I
think it’s, as Gary–there’s a great chapter in a book [um] called Standing On
the Shoulders of Giants that you could probably see if you want to–[um]
that Gary wrote about Augsburg’s history of experiential education, which
really started in the 60s [um]. I mean it...it...it really ramped up I should say
in the 60s, but that started, most of that work is done on the North side of
Minneapolis, and that’s really interesting history, in and of itself. But in this
neighborhood, I would say, there were good internships and things going
on, with internships and co-op ed, but [um] it started getting better, I would
say, in the mid-80s and then after that I feel like it just keeps getting deeper
and better, so.
BB: Do you feel like [um] like the, er I mean, there’s one side which is the
college’s view of the-the community around it, and then there’s the
community’s view of the college. Do you feel like at this point there’s
mutual positivity or [false start] is it, you know, is it well balanced?
24.03
MT: That’s a really good question, yeah. It depends on who you ask, you
know, I think. Like, I mean some examples I could give of the ways that,
you know, I really feel like we have this...I, I like to think of it as a, this
really long standing, reciprocal [false start], you know, grassroots and
committed way that we’re involved in the neighborhood. One example is
just, you know last year when the [um], that building burnt down on
January 1st, and three people died, and the mosque was damaged, Dar AlHijrah Mosque, which is one of the most important mosques in the
neighborhood.
BB: And that’s right next to Palmer’s, right?
MT: Mm-hm. [Um] We rent the space in the basement of Trinity that was
the old Saint Martin’s Table, and so the mosque has its offices there. We just
said, we wanna share with you, ‘cause, you know, you’ve suffered this loss
and you need space in the neighborhood. So, there’s that. There’s [um] we
have the after-school [false start] tutoring program at Trinity, that is a
majority of the students there are students along with the U students but
[um] so kids in the neighborhood are tutored there everyday. The Midnimo
project at the Cedar, which is this great project of bringing back Somali
music from all around the world to-to people here in the neighborhood who
live here. The work [um] going on at Coyle, we helped to start the
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Sisterhood of the Traveling Scarf, which is the new thrift store.
BB: I saw that across the street.
MT: Yeah, yeah, it’s great, yeah, so.
BB: I haven’t been in there yet, I’ve been meaning to.
25.45
MT: Uh-huh, yeah, it’s fantastic. In fact, I have a car full of stuff for that
right now [laughing] literally I can’t even practically see out the windows,
‘cause a friend of mine just unloaded a bunch of stuff. But, for instance,
with that, just to give one example, you know, the MBA students wrote
the business plan to get that building, I mean to get that business going.
The [um] we have a full–we have an intern over there who’s a Great
Lakes intern who started a thrift store in St Paul when she was 16, and she
business management major, Stella Richardson, she’s over there working,
we have an alum who’s [false start] the business manager for the
Sisterhood now, [um] Yasmin Shadidi [unsure spelling], she’s fantastic.
[False start] You know, I helped, and the president helped, to find that
building and get that building for the Sisterhood, [um] from Faith in the
City this tour we were doing and the President initiated this and a lot of
the Lutheran leaders and it just so happened that the CEO of Fairview
was on the tour. And I said, “I need a building for the Sisterhood,” ‘cause
it was in the African Development Center down, down here, and it was
tiny, and [um] and so a couple days later the CEO of Fairview called the
President, President Pribbenow, and said “You can have that building”.
BB: Nice!
MT: Yeah, I know! So I mean it’s just all these ways that we..you know,
and then Steve Peacock, who’s the Director of Community Relations here
has done a lot of amazing work with the [um] like the West Bank
Business Association, the West Bank Community Coalition, the President
is the–President Pribbenow–is the chair of the [uh] Cedar Riverside
Partnership. I mean, it’s just, we’re just, you know, like, in deep. And,
and, I think because there are people that have been here for, you know, a
quarter of a century, you know, like me, and Gary, who really, and other
people, who, and we have the Campus Kitchen, too, that [um] the
Campus Kitchen serves a meal at Coyle 4 days a week in the evenings.
BB: Is that all volunteer based? Like, the way its run?
27.51
MT: Mm-hm, yeah, it’s all of our food in the cafeteria that doesn’t get
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eaten.
BB: Wow!
MT: Yeah, and Allyson Green, who’s office is right over here, is the
director of that. And [um] so we serve at least twelve hundred meals a
month, from food that would have gotten dumped from the cafeteria.
BB:That’s really awesome. Like, not just, I mean on so many levels.
Because, you know, you’re being resourceful, you’re not letting things
go to waste, so you’re preventing food waste, you’re helping people that
maybe would otherwise not have any food, and you’re building
relationships with those people.
28.27
MT: Yeah. So we serve at Peace House over on Franklin near the Electric
Fetus [um], we serve at Ebenezer Towers, which is [false start] for
seniors and they didn’t have any congregate dining, they never had a
meal together, all those, and you know, they’re isolated seniors, until
Friday nights now, [um] a meal’s served every week, and our students are
there [um]. So, [false start] that’s, I think, that’s been a great
contribution, ‘cause also Alysson’s job [um] as the director of Campus
Kitchen is to be in charge of this [false start] community garden. That
was started [um] with 80 plots, and thats for the neighborhood, and
there’s a lot of neighborhood gardeners, there’s not [false start] a lot of
green space in this neighborhood, and so [um] we have that, and we have
a gleaning project through the Campus Kitchen that [um] students save
38 thousand pounds of produce that would have gone from [um]
Farmer’s Markets, gotten dumped, that they brought to food shelves and
other places. So, yeah, no it’s incredible [um] this [false start]...I mean
I’m just always amazed and I’m not surprised but I’m amazed at the
work that gets done through this place, you know? The Health
Commons.
BB: [Um] my next question is gonna kind of examine how you would do
something like this elsewhere, ‘cause specifically I’m thinking about
your time at St Kates, and [um] what you think it be like to try and
establish this kind of a system between a college and its community and
whether you think that it is viable at another school. Like, you know, I
look at St Kates and I’m like, it’s not as diverse of a community, so
maybe there’s not as much of a need there but, for other schools, do you
feel like you guys serve as a model [um], and do you think that, you
know, setting up this kind of a relationship with your community is
possible elsewhere?
Time Log
30.27
MT: Mm-hm. Actually, I have to say, St Kates came on to the scene a lot
later than we did. But they are doing amazing work with–under the
direction of Martha Malinski [um]. They have...I think it’s interesting
how different [false start] how similar in our approaches we are, I mean
we’re doing similar kinds of things, but [um] they have a very
sophisticated system, they’re [um] as far as how they work with partners
and things like that, I would say. [Um] [false start] It’s less grassroots and
it’s less neighborhood based, ‘cause that neighborhood, like you said, but
they–each institution takes on this work in different ways. [Um] And I
think St Kates is one of the best, I have to say. Yeah, so [um]...but, but
[false start] you know, it is different, and they don’t, they’re not based in
a neighborhood like we are and I think that has a lot to do with how we
do our work, because also it’s such an immigrant neighborhood. You
know, some schools are able to work with more [um] organizations that
are very [um] established and have volunteer coordinators, and have all
the, you know, everything in place. And in our neighborhood, we’re
dealing much more with [um] building, or you know [uh], working with
organizations to build their organization and don’t have all this, you
know, capacity with all these fancy volunteer coordinators and places that
have, you know. And so, we’re doing things much more directly, I think,
like, I’d say [um] you know, like we’re on committees to organize [false
start] Women’s Night Out at the Neighborhood Center, I’m on that
committee, I mean and I’m not saying other people don’t do that, but I
think it takes on the flavor of Augsburg, which is very informal and very
grassroots and, and I love that about this place. And then other places are
very sophisticated, and there are websites, and there, you know, how they
do things, and that’s another way to do things that is good but–
BB: It’s a different strength?
32.37
MT: Yeah, it’s a different strength, and-and so–but I do think we have–what
we have to offer is a, also, is a whole institution that gets around this. Some
people have offices that do that, you know specific offices that that’s their
job. Because of the-because of President Pribennow’s interests and because
of his attention to community [false start] we do it at all levels, I would say,
you know what I mean, every–and we have–someone did a report, actually
Doctor Andy Furco over at the U who’s a guru in this field, he had his
graduate students do this whole huge project on analyzing different offices
of community engagement around [false start] the Twin Cities, and the
students came up with, in the end, Augsburg lets a thousand flowers bloom,
that whole idea, it’s like we’re all over the place, we have a million
different things going on, and sometimes that’s good and sometimes it isn’t,
Time Log
but you, I think, because we allow–like for instance, first we brought
the Urban Debate League here, we brought the Center for Democracy
and Citizenship here, that does this, you know [false start] related but
other work, we brought, well, the Center for Global Ed. We have so
many different layers, and it’s the continuum and also the breadth and
the depth of this work is what’s I think really powerful. So [false start]
from the time students get here, to do SOAR, they’re grouped by
neighborhoods, you know? And so they get to know a neighborhood in
the city, and that’s how their [false start] their group is [um] the
identity of that group is a neighborhood. Then they do City Service
Day, the first day they get here, you know, and they’re involved with
the city and we say, this is how we, you know, this is how we do
education, as engaged with our city and our neighborhood. Then they
hopefully do Engaging Minneapolis, as part of their Aug-Sem, and and
they do [false start] hopefully a service-learning course [um], you
know, if a faculty member chooses. That’s part of, for me, that’s one of
the issues is that faculty and departments are able to choose whether
they’re going to have a service learning course or not, and I’m not
saying it should be mandatory, but I’m saying we should have more
courses with service learning components. And how to get that done is
the question. But [um] then students can, you know, do a really [false
start] an internship, a lot of times a paid internship a lot of times, which
is not that easy to find in a lot of places. They can do the Bonner
Program, and get involved in the community, and get paid their work
study dollars off-campus. Hopefully, they take advantage of HECUA,
the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs, which actually
started at Augsburg was one of the founding colleges, really important
[uh] experiential program based here in the Twin Cities, but it’s all
over the world. And then if they go through Center for Global Ed, then
they really got the whole deal, you know what I mean? And I think one
of the things we need to do more of is help students understand the
continuum, and that all these things are available, they’re all available,
but a lot of times, they don’t see them–and it’s hard to tell a student,
“Kay, these are all the kinds of experiences you can have.” But I think
it adds up to this–and then there’s the Augsburg Experience and the
Engaging Minneapolis part of the curriculum. And those happen in a
variety of different ways. But anyway, I think, I call it the Augsburg
Advantage because I see, you know, if you come in here as a first year
student, and you’re awake to all the possibilities, and you’re...and you
take them, it’s just this incredible [um] experiential-plus-goodacademic-rigor and the combination is just like...and also being in such
a diverse community as a student, not only on campus but off campus
right here. [Um] So, and that’s why I stay here, ‘cause I love this place,
Time Log
and I see each year us getting more engaged, and you know, I think it’s
the coll–really,I think it’s the college of the 21st century, because of
the focus on diversity, the focus on experiential, the focus on, [um]
you know, working with students of color, [um] and really having to
change because of [false start] how society is changing, like being
forced to in many different ways. And it’s not easy, and we’re
learning. I’m not saying it’s perfect, I’m saying we’re in the thick of it.
But I think a lot of colleges are going to have to get to this point, at
some point.
BB: You can’t be in a bubble anymore.
MT: Right.
BB: You have to actually engage with their communities on some
level.
MT: And you can go to–away to a place like St Olaf or Gustavus and
be in your little world and probably learn a lot but I don’t think you’re
probably ready for 21st [laughing] for the diversity of the world and
what it’s going to ask of you if you live in–especially if you live in an
urban environment. And most people will end up in urban places, so.
BB: So what do you think are some of the difficulties that you’ve
encountered in you’re 25 years here?
38.01
MT: Yeah, [um] I would say [false start] the biggest difficulty, and
continues to be, is, and I had this discussion with Tim–Professor Tim
Pippert in sociology this week, and I said, “Tim, what can I do,” and
I’m continuously trying to figure this out, “what can I do to get faculty
more engaged in this work?” And students, but mostly faculty. He
said, “Mary, what they need, you can’t give them,” and I said, “Wow,
what’s that?” “Time.” Time! They don’t have time to…[false start] and
this takes a lot of time, even with my support, [false start] and it’s a
different way of teaching, so, you know, we were, most of us, were
taught in a manner where the teacher stands up at the front of the room
and you know imparts some wisdom, right?
BB: Stand and deliver.
MT: Yeah, yeah, right exactly. And, so once the students are engaged
in the community, they’re learning from a different place, you know,
and it is an adjustment, but our faculty are very open to, I think, new
Time Log
methods of teaching, and so forth. But it’s more about...they don’t
[um] it takes time to figure these things out, it takes time to integrate
into your course, [um] they’re on a million different committees,
they’re learning to teach to different populations that they didn’t, you
know, there’s a whole myriad of [um] learning styles and students
whose first language wasn’t English growing up, all kinds of things
that make it harder to teach, I think. And they’re asked [false start]
their asked to do a lot outside the classroom. And so they’re also
learning how to do hybrid courses, which is whole new…yeah, so
that’s the hardest thing is that–students have the same issue. Students
are working 20, 40 hours a week to be able to go to college. They
have, so they have jobs, they have [um] lives, you know, outside–it
used to be, I think, at least when I was in school, I didn’t do much
besides go to school and then you know go home–
BB: Go home and study.
MT: –or party and hang out, you know? Like, it was like this whole
kind of experience of, it’s a [false start] four years of separation, from
the real world. That’s not true anymore. And [um] sometimes you
think, oh yeah right, they say “I’m busy,” you know? And then they
say, “Well, let’s get together,” and the open, students open their
calendar, and I’ll say, I’ll look through, you know, I mean they’ll just
say “Well, I have this, and then I have this,” and a lot of our students
are also either in music, which takes up three, four days a week, or
their in sports. A lot of–we have a lot of athletes, you know, and that
takes up every day of the week, especially in season. And those
seasons last three or four months. So, they have internships, they
have...I mean, it’s...well, you know ‘cause you’re a student, but it’s
like, this is amazing! So, that’s why I think the course-embedded is so
important. And it’s hard on students in some ways, because then they,
you know, they have to fit it in, but it’s in lieu of something else. And
I always tell the faculty, you can’t just plop this extra component on, it
has to be in lieu of some other huge project, that students are involved
in the community. But…
BB: ‘Cause you don’t want to add more to what they’re already
expected to do.
41.23
MT: Right, right, but you wanna add something that’s what would say
that that component is life-giving, it’s [um] it’s...it enlivens the
material, the classroom, it gets students out into the community,
understanding what’s going on in the world–a lot of our students
Time Log
know, I mean are already part of the community. Like, I’m sure your
life is like that. But some people’s lives, you know, and plus, if you’re
going to study education, well, be involved with education. If you’re
going to social work, if you’re going to study business, get involved
with the non-profit world around us. We have some of the most
interesting entrepreneurial businesses anywhere in Minnesota right
here in the neighborhood, you know. If you’re gonna be involved with
science, get–So, that’s what [um]...that’s why I think it’s important to
do and so do a lot of other people, make learning relevant. [BB
assents] Right? And plus the way the world is and the way [uh] and
how much our communities need us to understand what’s going on,
we can’t afford just to sit in classrooms all the…[laughing] I don’t
think! You know what I mean, just to sit around. And, okay, so,
anyway, this project that you’re doing is experiential. Like, you could
talk about in class how to do this. It would be very different than
actually what we’re doing in this very moment, you know, so. It
doesn’t always have to be, I would say, it’s not always about service,
although this is a service to the college, and maybe to someone in the
future, too, so.
BB: I would say so. And you have, I feel like, you have a lot to offer
to people who want to learn about this, so.
MT: Good.
BB: [Um] My last question [um] it’s kind of twofold: [um] what do
you see in the future for Augsburg and this community, and where do
you see yourself in five to ten years?
43.09
MT: Oh, good question. Well, I see Augsburg being more and more
[um] part of the community, I mean as far as that we can’t exist
without this community and this community can’t exist without us.
You know, that we’re just [false start] inextricable, that’s the right
word! And that [um] we find…my hope and my dream is that we find
more and more ways to engage with each other. Not in the idea that
we have something...that we have something to give each other, that
it’s not about, you know, like, we have all the knowledge here, and
we’re gonna tell you or help you. It’s more about, how are we going to
be together. Like, this [false start] Midnimo project at the Cedar
Culture Center is a good example. [Um] I don’t know if you’ve
encountered it much, but the Cedar got this grant to bring Somali
music to the neighborhood because [false start] after the Civil War in
Time Log
‘91 the musicians scattered all over the world, they didn’t have their
instruments, the bands broke up, [um] you know, and here in
Minnesota we’ve only had, you know, at weddings and things, some
Somali music where people are listening to tapes or lip synching or
doing. And so the idea was get these musicians from all over the
world. And so the Cedar’s done that, and they needed a higher ed
partner in order to make it happen. And they also needed to do
residencies with musicians in classrooms. And so, also Bob Stacke,
from the musc–the jazz band director for years, who just retired–
BB: Oh, he just retired?
MT: Yeah! Developed a band that understood the music and now is
the backup band for all these people coming that don’t have any
bands. They can–they have wonderful singers and maybe some
drummers and musicians but, so there’s this put together and
transcribed all the music [um] from tapes, you know, ‘cause there’s no
music, written music.
BB: That sounds very difficult!
MT: I know! [false starts] It’s going–some of our alums are doing it
too. It’s just amazing, and so, now we’ve contributed a ton back with
the community, and the students have learned about Somali music. So,
[um] so and as far as my own future, [um] in ten years hopefully I’ll
be retired [laughing]. No, I won’t be retired, but I’ll be redirected, I’ll
say no, redirected into, you know, and in the mean time, I’m not, I’m
not sure. Each year, I think, is this what I want to be doing, you know?
And it is, you know. I make this conscious decision, I don’t think, oh I
should just hang out here. You know, I say, am I valuable here? Am I
useful? And is this [false start] you know, is this good for my life?
And so far, that’s what...what [um]–and having this new Sisterhood of
the Traveling–’cause I’m a thrift fanatic, this has been a great addition
to my life. And I think college, life of the college and students, and
also the Cedar is [false start] I think my favorite cultural organization
in the Twin Cities. And so those two things have really revved it up for
me this year and last year. But [um] there’s always something coming
along–
BB: Yeah it sounds like it.
46.26
MT: –Yeah, my next project for the summer is working with [um] the
business department with Professor Marc McIntosh on [um] figuring
Time Log
out how business can get more involved with the [um] local [uh]
businesses and doing financial management and stuff with people near.
So, always a new project.
BB: That sounds, like, really exciting, like everything’s always moving
forward, everything’s always growing. And it’s always for the most
part good.
46.54
MT: Yeah, and consistent. And I have to say that I think, you know,
Paul Pribbenow’s been a huge gift to this community and to this
college, in his vision of where we’re going. and what we’re up to.
[Um] And when I really think about all the different steps we’ve taken,
it’s like he’s had a hand in almost every one of them. And, so, anyway,
I [um]...so I love this place, it’s been, you know, one of the greatest
joys of my entire life, is to have been here and to still be here and to be
able to be a part of this, because I think this place is on fire in the best
ways possible!
BB: Well, thank you for your time Mary, [um] thank you for allowing
me to conduct this interview, and hopefully we will hear a lot more
from you!
MT: Okay, great! Thank you!
Show less
Interview with Dave Wold
Interviewed on March 7, 2015
Augsburg College Oral History Project
Interviewed by Janet Meyer
Dave Wold- DW
Janet Meyer JM
Time Log
00.01 JM: This is Janet Meyer of the Augsburg College Oral History Project. I'm here to
interview Dave Wold about his experiences as ... Show more
Interview with Dave Wold
Interviewed on March 7, 2015
Augsburg College Oral History Project
Interviewed by Janet Meyer
Dave Wold- DW
Janet Meyer JM
Time Log
00.01 JM: This is Janet Meyer of the Augsburg College Oral History Project. I'm here to
interview Dave Wold about his experiences as Campus Pastor at Augsburg College.
We're at Pastor Dave's home in Arden hills, MN. Today is March 7, 2015. Thank you
for participating in this. Would you please start by giving us information about your
background and education?
00.35 DW: I was a preacher's kid so I lived in five different towns growing up. Born in
Wadena, MN. Lived there just briefly because my dad had just taken a call and moved to
Stephen's Point, WI. Had my pre-school years there and then to Red Wing MN where I
did elementary school and then Fort Worth, TX where I did junior high and part of high
school and then finished high school in St. PauL Went on to St. Olaf College and from
there to Luther Seminary. I served with my father for a few years. We said it was the
father and son looking for the Holy Ghost! And that was a wonderful experience and
then to a very large church in Golden Valley. I was actually always thinking I might go
to medical school so I was actually filling out what I needed in terms of medical courses
or pre-med courses at the U but then this opportunity came up. A rare opportunity as
they said to head the largest Lutheran youth program in the country and that was at a
church in Golden Valley. And then I was thinking again about maybe medical school or
graduate school and then another rare opportunity came up and that was to head our
denomination's youth program, and I did that for a few years but I was traveling 200 days
a year at least, and rd sometimes be well, at least in the summer 7, 8 or 9 weeks in East
Germany, wasn't even able to communicate with my family. One night one of my
daughters who was about 2 at the time, said to my wife "Is Daddy coming over tonight?"
and I knew, wow, that's kind of a wake-up call. And just about that time our
denomination which was the American Lutheran Church had voted to merge with another
denomination that's called Lutheran Church of America as well as the smaller group,
Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC) I think that was the name, which
was a break off from the Missouri Synod, and they were going to form the larger church
which is now ELCA so I knew this a time maybe to look at something else and somebody
just at that time said "I noticed there was an opening at Augsburg College for a college
pastor. Can I nominate you?" and I said "yes, you can nominate me." So I was
nominated and as happens with more positions at a college you have hundreds of people
apply and so I didn't take it as seriously as I maybe could have at the time but I went
through the interviews. It was extensive interviews, maybe half dozen committees I think
1
for a couple, three days and one thing led to the next and pretty soon I was called to be
college pastor at Augsburg.
04.02 JM: Great.
04.03 DW: And that was wonderful because I was able to be with my family every night at
least, even though the hours were long and there was always work to be done but I was in
town and that was a real blessing. So that's kind of my vocational journey, and then I
ended up being there 30 years.
04.36 JM:
Great. So what attracted you to the position?
04.40 DW: Well, I had ... I was thinking that I was going to go on to medical school or some
form of graduate school but I think probably because of the change in what was going on
with the denomination, the merger that was sort of what you call a kairos time to think
about something else because I knew I liked the Twin Cities, and the office was going to
be in Chicago and so I would have probably had to move if I would have continued in
that position, but also just because it's an educational institution it was, you know, very
exciting to think about being in a setting like that. I think most people have thought of
their college years as some of the best years of their life. Why not work in a college if
your best years are college years, why not make that a vocation? Plus the fact that it was
started for very a particular specific reason by Norwegian Lutherans.
06.03 JM:
The college?
06.04 DW: The college. To educate holistically, to have the intellectual, the physical and the
spiritual all in balance, and that's the genius of a Christian liberal arts college I think. I
went to one of them, St. Olaf, and my wife went to Concordia. We've had a lot of family
members, pretty much every family member has gone to one of those kind of schools, so
it's been part of our DNA I guess. In fact my great, great grandfather was one of the
founders of St. Olaf college so it's really part of our DNA. And a lot of family members
that have taught or worked at different Lutheran colleges.
07.00 JM:
Okay. So let's talk a little about the changes that you saw occur to Augsburg
over the 30 years from 1983 to 2013
07 .10 DW: I should just double check. Do you think it's loud enough? Do you need to
check?
JM:
07.19 DW:
It looks fine. Thank you.
I'll move a little closer just in case.
07 .25 JM:
It looks fine. So what was Augsburg like in 1983 versus now? Any systemic
changes, cultural changes ...
2
7 .36
DW: Yeah, I could even back up even further because when I was in high school,
Augsburg was pretty basic. In fact one of the famous stories was of Bernhard
Christensen. That he, as you know, is legendary in terms of his spirituality but also his
commitment to a city, so Augsburg has always had a commitment to the city. Except
maybe the first years when they came, and they were considered farm land because the
center of the city was really at St. Anthony Falls and this was on the outskirts of town
when you didn't have to make a commitment to a city. Bernhard Christensen was dating
his wife, I don't know the exact details but maybe she was being brought in for an
interview or, She used to tell the story. Anyway they went on a ride. She wanted to see
Augsburg College and it was a long, long ride, and she said, "Well, are we ever going to
get to Augsburg?" and he said, "Oh, well we went by it half an hour ago but I didn't
really want to point it out because it's such a humble place." [Dave laughs] Augsburg has
never pretended to blow people away with its facilities. It has adequate facilities but in a
small campus like that you can't show yourself off much.
So in high school they had just a tremendous basketball team and in those days
the Minneapolis Lakers had already moved to Los Angeles. There was no professional
hockey, so it was the front page of every sports section because of the tremendous
basketball team and you'd have to get to the gym a couple hours early sometimes just to
get a seat. and we would come as a team as many basketball players would do, and in
those days basketball was kind of king. and it was just the rocking place. They had a big
master plan down in the basement of Melby Hall. Melby Hall had just been built and it
was exciting to see the student center, now Christensen Center, the two tower dorms
were going to be built and all those things. Because at that time it was only Old Main,
the science hall which still is the science hall, the library just is around that other 'L' part
and then the Memorial Hall which was a dormitory at that time. Then I think across the
street actually from the gym, Melby Hall, was another dormitory. It also might have been
used by some of the nursing students that were from St. Olaf that got part of their training
at Fairview. But in between were just a lot of houses and of course Murphy Square
which is still there. So it was not a real impressive place. When I came in '83 of course
Christensen Center existed, the tower dorms existed. The music hall had just been built.
In fact our denomination had some fingers in part of the building there. I don't know
exactly what the arrangement was but that they would use the Sateren auditorium for
some things so we came over and used that for showing of films and things like that.
And then the old building, which is now tom down, was supposed to be very temporary.
It was just a cinder block building which was first a student center then became the art
building and then it was a bunch of offices. Very energy inefficient they discovered, so
they tore it down. Now it's just a parking lot right next to the music building, between
the music building and Melby Hall. So there were not all that many buildings. Charles
Anderson was president at that time, but in 1983 it was pretty lean, a pretty lean time for
Augsburg. The numbers, the admission numbers were down significantly in '82 and '83
and they had to look for alternative ways to raise revenue. Because you know Augsburg
has never had a large endowment, you're "tuition driven" so the idea of weekend college
came up and that's when they started weekend college with a guy named Rick Thoni who
is what I call Augsburg's magician. He was able to create a very large number of
attending weekend college. I think at one time it was 1,500 maybe.
3
13 :30 JM:
That's a lot.
13 .34 DW: Yeah. Then when he became vice-president of enrollment management he
developed some other programs, scholarship programs especially brought in some, a
wonderful new batch of students and then when he went to Rochester to start the
Rochester program again he created magic so at least three times in Augsburg's career,
Rick Thoni has kind of been the savior of Augsburg college, and I just have the most
admiration of him of all people. He's just a wonderful hard working guy.
So weekend college was cranking up, the numbers were starting to come back
again. Right at that time, just about the time I started, just a little bit before, a fellow by
the name of Julian Foss, who had gone to Augsburg Academy, not Augsburg College but
Augsburg Academy which was a high school, came on campus along with Sig
Hjelmeland in the Development Office and he said where's the chapel? And they said we
really don't have a chapel. There had been a chapel space which is now the art studio in
Old Main. That was the chapel for the old Augsburg College and Augsburg Academy
probably. Julian Foss had been successful in investing in particularly in Nike shoes. He
said, "Well I'm willing to give quite a significant amount of money to have you build a
center which would be a worship center, a theater as a part of it and a communication
center as part of it." He wanted all three in one and that was the beginning of the
thinking of what's now Foss Center and so right after I started, we formed a committee
and they asked if I would be on it. Of course I would as chaplain. The chair of the
committee was the dean at the time, Richard Green. Richard Green took another position
almost immediately so that meant the president came to me and asked if I would chair the
committee. It was a great honor but also a little bit sensitive because I was representing
one of the three interests that were going into the building. But it was something I did
accept, and we had a hard working committee for five years to put that building together.
We would have very early meetings. I think sometimes as early at 6:30 but often at 7:00
every Tuesday. The first part was just developing a charter so that it would talk about the
usage of the building and primary to that, so we had representatives from the faculty out
of different departments, representing theater, communications, religion and then other
disciplines as well. And the charter essentially ended up saying that this building is
primarily for Augsburg students. That is a wonderful statement and a commitment to
who we're about and we made some strong statements about our Christian liberal arts
heritage and continuation of that. I think over the years that's kind of been lost because
anytime that you can see this as an opportunity to raise revenue, rent the space and things,
you can kind of forget about those things. The biggest problem became putting the three
spaces together because for worship purposes you want spaciousness and light, for
theater purposes you want smallness, intimacy and darkness. So for a couple of years
really we were trying to do things together. Well I should even back up. I thought a
model of this would be at two places because as all of the architects made their proposals
as to who we should select, I studied carefully the buildings that each had done. I liked a
couple of spaces that Sovik, Mathre, Sathrum, Quanbeck and Schlink from Northfield
had done on 2 sister college campuses, one St. Olaf and one Concordia. Concordia had
the Centrum, a gathering place. The chapel was primary to it but they had other things
there, banquets, etc. It was a part of the college center there. I think dances and other
things like that. They had a nice balcony wrap-around there. And at St. Olaf they had a
4
similar space called the Urness Recital Hall and that was a part of the music building
where recitals were held as well as small concerts. We would visit different sites that the
architects were proud of. We were invited down to St. Olaf and we had lunch there and
then in the afternoon had our meetings in that Urness Recital Hall and after the afternoon
meeting we said this is what will work for us. So we chose Sovik, Mathre, Sathrum,
Quanbeck and Schlink, and Terry Schlink became our architect and he was an Augsburg
grad.
19.43 JM:
Oh, that's good.
19.47 DW: Actually the Quanbeck in that firm was also an Augsburg grad, Robert
Quanbeck. He was the brother of Phil Quanbeck, Sr. who was a very Augsburg
distinguished Augsburg faculty member. Now his son, Phil Quanbeck II is on the faculty
in religion. So there's a strong Augsburg connection to that firm, and it was really fun
working with them. But I think it was two years into the planning when we said, you
know it's just not going to work to combine these because worship needs more space and
more light; theater needs more intimacy; and communication changes by the day so this
was going to be hard to have a communications center there. So we separated the spaces
by expanding the practice theater and making it a big black box. We figured if you
needed proscenium ... we had all kinds of reasons for that because we would have had a
hydraulic stage what would go up for thrust stage and do down for orchestra pit and
proscenium. We had all kinds of things that would have worked but then we talked to ...
like people from Luther who said well we have a hydraulic stage like that too but
whenever the air conditioning is on it doesn't work--it freezes. So there are reasons why
we were a little hesitant in going that route. It would have been a beautiful concept, but
then how were our theater students going to get the experience on a proscenium stage?
Well there were 7 theaters within walking distance of Augsburg College. They could
choose any one of them for those types of theater experiences and that's once again the
advantage of being in the Twin Cities. And of course Minneapolis is second only to, or
the Twin Cities, is second only to New York for theater seats. There were lots of
opportunities, and then Communications has their own wing, the TV studio and things
like that so that. And the big question was, would the donor go for that? and that was the
job of Charles Anderson and he handled it beautifully. And when the day of the
dedication came Julian Foss could not have been more pleased with what turned out so I
think it was a beautiful building. There were lots of bridges to cross like would we put a
basement in or would it just be ground floor like the music building. Would be go tile? or
put carpet in? Well, we spend a dollar and a dollar, because we knew that a college
building gets a lot of use, and it might have to last a couple hundred years. And it's
proven to be a very, very welcoming building and worked really nicely and people love
it. Hillary Clinton has been there twice for various reasons in that space. She really
loves that space. She has used that for a hearing once when her husband was elected
president and she was in charge of looking at changes to the medical plans.
23 .25 JM:
The health care?
5
23 .26 DW: Yeah, the health care and so she used Augsburg as a Twin Cities spot for that.
We've had senate debates and governor debates. Lots of nice opportunities, great
concerts, of course Chapel every day.
That might be a good segue. Let's talk about campus ministries and chapel.
23.42 JM:
However you'd like to describe ... what's the role of campus ministries?
24.00 DW: Yeah well it is a good segue because there was no chapel building so chapel met
three days a week and it was in the gymnasium, Melby Hall. One third of that could be
sectioned off, you could pull a curtain, pull an altar out and they could pull out the
bleaches, or it could be at Sateren auditorium, or the cafeteria. We used the cafeteria
eventually most of the time because it was right in the center of campus, and that was all
before we moved into the new building. But we were only meeting 3 days a week. I
think Augsburg College is probably the only college in the country that actually added
chapels, chapel services. So we went to 5 days a week and that was by unanimous vote
of the faculty back in 1988. Probably 1987, a year before we moved in '88. and that's
sort of unheard of because even some of our sisters colleges, Lutheran colleges even took
like a day away so they might have 4 day chapel or 3 day chapel, but we went from 3 to 5
which I think is quite remarkable. Obviously Augsburg, given it's profile, it's
demographics, there's a lot of commuters so a lot of people just kind of come in and go
out according to their class because they also have jobs to go to so it's not a residential
community as such. We could back up again and say since '83 they've built a number of
new residence halls so you have Anderson Hall, you have what's now Luther Hall, they
used to call it new hall. They should have said instead of N-E-W, they should have used
G-N-U then they could have celebrated some of the animals that run around Africa.
(Laughs) and then of course over at Oren Gateway there's residential space. So that was
in an effort, again kind of a Rick Thoni idea to bring more students to create a campus
community. But one ofmy thoughts was okay, if we're not going have a community
every day at 10:20, or 11 :20 on Tues and Thurs in those days, we need to create
communities elsewhere so I, we, put a lot of effort into our presence in other places. I
would like to, I tried to eat at the cafeteria almost every day, and I got to know people
that way and hear their needs and become a part of various communities that way. We
got invited to a lot of communities. But particularly in the athletic community we became
important. One of the big changes -- there was no football field, no athletic field when I
came but again Jeroy Carlson and some of his friends (Jeroy is who we call Mr.
Augsburg) and he was once I think in charge of alumni then he became a fundraiser and
he's the guy that raised most of the money for a lot of the projects there like the Lindell
Library, the athletic field and things like that. They figured that they could by tearing a
couple of houses down and refiguring a couple of things, they could get an athletic field
and they did. So they were playing their football games, and I think maybe soccer too, at
Parade Stadium downtown. so we suddenly had a football field and they needed an
announcer so they asked if I'd be the announcer so I was and I still am actually the
announcer for football, basketball and wrestling. And I would meet with the team before
the home games and we'd have a devotional time and that goes on to this day with a guy
named Mike Magson who now is part time at Augsburg as the chaplain to athletes and
also is working as a strength coach and he's a pastor across the freeway now at Bethany
6
Lutheran Church. So we had many opportunities to meet with the athletic teams on their
turf. A lot of them came to chapel on the days of their games or the day before their
games too, so there's a real symbiotic relationship with athletics and that was again in the
concept of--okay, if not everybody has the opportunity to come to chapel every day, we
can create chapels for them around the campus. So that is a long way of saying how
Augsburg is probably unique in their campus ministry than a lot of other colleges.
29.43 JM:
Okay, that's a great point.
29.50 DW: I sometimes judge things by how many references I'm asked to write per year and
how many weddings I'm asked to do, and you know I could easily do 400 to 500
references a year for students that were going on to graduate school or summer jobs and
things like that and weddings -- you know one time I just counted how many I could have
done in one summer and I think it was 4 7 or 48 in just one summer and so you know it
was as a result of entry into the worlds of students that might not automatically wind their
way over to the chapel.
30.38 JM:
So you took chapel to them.
30.40 DW:
Basically, yeah, I kind of ... food truck, chapel truck. [Dave smiles]
30.49 JM:
One more question before we leave the ministry topic. How does a Lutheran
college find ways to be inclusive of all religious beliefs?
31.03 DW: Yeah well I think there's different slants to Lutheranism and especially as you
look at the different countries that have been representing Lutheranism. You know you
look at Northern Europe in particular -- I'll try to not draw this out, because I could talk
about this for hours because a lot of Lutherans have not been very receptive to
everybody. Because in Norway there's so many valleys, some people have gotten so used
to living in their own valley and using their own dialect and things like that, that they
didn't see any need to be inclusive, but Lutheran theology really is based on grace and
openness and acceptance. God's unearned love and favor is the definition of grace. I
think I look at Luther's explanation to the third article which is the explanation to the
third part of the creed which is about the Holy Spirit and it goes like this: "I believe I
cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to
him but the Holy Spirit calls me through the gospel, enlightens me with gifts, sanctifies
and keeps me in true faith. In the same way he calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies
the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it united with Jesus Christ in the one true
faith." and then it goes on a little bit more. But basically I think the way we as Lutherans
operate is we say we cannot coerce people through formulas, religious formulas or
whatever but if we allow people to have the gospel in their hands, the gospel calls us, so
called through the gospel. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the more amazing Lutherans
of course he was killed standing up to Hitler --- martyred and he chose to go back to, you
know the whole story, to Germany after having kind of a nice position in New York. In
his Letters and Papers from Prison there's a point towards the end that said maybe
7
sometimes I tried to push the gospel on people or to coerce people but the gospel can
stand on it's own and I think that's the approach that Lutherans, okay we can be very
open, we respect people where they stand, but we also allow because of being a
confessional church, we gather around the confessions, things we agree on and that things
we don't agree on you know the gospel can inform us all. We're all in a kind growth
pattern in our faith so I think Augsburg has been by and large been pretty good at being
accepting and non-judgmental of the way you do your religion, your faith, your
spirituality. I don't know if that answered the question.
34.42 JM:
I think it did. What, if any, influence does the location of Augsburg in the CedarRiverside neighborhood impact what you just said about the mix of cultures or
ethnicities?
35.04 DW: Yeah, being a kid that went to a inner city high school in St. Paul, I guess I've
thought of Augsburg as being a part of an even broader community and certainly the
Cedar-Riverside communities are important but you look at the Philips. We built a home
in the Philips with Habitat for Humanity one year in conjunction with some agencies and
churches there and that's a very large native American community. I've heard probably
the largest collection of Native Americans in even the Midwest even more so than some
reservations. But then you go to St. Paul and you have the Hmong population, which is
second largest only to California; the Liberians, largest population or concentration in the
country, so the profile of the Twin Cities since 1983 has changed from I think less than
5% of the population, I think significantly less than 5%, to I think I heard the other day to
17 or 18% maybe even 19% of the population. That has been primarily of course in the
Twin Cities. So yes Cedar-Riverside is one part of it but it goes far beyond that. And the
students have done remarkable things with finding their ways into the various
communities with Cedar-Riverside being primary, with Seward also. We used to have
something called Ministries on the Mississippi and it was the churches of CedarRiverside, Seward and over on the university campus. So we would have University of
Minnesota Campus Ministries, Lutheran Campus Ministries, the Lutheran chaplains from
University hospitals, University Church of Hope, Grace Church on the university
campus, we had Bethany, we had Augsburg and we had Trinity that worships at
Augsburg and a couple other entities also so that brought 3 basic communities together.
We did some projects and things like that together for quite a few years.
37.58 JM:
What kinds of projects?
37.59 DW: It was probably more things about ... well we did Lenten worships, you know
the worshipping type things together, but we did kind of social things, trips down the
river and things like that, kind of celebrating the river. I think maybe there were some
Habitat things going on. Some youth, you know combined youth activities and it's been
a while since.
38.45 JM:
That's okay.
8
38:47 DW: Addressing some young adult issues as young adults would come to the Twin
Cities. We had a young adult transition center. I actually created that where we had a
couple, three houses on our campus and young adults who would come to the Twin Cities
could live there for a short period of time as they were being transitioned in the Cities,
and then we would once a week have activities for them at night. One of the unique
things about Augsburg is that we are flexible to try so many things. And sometimes
things work and sometimes things don't. There were environmental things along the river
there. Lots of different . . . some food programs. I remember Thanksgiving dinners for
the community. That was at Bethany. Between housing and food and environmental
things, there were lots of things going on.
40.11 JM: So the young adult transition center ... they were not students?
40.16 DW:
No, not students.
40.18 JM:
They were just neighborhood .. .
40.20 DW: Yeah, people coming in from ... Winner, SD would have a chance to have a
place to live for two or three months.
40.30 JM:
Until they got their feet on the ground. That's very nice. So you were involved in
the Urban Basketball. Would that fit in with what you were describing?
40.46 DW: Yeah that would be another thing.
40.52 JM: It was a tournament? Do you want to describe it?
40.54 DW: We started ... one of the things I did, I gathered youth professionals, I called
them professionals because they could be pastors or youth directors, once a month for
what we called the youth ministry round table. And that was right away when I started.
There's also a guy named Jim Grubs who had a youth background. He was with Young
Life organization and I had been more focused on the churches. So we brought in people
that might help illumine the people who were in youth ministries in their job. And out of
that I saw all of these church gyms. Back in the '80's I counted, of just our denomination,
I think there were about ... oh I'd better not even say the number but I think 30 some
church gyms and a lot of them were not being used on Sunday afternoons. So we
gathered these youth professionals, a lot of them had been a part of our round table, and
said let's see what we can do to start a league because so many young people have
learned to love basketball. For instance in the particular area where I lived there's a
thousand kids playing in the basketball association but by the time we get to high school
we only have a handful, so what about all those others that have learned to love
basketball? Maybe we could do some things in the church. So that was, you know, we
had a thousand kids playing.
9
42.32 JM:
That's amazing.
42.35 DW: Sunday afternoons for January and February and then we'd have the big
tournament in March at Augsburg. So it was always a big fiesta. It was a great, great,
yeah I think it's scaled back a bit now but I think its still going.
42.53 JM:
Do you think that increased Augsburg's visibility among those ... ?
42.57 DW: Yeah, it was a great relationship, great thing for the community because they were
primarily city churches. There was a nice mix of suburban and city because some of the
suburban churches had beautiful gyms. It was a nice mixture. Not without problems.
Anytime you're in competition, lots of funny things can happen.
43.19 JM:
Like what?
43 .22 DW: Well you know people think that winning is the most important thing. So we had a
whole different set of rules. We had equal playing time so everyone had to get equal
playing time. We started with devotions, ended with devotions and prayer. We had
service projects that were highly emphasized. We tried to build them in to every team
concept. But occasionally people took the game a little too seriously, so we kept
addressing that, but a lot of ... there's a lot of benefits for the students. You know, we
would ... when the tournament went on we would have 100 some Augsburg students
running it and a lot of them were involved during the season too as gym managers and
coaches and refs and things like that.
44 .21 JM:
It sounds like a big deal.
44.23 DW: It was tremendous thing. A lot of those kids came to Augsburg because they were
introduced to Augsburg.
44.36 JM:
That's what I was thinking. Well good, that sounds like a very good program. So
now focusing on you and your career there. What would you describe or could you tell
me about some of the challenging times in the 30 years from 1983 to 2013.
44.56 DW: I think the biggest challenge is people that don't totally understand the genius of a
Christian liberal arts college and there are people that come in--1 think now they're trying
to address it, at least on the faculty side--by having a mission committee. So if a faculty
member is interviewing, they also are being interviewed by the mission committee, so
they will understand what it means to be a part of Augsburg College knowing it's heritage
as a Christian liberal arts school but there are people that come in and they have a whole
different model in mind and that would not include the spiritual component. So that
manifests itself in different ways and that's another many hour conversation.
46.06 JM:
Okay. so that's what the mission committee ... their task? to introduce the new
faculty to ... help me understand ...
10
46.15 DW: That's the mission committee and I think it still exists. So if a prospective faculty
member is interviewing, they also are being interviewed by the Mission Committee.
46.28 JM:
For the spiritual aspect?
46.30 DW: Just to understand not just the spiritual aspect but the whole mission of the
college.
46.37 JM: And what is the mission of the college?
46.40 DW: Well the mission would subscribe to the Mission Statement and that has changed
over the years. The current Mission Statement I think is different under this
administration. Each administration changes that.
46.57 JM:
Sure I understand. So that was one of the challenges. Anything else that comes
to mind? over 30 years I'm sure there must have been a lot.
47.14 DW: I can say ... I still don't sleep through the night because I was interrupted ... for
30 years I was interrupted pretty much every night and sometimes many times a night.
For the crises ...
47.29 JM. Phone calls?
47.30 DW: Phone calls or running to the hospital because of an accident or something like
that ... was trying to harm themselves or something like that so it was ...
JM:
So you had a role of a counselor.
47.46 DW: Um-hmm. Dealing with ... there's a lot of bad stuff that happens on a city
college campus or any college campus. lot of things that were ...
[phone ringing in background]
48.19 DW:
You might want to turn that off.
[Pause]
48.29 DW:
Sorry about that.
48.30 JM:
That's all right. All right and then the rewarding experiences over 30 years.
11
48.37 DW: Well, there were rewarding experiences every day. First of all, it's just a
stimulating place to be and you learn something new every day. The people that I met
were gifts, so many were gifts. I can't say everyone but ... it was just amazing ... [Dave
noted a scene out the window and asked Janet to take a look outside.] It was you know
some amazing stories and to see that many were going from point A to point Z.
48.34 JM:
The students?
48.36 DW: The students. in terms of intellectual, physical and spiritual development. There's
just ... I just heard in the last 24 hours from a couple. One was a person who lived on
the streets, now getting a PhD.
50.00 JM:
Excellent.
50.02 DW:
And had no high school degree. Just kind of amazing stories.
Well, Ithink we'll wrap it up here shortly. What do you think ... two more
50.15 JM:
questions: how is the perspective of a pastor different (of the students). How is the
perspective of the students different than that of the faculty or the administration?
50.33 DW:
How is the perspective ... from the pastor's standpoint you mean?
50.39 JM:
Yeah.
50.41 DW: Well, I was in a unique position and I think all college pastors and Lutheran
college pastors are really in a position of neutrality. You are considered faculty but
you're also considered administration. You're kind of, you have a foot in both but you
can be a listening ear. You can also at times also be a, take a prophet role if you see that
something needs to be challenged or spoken to, some issue, some injustice. Essentially
it's a difficult position at times when somebody comes to you with an issue about a
faculty member that's ... it's a safe place to come but then it becomes very difficult to
know exactly how to resolve everything. There are processes mostly in place but not
always. There are people I discovered over the years who just have an axe to grind with
religion and they have a found a way to probably direct their hostility towards a chaplain
because of that.
52.30 JM:
That must be hard.
52.33 DW:
It's not been without pain. But it's 97% joy.
That's great. And then last question: what would you consider your legacy that
52.46 JM:
you left at Augsburg?
52.54 DW: That's a good question. One of the things I learned from my father who learned
from his father is that the most important thing a person possesses is their name. And I
worked hard at trying to know people's names. When I say worked hard, it wasn't
12
working hard, I basically ... in the early years we had directories and then because of
confidentiality issues and things like that, they eliminated that. But there are still ways
you can get pictures and know who people are through electronic devices through IT,
through programs, athletic programs, etc. So I would pray for students systematically,
regularly, every day, every morning, every night.
54.03 JM:
Great.
54.13 DW: You can learn people's names that way too [Dave smiles] so you're not only
praying for them you're also learning their names. It's hard to be angry with people when
you know their name because you know they have a name and they have a mother, and
they are a child of God and they're on this earth for a reason and they all have been given
gifts and there's just that. You can see potential, you can see the good in every individual
because of that. It was fun to watch the potential emerge into full blown action. I guess
that would be one of the things. I maybe would say grit. There were easier jobs in the
world. I was offered many jobs along the line that would have paid me considerably
more but it just seemed like it was a rare opportunity again. Some people call it vocation,
some people call it a calling but I think that whole thing has gotten a little bit confusing
because they've used it so much. There are rare opportunities that come along and this
was a rare opportunity for me and it was one that I really loved.
56.08 JM:
Ok, anything you'd like to add about your experience that we haven't discussed.
56.16 DW: Let me look. You know Advent Vespers is kind of an amazing thing. I'd maybe
like to tell you a little bit about that.
JM:
Okay.
56.31 DW: That started in 1980 and I came in 1983 so three of them had gone on before and a
guy named Larry Fleming was the genius behind that. He had been at Valparaiso and he
had also been at Concordia as a director of one of the choirs up there. But he had this
idea that you could, because of Central Lutheran Church (which is just a magnificent
structure), that they could maybe do something unique at Augsburg. So I was basically
in on the ground floor, three years had gone before but there were only 2 services, maybe
even one at one time, and people were just starting to get the word about it. There was a
lot of movement with the choirs around the space but then the liturgy became a very
important part of it. Developing a theme was one of my challenges along side the people
directing the choirs or in charge of that aspect of it. They had many choir directors
usually involved but we saw it grow to three, and then to four, and now to five services.
Because we have a theme, using that setting and really focusing on and allowing the
gospel to speak, called by the gospel again, I just have seen countless number of people
who have really understood the gospel in different ways, in new ways. So many people,
so many pastors and choir directors called me and asked, "Can I use this reading?", "Can
we use this for our Christmas service?" and things like that because this is the first
weekend in December. That was really something that I was always doing as I was
reading and looking for things that I could use to kind of tie things together with the
13
music as we develop the theme. That was a pure joy and maybe hopefully that's part of a
legacy too because it's real easy to have a concert--most colleges have a concert--but this
is a service. Many people wanted to have a concert but it's a service. It still is a service.
And when you speak about legacy I think you look at Augsburg and it's because of the
legacy of so many amazing people who I knew about in high school--just because you
hear Augsburg College and you heard about names that went along with that. Probably
more so than any other college, it's that relation ... when you hear about St. Thomas,
maybe you hear the same thing, but I think Augsburg is unique with the names that have
built the place and just the traditions and just the connections. One of the other persons I
just heard from this week is a doctor who with her husband, who is also a doctor, and
with another group of doctors are establishing a whole health system in Burundi. They
had to learn the language and they just felt called to do that. They are really making a
difference in this world. It is just amazing to see how people have really impacted the
world and maybe it would have happened in another place but I think it was Augsburg
and just kind a sense of what you should do with that education allows people to do those
sorts of things.
1.00.47 JM:
That's a nice summation. Anything else?
1.00.53 DW:
The Bunch of Guys Chorus. That's still going strong and people love it and that's
created a lot of . . .
1.01.02 JM:
Tell me how that started. Was that your idea?
1.01.05 DW:
Well, so often at athletic events you'll have a soloist who sometimes may not
realize ... they might forget the words or they might try to make a performance out of it,
or they play a tape. And one day, 25 years at least maybe more, I thought to myself, it's
real privilege to sing the national anthem. Why don't I just invite, especially because I
was doing male athletic events, any guy in the audience who wanted to do that. Now I
had set this up so I'd have a few good singers and pretty soon a lot of people who had
never sung in their life came and joined us and just the thrill of singing the national
anthem is amazing.
1.02.04 JM:
Do you sing along with music?
1.02.09 DW:
It's two part music, and I bring them down and they come around me. On the
football field they go down on the field with a remote mike. Then at basketball and
wrestling they just come and surround me at the table but it ... we've had as many as 200
guys (that would be a record) but you know usually it's a dozen guys or something like
that, you know for football it would be more than that. But it's a powerful thing and it's
really--especially for veterans who have served the country to be able to do--is really a
neat thing to see. And for younger ones that join in, they have a sense of the magnitude
of what a national anthem is about.
1.03.10 JM:
Do you still do that?
14
Show less
Interview Transcript
CC - The following interview was conducted with Robert Stacke on behalf of the Public
History 300 class's oral history project for the Augsburg College archives. It took place
on March 14,2015 at Augsburg College. The interviewer is Caitlin Crowley. So you can
just star... Show more
Interview Transcript
CC - The following interview was conducted with Robert Stacke on behalf of the Public
History 300 class's oral history project for the Augsburg College archives. It took place
on March 14,2015 at Augsburg College. The interviewer is Caitlin Crowley. So you can
just stare your background and education and the daGs.
RS - Okay, so my background is that I went to Augsburg College 66-71 and got my
bachelors degree in music and came back and did music education for 1971 and then
taught for a bunch ofyearc, werfi to Saint Thomas, got my masters. Taught for a bunch of
years and then went to the U and got my doctorate. And in between I always played
drums and sometimes stopped teaching and played drums at different places in
Maracaibo and Symphony Orchestra and Chanhassen Dinner Theater but I've always
liked to teach, so that's my backgrormd. Always music.
CC - Tell me about your time as a student at Augsburg
RS - It was a fi.rn time. I had a good time.
CC - What drew you to shrdy at Augsburg?
RS - The music program. I went to a camp at big sandy lake, a music camp, when I was
in eighth $ade. One of the faculty members was a pianist. We did Rhapsody in Blue and
from then oq I was coming to Augsburg.
CC - What was Augsburg like when you went there? Do you remernber the name of the
p,resident ofthe college or some ofyour professon' names?
RS - Oh sure, of course. Charlie Anderson was the president of the college then and he
was a great guy and, Oscar Andersoru excuse me. And he was super personable and
always engaged with the students. Kinda at the forefront ofa lot of different issues. Then
it was more a gender issue than racial issues but he was always at the forefront to get
more equality between men md women. A wonderfirl sense of humor, the president.
Could raise money. He loved the arts. He was just a fantastic guy. I had a lot of
interaction with him and totally enjoyed him. The school then, yea[ it was a tumultuous
time during the 60s and I think Augsburg really fred well. It was a place of good values
and ideals and charging ahead. They did a lot.
CC - Did your family background draw you to Augsburg College? A lot of pmple who
went to Augsburg were Norwegian or Lutheran in background.
RS - Na[ none ofthat. My mother's from Australia. My dad was a merchant sailor...met
her in Aushalia, went back to sea She came over here. After two years ofnot seeing hinl
and they got maried. And I'm the son of a sailor. So yea[ my heritage is IrishAustralian.
CC - Not at all Norwegian or Lutheran.
RS - Not even close.
CC - So you graduaed with a degree in music education. What kinds of classes did you
take?
RS - Basically the same thing that we have the students do now. You have your core
curriculum with theory, music history, per:formance studies, and playing in ensemble and
then all the gen. edsjust history and I had Don Gustafson who I adorcd.
CC - Was he a history professor?
RS - Yeah uh huh.
CC - What kind of history did you take?
RS - World hisory. And he just rctircd last year with me but he was around a lot longer
than I was. He was a geat guy. But he was a wonderfrrl teacher and I remember him
very, very well. We had really dynamic folks I remember all of my English teachers and
music teachers and all the sorts of things that we did in the deparhnent. And the
curriculum in the music deparhnent really hasn't changed much. Its standard fare across
the world, really. The core curriculum. And I think one of the things that was really
interesting here was tlla;t jan was the taboo music. And the world. Because it was the
devils own music or you just made it up and everything, so the better things I did as a
student and a teacher is we started a jazz band when I was a shrdent here. Ilwasn't really
sanctioned. We had to practice in the middle of the night and we'd find ways into the
music building, which was an old chrrch in those dayg to practice. Wrote our own
music, which is fantastic. It was one of those things that was forced on us because there
was no budget for music and so we wrote our own and the bmd director at the time Mayo
Savold really championed us and la us perfomr on tlrc band concert. So we started kind
of a jezz program here and some singers like we have with our jive or gospel praise
singers and Jim Lindstrom was a choir mernber and he did the vocal and I did the
insfumental and then when I came back we put it all back together again. We built i! and
im really proud of the jazz program.
CC - What were some of those people's names just so.. .
RS - Oh the band director was Mayo Savold. M-A-Y-O Savold, and the actual rehearsal
room is named after him, and Lee Sateren, Leland Sateren was the departsnent chair and
theory teacher. He's the one I mid that played at that music camp. Small group of people
but very influential on so many ofus.
CC - So you think slowly people started to accept jazz a little more as a valid form of
music at Augsburg?
RS - Yealu it took forever. Like, when I first started lrcre to get jazz history it took forn
times through acadernic affairs committee because they didn't thinl they couldn't see
how that was diverse or worthwhile music. And this was, I'm talking, 25 years ago so all
those people ae long since not here but it was a real battle to get that kind of music into
the curriculurn.
CC - So was that difficult for you as far as study abroad Fograms too, related ta jaz?
RS - By then things changed really quicHy and it's never been a barrier, in fact it's been
a plus now. We feel that we forged ahead. Like, for instance there was this thing called a
music educators association and I was president ofthe jaz association of it. Well they let
me come in but I couldn't vote because jazz qzs5o'1 u legitimate music. I mean, for real, it
was like, 'No you can come but you don't, you can't vote trecause you're a joz
musician."
CC - You're a citizen without suftage.
RS - That's right. Oh yeah it was really ba4 some racial things too, just awfrrl because
they associated jaz-z with African Americans and we really battled a long time with
different things.
CC - Do you think that the college being diversified had anything to do with jazz being
slowly accepted?
RS - No, I think just the times. We were always a diverse camprts. Not to the extent that
we are now but it would reflect the city pretty well. It wasn't a place where you just came
and it was just all Norwegians or white folks. Even back then we wanted to have more
diversity I remember always saying that we we should just look across the freeway here
at groups of people and say we should be recruiting within our area And, of course, we
do now. It was always a goal of Augsburg to become part of the crty and to show the
diversity of the city. Even back then.
CC So has Augsburg's music program always worked with people around the
-
RS - Yeah I think we did. At least in my experience. We would bning it guest artists like
we have down here today like people from Cuba p,racticing and people over at cedar
cultural center with all the Somali population. Back then it was more African American
jazz musicians that we had contact with and we'd bring in some of the great players but I
think we've always reflected our community well. I'm proud of this place.
CC - Did you meet anyone at Augsburg that changed your life?
RS - Yeah, my wife.
CC - Okay, you should tell me about, like how did you meet your wife here?
RS - Band.
CC - In band?
RS - Yeah, stre was a drummer too.
CC - Oh I didn't know that.
RS - Yeah. So, yep we met in band. I was a couple years older. She
right out here on
the comer right outside my office. So we juS dafed and got married the first week after
graduation.
CC - Wow. And how long have you been married now?
RS - Forty yearq something? Yes.
CC - So you alrcady told me a little bit about this but can you tell me how Augsburg was
different than it is now?
RS - You know. That's a searching question because I've always just felt a part of a
continuum here and I think its evolved in so many good directions faster than a lot of
things have evolved and I've always found that a place of values within having people
when I recruit and when I went here and when I brag about the school and its are you a
Lutheran school and yes we are a Lutheran school but everybody feels welcome here and
I would my that even in the chapel, yeall we have religious ceremonies in the chapel but
I don't care, it's about values more than it is about a certain denomination or certain
religion its that everybody should feel welcome in our chapel. The values system of
Augsburg was wonderfirl when I went herre. I mean people were protected and I just
-
remember it would when people (were) partying too much or getting drunk or
whatever...you know they'd take care of them it wasn't like oh look here's a narc you
know or whatever and people for the most part took care of each other. And same thing
with the social issueg if someone's being bullied or the racially discriminated against I
always felt the community came together and said no we're not gonna tolerate that and I
think the continuum is here and with curriculnm its the same thing. With the honors
progftm becoming so prominent and such a good thing here at Augsburg there always
was something like tbat but with the honors program I think it was continuum of getting a
diverse body ofstudents in. And also our core students that really glommed onto different
things. It hasn't changed that much it's changed with the times. It hasn't been stuck in the
past. So it's a nice continuum.
CC- OtL and you did talk about this a little bit too, what was the diversity on campus like
compa.red to now?
RS- Oh, it was less of course. Because the Twin Cities was a lot less diverse. And so
again I'll go back and say that I think we always reflected the community. And so the
diversity it was here it wasn't probably the big topic all the time and so it wasn't part of
our mission staternent but it was just part of us. I remembet Malcom X when he was
assassinated and Martin Luther King I mean that was a huge impact on Augsburg
community, and saying this is a honible thing to happen and people banding together and
supporting the Atican American here
or trying to understand, what
the situation was. And so yes, it's always been very welcoming and a diverse population.
And there was a lot of things too with Native Americans back then too where we try to be
more inclusive with the Native American population. They were just blocks away, so,
yeah.
CC- And did Native Americans so, that community became
then while
you were at Augsburg?
RS- I think recognized. I don't remember if they were actively recruited or anything like
that. But think again, the social services and our outreach programs I think they reached
out to the Native American population because that was one of the prominent non-white
populations at the time. And of course the immigrants were more Norwegian than they
were Somali or East African so, I think that's really int€resting that this neighborhood has
always been an immigrant neighborhood and now it's East Africa rather than
Scandinavian, and it's really cool.
CC- Yeah that is. I had no idea that there was a huge Norwegian population here.
RS- Oh around here? Oh yeal1 and musically it was all these fiddle players.
CC- Really?
RS- Ohyeah.
CC- Wow, did you have the fiddle playing in school or not?
RS- No it was mostly just in the commrmity, you'd get all these Norwegian dancers and
bands and all that sort ofthing around andCC- That's cool.
RS- Yeah it was. And yeah then we had, the Norwegian roots were much more prominent
then because I think more Norwegians went here but rhen we had lutefisk at Christmas,
we had all that stuff we'd have in the cornmons. You might want to gag but it was still
there and so the Lutheran thing was big... but still very encompassing of the community.
CC- So you think the changes that have happened to Augsburg are positive or negative?
RS- Oh I think they're positive. I thinll I think just... people are people. And if you're
thinking of the diversity issue it shouldn't matt€r, it just, everyone should feel welcome
here and think they do. I think that's very important. I think academically, we go in
cycles. And we need to c,oncenhate- that this is a college of higher education and really
continue to shive to have excellent acadernic programs. Without that I think everything
else suffers and goes away. And I think there has to be something that's academically
rigorous all the time so people feel proud of the degree they get not just social or the
wealth ofoutreach programs we have it has to be academically very proud too.
CC- So do you guys have several diflerent majors in the music deparbnent?
RS- We have five.
CC- Five? And has tlnt been like that since you've-
and
more
RSi- Uh uh.
No.
CC- Which ones were added?
RS- When I was here it was basically music education... just a BA, and it was kind of
perfomrances and since, well, with me as cbair we added music business. Music
education became very shong. Music therapy was added with Roberta Kagin which was
quite a while ago I think we're going on the fortieth anniversary of music therapy. So we
have five degree programs, we have a BA, a degree in performance, a degree in music
educatio4 a degree in businesq and a degree in... did I say education, or?
CC- Yeah I think so.
RS- So we have five.
CC- Ok. And you said as chair you helped add several ofthose?
RS- Yeah the business one for sure.
CC- The business one. Great.
RS- And the curriculum has really diversified in that we have abig jaz.z studies prograrl
we have snall combo groups that celebrate contemporary music or rock, which I'm, that
put in and I'm very proud of that because think that music education should
encompass not just your classical or band geeks, you know, and I mean band geeks with
affection because I'm the band director, or was. And music education has to accompany
everybody and all styles and you can teach all those elements of music in a nontraditional way.
CC- Ok so you helped add a lot of smaller bands.
RS- Yep.
CC- Oh great. So can you name a couple of those again I missed...
RS- Ob just like contemporary ensembles we started three years ago, which would be
rock bands and things like that and then we have a group now that accompanies a lot of
Somali artists over at the Cedar Cultural Center and that's a mixture of alumni and
current Augsburg sfudents and then as different Somali artists come in we rehearse with
them, put on performances at Augsburg and at the Cedar Cultural Center and now we're
starting to branch out and work on a presentation in Chicago and things like that so. Not
for sure, but we're hoping it'll come tbrough.
CC- What's the language barrier like with people... Somalian population or others?
RS- It's so much fun. Because, you get together and the language becomes somewhat of
a challenge but what's fun about it is that we have, we just talk in music. And they don't
read music, they do everything by ear. We're the opposite, we do everything by writteru
so you're combining musical leaming styles, plus language barriers, so you're singing
back and forth, finding all new ways of commrmication...and it's a ball. And it's so fun,
and it works. We just laugh about it... because... nobody cares, and language doesn't
matter. It comes across really well.
I
I
CC-Wow.
RS- Yeah it's just an amazing situation. And culturally, we're so proud of this because
you've go! you get different genders, and whicll and so in the cultrnes (this) is a big
deal, especially Somali culturc... and that's breaking dovm, where women arc now, cafl
sing, and they're not ostracized because they're singing a song. They can become
musiciang so they're grormdbreaking in that area. To us thBt's just '.of course,', but as we
leamed in Cuba, you're (women) not even supposed to play drums in some cultures.
CC- Yeah.
RS- Same \ing within the Somali culture, but that's breaking down, you have all these
white folks playing with Somali's and nobody cares. It's just... we're making music, and
it's a really fantastic thing. So it's a fusion of cultures, and music styles. We're learning
so much from each other.
CC- Are they ever surprised that these people arc interested in their music, or t}at
they're ... able to play their music?
RS- I think they're delighted. And at first it was like, *Oh my gosh, what's going to
happen here? And as we rehearsed and werything they understood how much we're
anjoying the music, and want to learn the music, and are infusing some of our jazz and
R&B lines into their music which fils perfectly because their shrff is like Bob Marley
meets Malaysia meets East Africa meets a little bit of R&B and hiphop. It's just this
wonderfrd mixtrre of creolization of 516 many art forms and.. . they're excited about what
we're doing.
CC-Awesome.
RS- It is.
CC- Just going to make sure these (microphones) ae still working. They are. Hooray! Ok
so I apologize, some of these (questions) are sort of repeats, but... tell me about your
time as a professor at Augsburg, and the dates.
RS- Yeah, I started here in 190, and I'm sill going I'm just not firll time anymore. I got
sick a year ago and had a forcibly... the doc said you better Sop, so I did. And so, bnt
I'm still teaching a class in Cuba, administering a grant, and doing different things here,
different projects. So faculty, not frrll time anymore.
CC- So tell me a little bit about the projects that you're doing now at Augsburg.
RS- A lot of it's what we were just talking about. The Somali connections, whe're I put
bands together for the Somali rtists... helping with some music education and things
with some of the grad students where we're fying to do a zustainable project with some
of our commrmity. In other words... training people in seminars, maybe classroom
settingq and we're talking like high school students where they leam a skill like stage
We don't think there's one pemon from East Africa that is a light p€rson, a
sormd person, or any type of stage production, so we came up with the idea and we met
with the Mirmeapolis schools, Bill Greeq who used to be superinterdant, and we came
up with this ide4 Steve Herzog, who was in the gmduate program, that we tain anybody
that wants but really trying to target more of the folks that, tom East Africa, and how to
do recording technology, lighting technologies, just being a stage manager, all the things
that (you) need to do to put on a production. And it doesn't have to be theatrical, it can be
a musical
So, they're leaming music, they're leaming these skills, and
hopefully can get employment. So that's what- yesterday- I did.
CC- Great.
RS- Yeah. And ofcourse I love my Cuba class.
CC- What brought you to... Augsburg to teach? I know that you taught at a couple other
places before you taught at Augsburg.
RS- I taught public school for almost seventeen years- Minneapolis, Bloomington and
Hopkins. then I was at Saint Cloud for a couple years and I kept going to school and
getting more of my degrees, and I've always wanted to come home... back to Augsburg.
And I.., going dou,n the questions here... a position opened up and I applied, and it was
a part-time position, and I got the job. And then it became a tenure track position and I
had to reapply and go through the whole search process again. Kept the job, and I've
been here ever since. Got t€nure, so, yeah.
CC- Nice, was that a difficult process, or.. .?
RS- It's nerve wracking. Yeah because you have to, it's hard because you have to
convince people that you're worthwhile and fhat's, in a way, humiliating, and in another
way it's an opportunity, so it's a really hard thing to find that balance. Yeah, it's a good
pmoess. It's very good because you'rc judged by your peers, you're judged by the
administration, and then outside folks so I think it's very fair. And it gives quality
education to you guys.
CC- How did you become the chair of the music deparfnent?
RS- About fourteen years ago Merilee Klernp was chair, slre needed to go back to school,
and I was elected, and reelected and reelected. ..
CC- Do you have to be reelected wery... how many years?
RS- Let's see, six years.
CC- Six years, ok.
RS- That's how we did it.
CC- So are you still chair of the music department then?
RS-No.
CC- Who's chair now?
RS- John Schmidt.
CC- John Schmidt?
RSi- Yeah.
CC- Ok. Ahight. What responsibilities did you have as chair of the music departrnent?
RS- I think it's really just getting all the ideas of everyMy together and trying to have a
dernocracy where people decide on how to implement their ideas, and the challenge there
is of course everybody has lheir own ideas but I think that kind ef thing is good. You
don't want everybody to agee on everything because it's gonna be a one-track
departnent. So when you have discussion or people feeling very passionaGly about
something, it's great if we can dl air it together and come to a nice compromise or a
conclusion to it. And you assign classes to peoplq you hire all the adjuncts, and here we
always, I would be the main person, but I always open up to anyone in lhe faculty lhat
wanted input. So, and now we have a mastersr. That's another fting I did with Roberta
Kagin, we put the masters of music th*py iru and that's another degree program we
have.
CC- Is that the only even higher level class you guys have?
RS- Yes.
CC- Or sorry, degree.
RS- In the music departnent. Oh our music ed kind of but it's not a masters in music
education it's a masters in education with an emphasis in music.
CC- I see. Ok. Ahight. From your experience being a teacher, what do you think makes
Augsburg unique?
RS- I think we can be really progressive. And I'm proud of our deparment in that it's
progressive in curiculum. That we have your traditional, your classical traditional musicwhich you have to have, it's mandated to get acs€ditation and everything like that, but at
the same time we celebrate music from everyrvhere and all styles of music. So you can be
a classical singer, but at the same time tum around and sing in a rock band or a gospel
group, or play jaa or play charnber music. We have, I thinh an incredibly wide base
curriculum where we celebrate all people's styles and ne€ds.
CC- Nice. And when you were a student did you feel the same way or was it different?
RS- Oh, it was very traditional.
cc-
ok.
RS- YealL and... right down the line. And when I was a student- I'm a dnrmmer- and
they had no idea what to do with me. Because nobody- they had never had a drum person
as a major in the school. And so for recitals and stntr, they had no idea what I was
supposed to do.
CC- They didn't know how to test you on anything?
RS- No, no, because. no, it was great. And so I studied with Elliot Fine who was in the
Minnesota Orchestra. So they said, "Bob, go study with him," and... I had a lot of
chances to play here and show what I could do but yea[ it was kind of interesting. It was
fun. Now of course, they can't pull that on me, so when I go to recitals, I know what
they'rc supposed to do.
CC- Did they have you leam any other instruments?
RS- Ob, sure. For music education you have to have a working knowledge ofjust about
werything.
CC- Wow. And did they make you learn how to play werything or jus kind of leam
basic knowledge?
RS- Oh you have to lern to play a little bit of a brass instrument, a valve instnrmen! a
trombone. . . violin was... yes. We still do lhat to everybdy. You have to have a working
knowledge of strings, brass, percussion, because howCC- Which ones did you learn?
RS- Oh I did trumpet, violin,
Something from each family.
CC- Ok. And what was yolrr favorite part about being a teacher?
RS- Oh, the students. Yeah, and interaAing with the students, and trying to help thern
make their dreams come tnre, md listening to what they think should happen. It's
because it's your time noq it's not the firture, it's now for you grrys. And so, yeah, it's
the students. That's what I miss, t€xribly, about not teaching every day is coming in and
seeing everybody and interacting with students. It's actually very sad for me.
hard.
CC- Well at least you still get to be here part time, right?
RS- Yeah.
CC- I'm really int€rest€d in the shrdy abroad trips you've taken too. Obviously I went on
one of those study abroad trips with you" so tell me about the study ab,road tips you've
taken.
RS- Oh yea[ I was, I've been really lucky trcause many years ago- 1993... 1990
something in there the dean sai4 *Bob, you should teach an interim class," and I sai4
*Yeah, if it's in the Caribbean
" they go, *Go for it!" So we came up with a program
ttrough this thing called U-may, Augsburg didn't have as much short-term study abroad
then, and so we put together this program in Jamaica. And so it was 21 to 23 days long,
and I did that nine times I thirik?
CC- Wow. Nine years in a row?
RS- Every couple of years... So it was a consortiurn, it was really our consortium of
schools. It was Saint Thomas, Saint Kates, Saint Bens, Saint Johns, Bethel, and... ACTC
schools, and I mean, it'd fill overnight.
clarineL
kty
32:26
CC-Wow.
RS- And so, it was a wonderfirl prcgram. lVe'd study Caribbean music. We'd go to Bob
Marley's recording studio and we saw a lot of people there... really fun stuff.
CC- What was the class called?
RS- History of Caribbean Music in Jamaica.
cc- ok.
RS- Hasn't changed much.
CC- But it was a focus on the Jamaican rnusic?
RS- Sure. And more broad than what we did in Cuba because we had three weeks and so
we really probably... lots of emphasis on Jamaican music. We leamed a lot of different
music of the differcnt islands and styles of music. I think the big telling thing that we
talked about on our tip was just the recording thing. I think we could do a whole timeline
of things tlnt I brought down for people to listen to the music on. I remernber first
bringing a big boom box with a cassette tape in it- not eight track bu! you know- and a
cassette tape, and trying to find power outlets and doing this and that and getting the
huge speakers and getting it through (customs) and it was an amazing situation, and then
those got smaller and better and start getting CDs, I mean we didn't even have CDs when
I started doing the Jamaican thing. And so I'd get the CD player and I'd put the CDs in
and I'd have to bdng a big thing of CDs, because you couldn't bum thern in those early
times. So I rhink you know, and then we went to more phones, and then thene would be a
huge doc for those, and cords you'd have to put in on the speaker, and so it was all that.
And that was like, tlnee, four years ago. And now youjust bring your phone, and a...
CC- A portable speaker
RS- A portable speaker like we used and... there you go. It's fantastic. I really would
love to do that visual thing ofthe first ones I bnrought down.
CC- So is that the only, the only place you went or did you go to other study abroad trips?
RS- The only ones- Yes, I led a trip to northem Ireland where we studied peace and
reconciliation and tlnt was like six weeks.
CC- When was that?
RS- 2002 I think?
cc- ok.
RS- Or maybe a little earlier.
cc- ok.
RS- No, 2003 we went to Cuba, so it was- tlrat was my first trip to Cuba. But it was in
there.
cc- ok.
RS- Yeah, bnt like 2000 something like that.
CC- And what was that like as far as music educatioq or was it just- was it a music class
or a different kind of class?
RS- With errphasis on music, and what was interesting was studying the music of the
troubles between northem Ireland, Irreland, and England. And it goes back a thousand
years. And I found old, ancient books that had the lyrics of hate at the time and between
denominations of the same religion which nobody could quite understand and it would go
through this whole... And I'm talking about songs hundreds of years ol4 would start off
with the romanticism of a revolution. we can relate this to cuban trips, we can relate this
to Nicaragu4 and the idealism of revolution the way you want a great outcome, and then
the realities of revolution where people dig and how do you reconcile that, is it wortltwhere does thuggery come into it. We see in so many places now, people start with an
idealism, and then thugs come in and riot and loot and really you could ask them why are
you here? Because it's fim? I mean I'm ov€rdrama(tizing)... but there's a lot of that and I
think the thuggery and the same thing is happening in the Mddle East. Some of the
idealisn is good but people just go crazy and do horrible things.
CC-Right.
RS- And so, the same thing happened with Sandinistas and all that in Cuba, their
revolution, the idealism was grcat but the reality of killing people. And so the music
would reflect all tlnt and tlrcn we would go to sites and study what we hearrd" and we had
a lot of guest speakers. There was a group I can't rernernber the name- but they were
(from) northern Ireland and they had sang a lot of protest songs against the British, and
three out of the six were assassinated for their music. And so I interviewed the three of
them that were left and then came to... a lot of the study was people of revolution have a
lot of music. But the people in charge have very little.
CC-Wow.
RS- And you know, and that's a sweeping generalization because you could say we have
a nationalistic period of'\rave the flag" country western music and all that sort of thing
and other cormtries have the same thing but for that sort of thing at those periods of time,
it seems the revolutionaries have a lot more music than the people in charge because they
don't want to admit to something terribly wrorg intemally. A civil war, revolution. So we
studied that.
CC-
That
sounds
like
a
fabulous
trip.
RS- It was, yeah.
CC- I would love to go to Ireland.
RS- Yeah. It's a great place.
CC- So, you took a trip... You've been to Ireland, to Cubq to Jamaic4 and you said
Nicaragua as well?
RS- Yeah.
CC- Was that also a history of Caribbean music class?
RS- No that was just something I went on with CGE, I didn't take students, but there was
some students that we met and worked with so, so basically it's been Jamaica Ireland
study abroad. And then with our ensembles we've been all over the world.
CC- Oh yeah, I'd like to hear about that as well. You've taken trips with the Augsburg
bands
RS- And choirs, and orchestras.
CC- Oh ok Yeah tell me a little bit about those trips or where they were, or anything
you'd like to tell me.
RS- We've really been all over the world. It's fantastic. The band has been to Norway,
Ireland, England, and the last hip was to Turkey, the one before tlnt Romania... and
performed, 61d agaiq the choir- same thing. China, most of east- west€fli, most of
eastern Europe.
CC- Wow.
RS- All over the world. Literally. And it's been fantastic because again just like the
things with the concerts here you find that people are all the same. And they want to
celebrate music, we want to celebrate love, we want to celebrate our lives, we juS wantninety nine percent of the world is quite normal, it's the- and we nwer hear about iq we
hear about that one percent that's nuts and abnormal that deshoys things for everybody
else. Most of us want the same thing. And just kind of leave us alone to do what we want
and live our lives.
CC- And play music.
RS- And play music. An4 and so I think all those trips are fantastic. Because we try to
interact with student musicians from all those countries. So yea[ it's been a wonderfirl
thing to be able to go on these hips.
CC- That's wonderfirl. And I know it's hard to pick a memory, or can you tell me any of
your favorite countries, any funny stories or anything.
RS- think for countries, it's always the unfamiliar like. It's the ones that just
unexpected \ings (are) gonna happen. I think Romania was wonderfirl that way because
it's- it's just coming out of really a dark time, it was one of the last cormtries to get rid of
commrmism, the celebration of life is fantastic. So those type of place, Estonia was the
same, we went with the choir, we went in the period where the Russians had really jus
given them their independence after the fall of the wall and stuff, and the celebration of
independence was fantastic. So I think that sort of thing for me, it's always the unfamiliar
tlnt I really like to go towards.
CC- Yeah. How did the study abroad trips differ from the trips you took with the band?
RS- Not perforrnance. For me, the sfudy abroad without perfonnance are a lot less
stressfirl. Because you're not worried about acoustics, you're not worried about getting
homs there, you're not worried about wear the uniforms or the dresses or this or that, and
are people getting sick- mean you always care but it's hard when you lose an
instrumentalist, they can't per:form or sing so it's a lot less shessfirl. And bu! on the
other side, is that when you have a group of non-performerg you see it in a whole
differelrt light and hear it in a whole different light, because I think the non-perfonners
hear music different thnn the performers. It's more of an emotional response than an
emotional, analytical rcsponse. It gives an honesty to it tlnf I leam so much from- you
guys- and things like that.
CC- So the people that play inshuments arc mone methodical about how they see the
otherRS- I think so, and I'm the same way, because we're so trained that oh listen to this- this
is in tune, does the melody fit the rhythm, is- what key is it in, and how are they
articulating it, is it accurare, all these rhings we're tained to do. And we sometimes miss
the message of the music.
CC- Right. lVould you guys ask- would the teachers ask the people more emotional type
questions?
Intemrption here- Peter Hendrickson opens door.
RS- Oops, hi.
PH- I didn't think you were here. I was gonna ask- see ifthe bus was here.
RS- You have a gr€at tour.
PH- Thank yoq " ^nk you. We will. Sorry.
CC- It's ok.
RS- We're just dorng an interview thing. You know, this is my first tour... you know
Peter, this is my first trip without going with you in twenty some yearc.
I
I
I
PH- I know.
RS- It's really sad.
PH- I know.
RS- But have a great trip.
CC- What's the trip?
PH- The choir tour.
RS- The choir tour.
CC- Ob have fim.
Peter Hendrickson leaves.
RS- Yeah, firs tip I haven't gone on in twenty years.
CC- Aw. Where are they going?
RS- Iowa.
CC- Iowa ok. Let's see. Do you have any... let's see. Tell me about your favorite, or one
ofyour favorite mernories tom a band trip. Or a study abroad tip. Or both.
RS- Yeah. . . I think a lot of it is when people and both things aren't tourists but travellers,
and then like our group that wexrt to Cuba. Everybody was trying to understand the
culture. We weren't looking at werything like we were perpetually in a box looking at
little figurines out there, we tried to becorne part of the culture or rmderstand the culture.
And not being tourists, we were really travellers. And I think tlnt's the best memories of
the groups like that. I think performance wise sometimes you have a magical space like
with Peter and his choir we w€re in Estonia... Yes it was in Estonia we were in an old
church, no ceiling, and then we found out... And there was boxes of skulls and bones.
And we found out that this was a place that Nazis has murdered and deshoyed the church
when they were leaving and then the Russians did the same thing, so this place was just
pounded. And they sang a concert that was so ernotional because it was in memory of
those people that lost their lives because they just wanted to be free. And they got it
coming and going- they got it by the Nazis and they got it by the Russians, so that is an
incredible mernory to me.
CC- That is really anrazing. So tell me about why you decided to retire.
RS- Oh that was... I had no intent on retiring, and then I had some heart trouble and had
surgery and they said I'd better stop... working fiilItime to take care of myself. So that's
the gis of ig and it's been hard because I didn't prcpare myself for not being part of
Augsburg. It just happened, like overnight. Literally. So, yeah, it's been really tough. So,
but teaching these classes and being here doing things like this.
CC- Right... what year was thafl Was that this year that you becameRS- A year ago. So yeah, it would have been last official firll time day was August of
2014. So it's just been six months.
CC- Ok. And... well you've told me a little bit about this already, a lot about it
actually... Tell me about your current musical projects.
RS- Otr, it's really fun. And like I said, I'm working with the Cedar Cultual Center and
Augsburg and on these Somali groups that come in. We do perfonnances with therq
depending on their needs. Sometimes it's a full ban4 sometimes it's a srraller group. We
have five of those that we were doing in the course of this year and a hal! so we have
two left. And musically, I just came from a rehearsal. It's a repertoire orchestra where we
were playing some vivelias and MC Korsakofr and I'm playing and travelling as much
can. But musically keeping very active and playing and the grant's keeping me very
happy here. Yeah.
CC- So do you... do you play usually when you... or do you direct these groups?
as
I
RS- These groups for Augsbqg I usually direct. Or play like auxiliary percussion. We
have such fine people here, they slrould be playmg not me. But like if it's not Augsburg
then I play.
CC- Ok. So you applied for a grant to do this?
RS- Yeah, Doris fhrke. Huge- it's called Building Bridges.
CC- Doris Duke?
RS- Duke. Of D.rke University and Drke tobacco... was the big tobacco baron and trying
to do some good wilh her money. And so she has all these educational things, and this is
to promote Muslim cultre through music. And of cornse that's a dichotomy because a
lot of people think Muslims don't like music. mean we're talking about these
generalizations, here's this huge grant that we're doing to promote Muslim culture
through music. So it's proving most folks do like music. And things like that... So we get
this gmnt and we vtrrote it two yees ago and the Cedar is the administrator of it and
everything so it's in parhership with Augsburg. So I'm the Augsburg music connection.
CC- Wonderfirl.
RS- Yeah.
CC- And... Just going to make sure everything is good and working still. Alright. And
this is the final question. What do you consider your legacies at Augsburg? As a student,
as a pmfessor...
RS- I hope the students remember me well. I think about that. It's like, you know, my
peers and my deparfneng and my students" and I think sometimes you get an email from
twenty years ago and you just go "lhis is so cool." And then running into my colleagues
in the departnent. I think that's the legacy: that I rcally tried to be a good teacher. And
people would ask me, you've taught for forty swen years, why do you keep wanting to
do it? And I said because I've never got it right. So it's a wonderfrrl challenge. And so
that's how (I want to be) rerrembered. As a gmd teacher.
CC- Well thank you so much for doing this oral history wilh me, I really appreciate iq
and your answers were really awesome, so thank you so much.
RS- Thank you.
I
Show less
Transcript
Derek: Alright my name is Derek Ruff & this is part of Michael Lansing's History 300 class
(Public History). This is my oral history project is to be kept in the Augsburg College archives.
My interviewee today is Dennis Donovan, faculty member here at Augsburg College. Before
we... Show more
Transcript
Derek: Alright my name is Derek Ruff & this is part of Michael Lansing's History 300 class
(Public History). This is my oral history project is to be kept in the Augsburg College archives.
My interviewee today is Dennis Donovan, faculty member here at Augsburg College. Before
we start, I'd like to say thank you for agreeing to meet and to be apart of this process.
Dennis: You're welcome but I need to clarify something .... I'm not on the faculty so call me
staff at the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship. I'm the national organizer for Public
Achievement & I'm part of the adjunct faculty at the University of Minnesota.
Derek: Okay sorry about that.
Dennis: No problem.
Derek: Okay good to clear that up early. So I guess my first question would be what brought
you to Augsburg College?
Dennis: What brought me to Augsburg was our center which at that time was the center for
democracy and citizenship five years ago which was located at the Humphrey School of
Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. So our center moved to Augsburg so being apart
of the center, I moved with the center.
Derek: Okay and what do you feel your role is here at Augsburg? Would you describe it in
any way?
Dennis: Well my role is very interesting. So at Augsburg, I work with faculty, students, and
departments to help develop leadership skills with people and also to bring our theory and
practice (our being the center for democracy and citizenship), the theory and practice being
public work into the life of Augsburg College. Another part of my work is to make Augsburg
College known world wide as a democracy college. A college that is preparing students to not
only be strong people, but also citizens. So I'm currently working with the special education
department within the education department and nursing department with a variety of different
faculty to integrate the theory and practice of public work into curriculum.
Derek: And are those the core values of Public Achievement would you say?
Dennis: The core values of Public Achievement would be let's say public work, citizens at the
center, and all the citizens are the co-creators of their environment.
Derek: And from what I know, Public Achievement has gone national. Is that correct?
Dennis: It's local, national, and international.
Derek: Does Augsburg have a role in spreading awareness of Public Achievement?
Dennis: Well more than that even. The special education department has integrated public
achievement into education formation. So all teachers graduating with a special education
degree all have to take a course to learn the habits to organizing, which is at the center of
public work, as well as coach Public Achievement for a whole year at a site working with
students with special needs. So what that is doing is creating a whole new way of thinking in
special education delivery in schools and also a different type of teacher which we call citizen
teacher. So it's spreading but also it's giving an example of how public work integrated in
teacher education can create a different type of teacher.
Derek: So it's kind of bringing in aspects outside of the classroom and introducing it to the
students in a way.
Dennis: Yes. Think about it as democracy building. So if the purpose of public education,
which people have forgotten, is to build democracy and to create citizens, then we are
renewing that purpose.
Derek: Have you seen positive results integrating it?
Dennis: Absolutely. I'm seeing Augsburg students develop something we call civic agency,
which is confidence and the ability to navigate the world as it is. Also young people out in
schools are learning how to be public problem solvers. And teachers in a couple cases
integrate public achievement into their curriculums, which is tremendous because it is part of
changing the culture of a school and making more democratic schools.
Derek: For the students of the schools where this has been practiced, I'm sure you see a
change in motivation more than anything.
Dennis: Yes. I see not only motivation, but a little more self-discipline, confidence, able to
work across differences, and they feel like they're contributing to the world through their work
at creating an action to address an issue that they are concerned about and not what the
teacher's concerned about.
Derek: Would you mind giving an example?
Dennis: Sure. One of my favorites was Nelly Stone Johnson. Last year where we had two
Augsburg special education candidates coaching working with an alum who was a teacher,
and working with a classroom of special needs whose needs were all physical disabilities.
They went through the process of identifying something that they cared about. So all the kids
named things. It ranged from gambling to homelessness to pollution. The pollution one won
out, the boy's father died of lung cancer, and his belief was that it was caused by pollution. So
then they had to break it down, do power analysis, do research, meet people, and learn how
to work as a group and make decisions to be accountable to each other. They were able to
get the custodian to do an air quality check in and outside of the school. They went with him
and found that one part of the school property had a lower air quality than the others and that
was because that was where the buses were parked. So then the kids said this is no good
maybe we can plant trees because we learned in seventh grade science that trees can suck
up the bad stuff. So they went on meeting with the principal and getting the right questions
answered by the principal like where are you gonna get the money for the trees? Who is
gonna work with you? Where do you wanna plant the trees? Who owns the property? Is it the
park or is it the school? And the kids were able to find that all out and were able to get twelve
trees donated. And they weren't little saplings, they were five-hundred dollar trees and they
planted these trees on their school property with the help of Minneapolis Park and Rec. and
Tree Trust which is non profit. So imagine how you would feel if you were a fifth grader and
you were able to accomplish that task. You'd have some hope and confidence and maybe a
different outlook on school.
Derek: I'd feel like a difference maker is what I would feel like.
Dennis: Well and that's what these kids did. And many of them were in wheelchairs. So our
society kinda writes off people with special needs.
Derek: So giving more opportunities to the entire student body: that seems like a major goal.
Dennis: Yeah to change education is kind of the large vision that I've had for many many
years. I was in K-12 for twenty four years, nineteen as a principal and my school was the first
one to do public achievement so we created the model. And I saw what it could do and
changed the culture of my school and wanted to give it a shot to see if it could change other
cultures and have people become powerful agents of change and their own destinies.
Derek: And you said you teach at the University of Minnesota and you have a role here. Do
you implement this at any other colleges or universities?
Dennis: Yes. So most of my work is outside of Augsburg. That's because of how my position
is funded. My position is funded through contracts and grants to expand Public Achievement
and promote Public Achievement. I'm hoping to work more inside Augsburg. But currently the
funds are to work outside. So I work with local institutions like the University of Minnesota,
Minnesota Institute and Technical College, St. Catherine's, Metropolitan State, Concordia (St.
Paul), Century (College), and nationally with Lonestar Community College, St. Anslams in
New Hampshire, Northern Arizona University, University of Baltimore, University of Maryland
Baltimore County, a whole variety of schools in New York like Colgate, Buffalo State, Cornell.
So I've worked with a lot of institutions of higher ed. like Castleton in Vermont and also
internationally in over twenty three countries. And two of our latest countries is bringing in the
culture of universities like Japan that want to create citizens that know how to make change
which is right up Public Achievement's alley. So I get to work with those folks. In Mexico, there
is an institution called Monterey Institute of Technology in Higher Education. Last summer I
did a course for faculty on how to do this type of work.
Derek: Do you see any differences in the way Public Achievement is implemented here than
it is anywhere else?
Dennis: Yes it's always implemented in a way that respects the culture of the people. So for
example, in the Palestinian territories in West Bank in Gaza, they don't call it Public
Achievement, they call it Popular Achievement because public in arabic has some meaning or
connection to government. And the people we work with do not want to be thought of as a
government program. They want it to be of the people. That's one example. Another one
would be in Eastern Europe where teachers (classroom teachers) are the coaches and don't
use college students. It's basically part of the school curriculum. That's the way they want it to
do and how to do it. Basically my job is to help people learn about it and then to support them
and work with them and then they adapt it to their culture and their needs. But the bottom line
is the same that people pick issues that matter to them and they do action to address it and
they develop this whole set of thinking about democracy in new ways and do something
called everyday politics. And there's different levels of depth in success.
Derek: Now many years down the road let's say twenty five thirty years from now what do you
see as the future of this program?
Dennis: I'll probably be six feet under but the future I would hope that it would be embedded
in the life of Augsburg. And Augsburg would be the center where people come and learn and
it would be embedded in other professional programs besides nursing and teacher education.
Students would have an opportunity to learn how to do this type of work so maybe more
courses but I think it would be that my hope is that Augsburg becomes the international leader
in this type of work. So it's taking the idea of service to neighbor and having students be
involved in service or civic engagement and being specific at teaching this type of power
pedagogy. And one might imagine in twenty five years from now the way people think of
special education has changed across the country because of the work that was started here.
Nurses would receive this type of course work all over because of the work that was started at
Augsburg. So nurses would have a sets of skills on her tool belt that would help them be
health care agents of change because many nurses wanna change the health care system
but they don't know how or they're too nice or things like that. That's how I see it.
Derek: You did say it could be implemented in other ways too. Could it be implemented in
terms of business?
Dennis: Yes absolutely.
Derek: Could you give example in that regard?
Dennis: Well think of public work as multi-layers and Public Achievement as way to
operationalize public work. But there are aspects of public work where you don't have to do
Public Achievement. So you can implement the habits of organizing in any profession to
create a citizen professional. So a business person would know how to not only make money
and profit and all that but would also know how to improve a community by working across
differences. That's an example. Right now next week I'm going to Charlotte and I'm gonna be
working with government midlevel city managers, teaching them in a half a day workshop how
to build relationships and to think about things like self-interest and not to do "for" but to do
"with." So often times, people in government positions are responding to needs of people and
thinking they gotta solve their problems all the time instead of convening people and engaging
people with government collectively using resources that people have and knowledge to solve
problems. So that would be another example.
Derek: So Public Achievement could pretty much apply to anyone in any field.
Dennis: Yes Absolutely.
Derek: Do you think Augsburg does a good job of spreading awareness of Public
Achievement to those that aren't really aware of it?
Dennis: Let's say we're just scratching the surface. It's just beginning.
Derek: There's a lot more to come.
Dennis: Oh yes you just stay tuned. There's a lot more to come. The important thing as an
organizer I believe that something has to be developed that people can see, touch, smell, and
taste so that's what I'm focusing in on. I found people in both the nursing department and
special education department that had self-interest that match mine. So I want to change
education. Susan O'Connor wants to change special education. It's a good match don't you
think?
Derek: Yeah match made in heaven.
Dennis So you build relationships. That's part of this work is building a strong foundation. So
Michael Lansing was intrigued by public work and he's a historian and so he wanted to bring
some of these skills into his class. So I worked with him and his class he had last fall and it
was tremendous. And students came out of there learning how to do one to ones and civic
agency was something they were developing and talking about. And they had a better sense
of not only history of organizing strategies, but how to make some change so it was really
cool. So that's an example of a faculty person.
Derek: So you're not a faculty member.
Dennis: Right I'm considered staff.
Derek: You're considered staff but you interact with faculty on a regular basis.
Dennis: All the time.
Derek: What's your opinion of the Augsburg faculty? Through the people you've met.
Dennis: My opinion? The people I've met have been very dedicated to students and very
dedicated to teaching. They are here because of students and they love to teach and engage
with students. That would be my impression. Unlike the University of Minnesota where most
faculty there .... it's not like they don't like students but they are more into research and here
you have a science department with incredible scientists that I never knew anything about
what they're doing my goodness you graduate with a science degree here? You go to the top
universities in the country to continue just because of what's going on and that's because of
the commitment of teachers educating and working with students. Now on the flipside, I think
teachers can learn how to be more public with each other. Do you know what I mean by that?
Derek: Uh ... elaborate.
Dennis: Public means how to hold each other accountable. How to not be victims of
themselves, but how to practice what I've been talking to you about. How do you work across
differences? Not everybody is the same. Don't point your fingers at the administration. If you
have an idea or if there's a problem, then also come up with a solution to the problem. Work
with others to make the place better. Own the mission and vision of the place and engage
with people in ways that go beyond let's say nurturing. So an example would be a lot of
people when the white officers were shooting unarmed African-American men. So what's the
thing people do?
Derek: Well you take interest first of all.
Dennis: Yeah and then what's your action?
Derek: You talk about I would think but you'd also wanna make a difference also and make
sure your opinion is heard.
Dennis: Yeah. But a lot of times people protest so that's like shouting or making noise. So
with Public Achievement it's different you look at how to work with police because if you don't
talk to police, you don't know what they go through and just like in any profession, there are
people that make mistakes and are not good police officers just like there aren't good
teachers. But one of our problems in the country is labeling people: you're white, you're black,
you're a woman, you're a guy, you're transgender. But labels on people means you polarize
people. So one of the things I'm getting at is that this faculty is no different from any faculty
I've worked with. They've never been exposed to some of these ideas that I have been
exposed to in something called Church based community organizing, which changed my life
and helped me learn how to be a public person and how to be a private person and to know
the boundaries.
Derek: You said you were Principal?
Dennis: Yes.
Derek: Where at may I ask?
Dennis: Well I started my career out after I graduated at the University of Minnesota as a
sixth grade teacher. So I taught at a Catholic school in St. Paul called Maternity Mary which is
located in the Como Dale area and I taught sixth grade for five years and in the sixth year I
became the principal of that school. So I stayed there for three more years. Then I went
probably two miles down the road to a large urban Catholic school called St. Bernard's. So I
was the principal of the pre-8 for sixteen years. Then when I left in 1997, I came to work for
the Center for Democracy and Citizenship, which at that time was located at the Humphrey
School of Public Affairs.
Derek: Now how would you say that whole experience of pre-higher education kind of help
you develop your philosophy as of what you're doing today?
Dennis: Well it gives me an experience and a knowledge that's different than a traditional
path to higher education. I think it feeds my passion because of what I have been involved in
and what I've done and what I've seen and what I wanna do. I've come to learn that higher
education is very important to what I wanna do because of how it impacts young people and
how it develops young people to go into the world and behave, act, create a better world,
complain, or whatever it might be. So I think it's been very helpful.
Derek: There's an old saying I've hear that in order to understand school systems and how
education works you actually have to experience it for yourself.
Dennis: Yeah I believe that in anything. I worked with veterans for three and a half years in a
project we created with our center called Boyer Citizen Campaign, which I worked with the
National Guard, army reserves, politicians, nonprofits, you name it. It's now beyond the
Yellow Ribbon Campaign so not being a veteran, I didn't know much about the culture of
military but I learned by always hanging out with veterans, soaking it all in and did you see
American Sniper?
Derek: I haven't seen it yet. I've gotta see it though I hear good things about it.
Dennis: When I saw American Sniper, I could identify because of what I learned from the men
and women I engaged with. That movie is about his reintegration back to his civilian life and
difficulty of reintegrating and why he deployed four times to Iraq and the suffering of the family
when he was gone. So all that stuff I would not have felt or known to the degree that I did had
I not been involved in that particular part. So I think being immersed in different cultures
makes one better. It Creates knowledge and expertise that is helpful in the work that I do.
Derek: So for an education major when they're introduced to culture let's say they're kinda
indifferent about it. Let's say oooh l"m fine with my culture I'm comfortable with it I don't
wanna get out somewhere different. What would you say to that person?
Dennis: Don't be a teacher. I think teachers are so important for the future because they have
these people with them more so than parents in school and not to want to learn themselves is
a mistake. You learn something new everyday. When I say culture, I don't necessarily mean a
person's race. I just mean culture would be the set of rules of an organization or people. So
Augsburg has a culture: there's rules there's ways of operation or people behave certain
ways. That's all part of the culture. So is that what you are referring to?
Derek: Yeah.
Dennis: Okay yeah I would say you know you're not going to make that big a difference if you
don't wanna understand culture especially culture with schools and how the schools work.
The politics and school district all that stuff all that plays into teaching. And I hope teachers
want to be change agents. So not only work with improving the lives of young people, but also
communities that they're in.
Derek: Now for let's say more rural areas that aren't know for being very diverse has Public
Achievement been implemented in those areas?
Dennis: Mmm hmm.
Derek: Do you ever struggle with maybe the idea that there isn't a lot of diversity within those
schools.
Dennis: No it is what it is and well there is always diversity with age, gender, abilities, all that
kind of stuff.
Derek: Is there a lot of ..... maybe I should've rephrased the question. Is there a lot of diversity
in those schools would you say?
Dennis: No they're pretty much white in rural places but they have to interact sometimes now
more and more with Mexicans and Somalis for example. So what happens if you never saw a
Muslim how do you react to that? So I think part of education, especially in America, is
learning about other people. I never saw a person of color 'till I was in my twenties from a
standpoint of where I grew up.
Derek: What age group do you think Public Achievement implemented? Should it be done
right away starting in kindergarten or should they wait a little bit?
Dennis: I think there are different ways of thinking about it. It really depends on the school and
place. You can bring aspects of Public Achievement into kindergarten, but you want to have
the right teacher and you wanna have the right school support. Basically you wanna start by
having kids realize that there's differences in the classroom and maybe make the rules
together of how we're gonna operate. Maybe have some kids pick what we're gonna learn. So
they start having a voice early on they don't necessarily pick an issue to work on, but I think
there's aspects of Public Achievement that can be brought into any education.
Derek: Just got a few more questions I'd like to bring up. So for an undecided high school
students whose just about to graduate and they're considering Augsburg as a school to go to
and they're think of becoming an education major. Pretty much everything you've said I think
you would sell them on core of those principles.
Dennis: Well I would first like to have coffee with them first to get to know them.
Derek: (Laughing) I should've brought some coffee.
Dennis: I wouldn't try to sell them. I like to get to know people before I give any advice. If
somebody was interested in education I'd want to know why and then if they wanted to be an
educator to help people, I would definitely want to explore what that means. And I think there
needs to be more than help I think there needs to be an empowerment piece where students
feel a sense of ownership and a sense of hopefulness that is often times not there in
education. Again depending on what school you've been in. Every Thursday I go over to
Fairview Augsburg Academy and we have Public Achievement there. Great kids but again
dealing with all kinds of stuff that doesn't always allow them to show up. When you have one
hundred and forty kids and fifty percent are homeless that's a tough one. When you think
about math history and stuff in that setting, how do you get the students to see the value of
education and help them imagine a different life? A life that focuses on their gifts and talents
things like that. So a person that wants to do that I think Augsburg is heading in a direction of
developing these teachers that aren't just good in the classroom, but also good out in the
community.
Derek: Based on what you just said, why do you think most people go into education as a
career path?
Dennis: They wanna help people and help kids. Sometimes they don't know anything else.
Their parents were teachers. there are all kinds of reasons. I went into education because I
was always around kids I'm the oldest of seven. I coached sports when I was early in college.
I like performing and I liked my history teacher when I was a sophomore in high school
because he made learning fun and exciting. We laughed we learned and I could relate to that
type of teacher student interaction. So that's kinda why I went into it. It wasn't until I
experienced the classroom, and parents, and family, and the world that I began to imagine a
different way of thinking about education. That has really been my passion.
Derek: Really inspiring passion to be honest.
Dennis: Well thank you.
Derek: It seems like you've done a lot for educators and teachers are continuing to do so.
Dennis: I'm doing the best I can with what we have but the important thing is I love what I do.
And so getting back to that conversation about that person wanting to be a teacher. I have
people telling me they provide a better education for young people than they got. So that
person you want to be a teacher. Or sometimes I had this guy who is currently at Augsburg
and I knew him years ago and he got a degree in political science and he was at a community
college which is where I met him and he was doing Public Achievement in the college which
was part of a health course he was in. He said I think I wanna be a special ed. teacher. I said
why? And he said well I was one of those kids and I wanna make a difference. I say you have
to go to Augsburg. Now why would I say that? Because I know what we're doing in the special
education department I don't know everything going on in the general ed. but I know what's
going on in special ed. So when he said that I told him you've gotta come and he's enrolled.
He's been coaching Public Achievement for two years as a volunteer because it made such
an impact on him when he was in his thirties.
Derek: Good stuff. I don't know I explained earlier I'm an education major so just to hear ways
to get students engaged. School wasn't easy for me as a kid too to kind of hear the results is
really cool stuff.
Dennis: You didn't like school?
Derek: I wouldn't say I didn't like school but it was harder for me than other students.
Dennis: Why is that?
Derek: I'd say I wasn't totally out of it but I was just a little slow gripping on to what was being
taught.
Dennis: So teachers need to be more patient with you? Help you along?
Derek: Technically yeah.
Dennis: What do you want to do as a teacher or why do you want to be a teacher?
Derek: I just wanna make sure that every student has an equal opportunity to learn.
Dennis: So you've got to get involved with Public Achievement. Now here's something
seriously too. Mark down March 31st. Write it in your calendar from 4:00 P.M. to 5:30 P.M. My
Colleague Harry Voight who sits here (I'm looking for his book) we're having an event here
featuring Public Achievement at Augsburg in Special Ed. And I want students there I want
students who are going to be teachers. It's democracy education so you need to come.
Derek: Okay March 31st.
Dennis: Write it up in East Commons 4:00 P.M. to 5:30 P.M. I'm sure there'll be people
mentioning it as soon as we get the flyer made.
Derek: One final question. When you leave here let's say when you're done working here at
Augsburg, what do you want your legacy to be? What would you say? If you have one that is.
Dennis: Well that I was able to do what I love to do, was given the opportunity to be creative,
and the space and support to work in a framework that I believe in and that there were people
that I was able to develop to carry on and made some dent into education that provided
opportunities for more students to be hopeful and successful. In 1989-1990 when I was
involved in Church based organizing that's what it is and I had a black Baptist pastor as a
mentor and we would talk and work together. He taught me a lot about African-Americans and
people and I watched him preach and engage with people. Learned a lot and in one meeting
we were having he said you know what you're trying to do is necessary and important (this
was right at the beginning of Public Achievement). He said but you'll never see the results in
your lifetime. So that was very interesting. So I'm not looking for anything. It's an ongoing
piece of work. So if I've had an opportunity to to evolve and help teachers think about their
jobs in different ways so be it.
Derek: Would you say you've made progress on that though so far?
Dennis: Yes I think it's been in different levels and different ways but I think one of the most
exciting for me is the opportunity to work in teacher development here at Augsburg. And
Augsburg is a good size to be able to bring in the ideas of our center to a program that's
already strong and make it better.
Derek: Very good. I guess that's about it.
Dennis: We're good to go?
Derek: We are. I'd just like to extend my best wishes to you and I'll have to circle that date on
the calendar
Dennis: Well thank you. Well I hope you show up and I hope you bring some people from
Michael Lansing's class.
Derek: I'll have to. Most of them aren't education majors.
Dennis: It's alright anybody can benefit from this.
Derek: True.
Dennis: Now do you play football?
Derek: Yes.
Dennis: What position?
Derek: Fullback.
Dennis: Fullback. So are you blocking or are you running?
Derek: Most of the time blocking.
Dennis: What high school did you go to?
Derek: Totino-Grace.
Dennis: Really? So you guys had a really good team. Didn't you guys win a championship a
couple times or did you win it?
Derek: Uh twice when I was there.
Dennis: You won the state championship? And you were on the team?
Derek: Mhm.
Dennis: Well how does that make you feel?
Derek: Well you feel pretty good afterword. Definitely and still playing right now at Augsburg
and enjoying it. Going for that MIAC championship next year.
Dennis: Well I heard you guys are pretty good.
Derek: Little down last year but I think our program is in a good spot right now.
Dennis: So who was the coach at Totino when you were there.
Derek: Jeff Ferguson.
Dennis: Who was the principal?
Derek: We uh don't have a principal or wait yeah we have a principal Julie Michaels. Yeah
Julie Michaels. You don't see the principal too often you maybe see the Dean of students and
that's Jeff Ferguson also.
Dennis: Okay so the football coach is the Dean of students. So he knows how to handle kids.
Derek: Yep good guy to be in charge of that.
Dennis: So how do you do when you play Cretin?
Derek: You know we didn't play Cretin while I was there actually.
Dennis: Now were you there when J.D. Pride was there?
Derek: Yes.
Dennis: J.D. Pride was a student of mine at the university when he was a freshman.
Derek: Really? Very cool.
Dennis: Nice guy we had a good time.
Derek: Yeah he ended up transferring though.
Dennis: Yeah I don't know where he went. He came back to the U I saw him I don't think he's
playing football but I saw him. He left but then he came back I saw him .... where the heck did I
see him? I saw him at a coffee shop. I work with a lot of student athletes and a lot of them are
in my class. It's just the way it has worked over the years so if you want African Americans in
your class at the U, you gotta get football players. And these guys are good guys they
sometimes are in big lecture halls and they sit in the back but in my classes they're engaged
and I love having them in there. So J.D. was one so I do visits with students at the Purple
Onion. I don't know have you ever been over there in Dinkytown?
Derek: Hear of it yeah.
Dennis: Yeah that's where I saw him. I saw him last year I think. Yeah J.D. Pride. Yeah he
was in my class. And that class was a big class that one year I had eleven football players.
Derek: So you're used to kinda mingling with them definitely.
Dennis: Oh yes. Yeah I told them I have seven in my class this semester and spring practice
has started today I think. And I said well boys, I'll be over! So I like to go over there and it's
really quite interesting. I betcha I've had a third of the team in my class. Like everything I'm
saying here I try to still do in my class. And I really enjoy teaching so it's cool. The guys
they're good guys. Like I said I wanna make the experience as real as possible. So we get
some good conversations and I have all different kinds of students in the classroom. Some
Republicans, Liberals, I have a Marxist in there this year and different cultures, Some Eastern
African people, football players, from all over the country, urban areas, and then rural people.
It's just a lot of fun when we start talking about stuff.
Derek: It was fun talking to you also.
Dennis: Well thank you. So you're a junior or sophomore?
Derek: Junior.
Dennis: Okay you're a junior then so you went to Totino. Where did you go to grade school?
Derek: Chippewa Middle School I don't know if you've heard of it.
Dennis: I know where that is. Mounds View right?
Derek: Yeah that school district. And then I decided public school wasn't for me so thought I'd
try private high school.
Dennis: What do your parents do?
Derek: My dad owns his own business an abstracting company and then my mom works as a
banker.
Dennis: Mom is a banker?
Derek: Lake Elmo Bank.
Dennis: Alright. So do you live out there in Fridley?
Derek: No Shoreview.
Dennis: Shoreview okay. So how'd you like Totino?
Derek: Great school. I loved it there. Part of the reason I came into education was because
they knew I struggled in school and I got good teachers that really helped me out got me
going.
Dennis: So how are they working with you here? Are you taking advantage of the help in like
CLASS and things like that?
Derek: I would hope so. Yeah definitely.
Dennis: Yeah you're taking advantage of that because it's one of the best in the country.
Derek: Yeah I mean I'm they're not going to be around all the time so get their input and
advice while you can.
Dennis: Are you going into secondary or what do you want to teach?
Derek: Secondary social studies is kinda the goal for me.
Dennis: Well you have to learn some more of what we talked about because you can make a
difference in your classroom because a lot of the curriculum will be just helping the kids learn
about the government or you could help them learn about how to be the government and hold
the government accountable and not just wait for somebody to fix it but I think that'd be great.
So what are some instructors in the education department that teach classes you're involved
in?
Derek: Rachel Lloyd I don't know if you know her, I asked if she knew you and she didn't so,
Christopher Smith?
Dennis: I've heard of him I know who he is but I don't have relation with him.
Derek: Joe Erickson?
Dennis: I know Joe.
Derek: I've had Joe for three semesters.
Dennis: Yeah I know all the special ed. and I know Audrey Lensmire.
Derek: I've had Audrey.
Dennis: And then do you know Greg Krueger?
Derek: Uh no.
Dennis: I think you should visit him sometime. He teaches kindergarten but before he retires,
go visit with him. And he's retiring this year he taught kindergarten for like thirty years in
Minneapolis at Marcy and I just got to know him last year and he's somebody that you need to
pick his brain about why did you go into teaching? Why are you involved in preparing
teachers? What's some advice for me? And tell him that school is hard and you had to take
your time and people helped you out. Just say what is your advice for me as a teacher. Greg
Krueger.
Derek: Alright.
Dennis: And when you do the things like that it's kinda what I teach is how to help students
meet people, and learn from them, and build relationships that down the road you can call on
these relationships when you're in the classroom or whatever. Well good luck hopefully this
was helpful to your project in the class.
Derek: Very much so. Michael's gonna be real happy.
Show less
Soldier’s Perspective of American Occupation of West Germany (Transcript)
Narrator: Don Gustafson
Interviewer: Chris McCollom
Chris-The following interview was conducted with Don Gustafson on behalf of the Minnesota
Historical Society for the Soldier’s Perspective of American occupation of ... Show more
Soldier’s Perspective of American Occupation of West Germany (Transcript)
Narrator: Don Gustafson
Interviewer: Chris McCollom
Chris-The following interview was conducted with Don Gustafson on behalf of the Minnesota
Historical Society for the Soldier’s Perspective of American occupation of West Germany for the
oral history project. It took place on March 7, 2013 at Augsburg College. The interviewer is
Chris McCollom
Chris- Ok Gus, my first question is what brought you into military service.
Don- Easy answer, my friends and neighbors. Because back in the 1950’s the military the draft
was still there. I had just left graduate school with my master’s and the draft board quickly
realized I was no longer in school which meant I lost my 2S classification. I don’t recall, I think
it was in September they informed me I was 1A, in November they sent me off for a physical,
and in February I was a soldier.
Chris- And just to clarify what year was that in?
Don- That was in February of 1957.
Chris- 1957
Chris- And how did you feel about service initially?
Don- I was damn mad because I was too important a person to have to waste two years of my life
doing the monkey business that went with the military. I had heard very little good from buddies
who had been in the military, it was a grind and all the rest. So I did not go in with the best of
attitudes, on the other hand there I was, I wasn’t going to mope.
Chris- Ok, um, so that seems like it was a pretty prevalent feeling among people. So what was
your understanding of American occupation prior to arriving in Germany?
Don- Come again with your question?
Chris- What was your understanding of American occupation prior to arriving in Germany, what
was kind of the feeling heading into Germany?
Don- I guess I hadn’t thought about that, well ah I just knew that we had one heck of a lot of
soldiers, military, in Germany after the second World War. I knew very little about what
occupation actually meant and as I recall I got into the service in February, went through basic
training, was blessed with being lucky enough to go to a splendid adjunct general school for
sixteen weeks and then had a month in Texas with the outfit I was going to go with to Europe. I
don’t remember getting any kind of orientation really. We may have gotten, except that last
month, that month at Fort Hood was hell as far as I was concerned. Because I was new there, I
didn’t know anybody and the whole outfit was trying to get ready to go, they were trying to get
all of their equipment spit polished and as I recall, we were working into the night, into the
evening, 9, 10, 11 o’clock…anyway enough of that.
Chris- Alright
Don- And then in November of 57, we landed in Europe and were sent to a small casern, or fort,
which was on the outskirts of Nurnberg in southern Germany.
Chris- Ok, and that’s where you stationed for the duration of your service?
Don- I was there for the rest of my, uh and I remained in the service. Technically, I was
permitted to leave in February of 1959 but for various reasons I agreed to stay on for 3 more
months and so I was separated from the service in May of 1959.
Chris- Alright and what kind of orders were you given on arrival? Was there clear
communication of what you were supposed to be doing
Don- Uh, well yes and no. I mean I knew what I was supposed to be doing, I had been assigned
to be on the personal staff of a one star general who was the commander of the artillery of the 4th
armored division and I worked with him for then for about not quite a month, uh and so my job
kind of, was doing what he asked me to do. You know, office work and so forth and, uh, you
know I, I don’t remember exactly though clearly we had a bunch of officers that were, came over
to Germany with us. Many of them, some of them, had never been in Germany, some of them
had been, perhaps, before but, uh, they were very tense as if the Russians might attack us
tomorrow, we got to be ready. And they were also very much attuned; we can’t, we got to be
careful not to insult the Germans and jumped at all sorts of little things just because they didn’t
sense the situation. A year later it was a lot easier to be with them because they weren’t as
uptight.
For example, we had a service club on the casern, it was a very small casern I suspect, maybe,
fifteen hundred guys at the most. We had a service center that was a recreation place that was run
by, well I don’t know who, I suppose by the army but there were civilians running it. I know one
night those of us who were over there, to keep us busy, they suggested we should create a
newspaper and uh, of the news of the day and so on. And somebody wrote an article about the
Germans and their honey wagons. None of us knew what honey wagons were until we got to
Germany. The honey wagons were simply the manure spreaders of the day. I suspect what was
happening. We had manure spreaders at home but these, there was enough moisture and liquid
that they were sort of in containers and there was a slight aroma about them. Most of the guys in
our outfit that I knew were city guys, they weren’t used to the smells of farm. So there was a cute
article about the Germans and their honey wagons. Well the next day one of the officers in the
casern happened to see a copy of this and he went bananas because if a German were to see that
he would be so insulted and blah blah blah and it was that kind of stuff we lived with, at first. I
haven’t thought about those honey wagons and that little business. Glad you came by and
reminded me.
Chris- So, then kind of another question off that, in my research I came across something called
the four D’s: denazification, demilitarization, decentralization, democratization. Did any of your
orders kind of revolve around that…that was all…
Don- That was all governmental stuff or diplomatic, um, not that I recall anything of that. I never
heard of those four d’s before, sounds like historians were working on it afterwords. And well
next question.
Chris- I guess you kind of already went over it but could describe a typical day during your
service?
Don- There were about a hundred guys who were in our headquarters battery as I recalled. In the
fourth armored division, and armored meant it was basically tanks, there were four units that
were artillery and two of those units each of which had about four hundred men were at our
casern. Then our battery, which was the headquarters, and we were superintending all of these
four groups, uh, was there. In one wing of the building, there were the offices. The general had
his own office and I had an office adjoining it which I shared with the aide-de-camp. The day
started with a miserable revelry, uh reveille, that we had, it was no revelry and we had to get
outside and watch the flag go up even if it was so dark we couldn’t see the flag. This was
Germany and Germany is far enough north and I don’t think it got light on winter mornings on 9
o’clock, maybe that’s an exaggeration, reveille was there.
Went to breakfast in the mess hall and then I immediately went to my office and the general
usually came in a bit after 8. I was there in the office, I left for lunch of course, but I can’t
remember, I suppose I was in the office until 4:30 or 5 o’clock. I was clearly underworked in that
the amount I had to do for the general was, well a minimal other than being a receptionist for
people coming in to see the general. I guess I had to go and get his coffee occasionally and little
things like that. The amount of correspondence I had to do for him was not great, some. I was
lucky because since I was working for the general, nobody else dared come in and throw
anything on me to do because it might interfere with what the general. I should also say, the
general’s office was on one side of my little room and on the other side was the chief, what was
his title, the assistant officer to the general who, he was a colonel, and my general had only one
star so he was among…I was impressed to be working with the general, but among the army one
star general’s were not that special.
Let me also say I was lucky enough to be working with a fellow I never got close to him in the
sense, at no point were we buddies or pals, but I certainly respected him and I clearly felt that he
respected me. So we basically had a, what I would say, a good working relationship. I had a
somewhat different situation with the aide-de-camp who was a west point bastard, immature and
difficult. Fortunately he left after 4 or 5 months for something else and then the second aide-decamp was just a really neat guy that I did like and we worked together very well.
I can also say, or best mention, that was office work. Because we were with a field outfit,
meaning we were to be ready to fight when the time came, we at least once a month had what
was called an alert which would come about 4:30 or 5 o’clock in the morning which meant we
had to jump up, get clothes on and get ready to march out. And about every other month we
would be told, and this time you don’t just stand there by your vehicle, you go on out and were
told where we are to meet again. So we’d be out in the field, in the woods for the morning. Most
of us hated that and then occasionally we would go out for, two of three overnight stays and in
those cases my job was to, I never rode with the general in his car or his jeep, but once we got to
the field I had to dig his personal latrine. So I became a prime latrine digger. Ok next question.
Chris- I guess another question I have is, could describe your first impressions of the German
populace and maybe their attitudes towards you and the rest of the American occupiers
Don- By sheer chance I had been in Nurnberg a couple of years earlier, only for a few days,
when I was on my way to India. In that sense it wasn’t totally new but I didn’t meet any
Germans at that time and the Germans who were down there weren’t speaking English,
generally, and they looked askance at us and we looked askance at them. We certainly had been
informed that the Germans didn’t necessarily like us and in this little village of Zurndorf where
our casern was located.
Zurndorf was basically a suburb of the big city of Nurnberg, in this village it had few shops and a
very fine eating place. A small eating place but on the door to that place, in very bright, clear
letters, was a sign that said “No occupation troops”. We took that seriously for a while.
Eventually some of us discovered that what that really meant was that they didn’t want us to
come in there wearing our uniforms. If we came in in civilians clothes and ordered dinner, that
was fine. But most of the guys in our outfit didn’t enter the Golden Lavel, they went up the street
to a place I never I went into, which I’m sorry about now, which was a just an old fashioned beer
joint where the whores hung out and amazingly called “Mom’s”.
That’s where they went, not all of them but ok. As we were there for more months, you know,
we just began to realize there just Germans, they’re the people who are here and I don’t
remember any really antagonizing situation or so on. Eventually I got involved with a group in
Nurnberg, of Germans who wanted to practice their English and we would meet one night a
week and just talk about all sorts of things.
Chris- Did your superiors kind of have the same attitude towards, were they lax with the german
people or were they a little more…
Don- It was very formal, they knew they had to be nice to Germans and not offend them and of
course the Germans knew how to protect themselves. If for example an army jeep hit a chicken
and killed it, the army would be then billed not only for the death of that chicken, but also for all
the eggs that chicken might have produced in the next two years or three years and that kind of
thing.
A couple of the officers, for example, the aide-de-camp I mentioned as being the bastard, he got
hooked up with a German girl and in a year had married her, I don’t recall ever meeting her. I’m
not sure I wanted to. So there was that kind and of course, the guys I still remember, one of the
first nights we were allowed off the casern and off the base when we got there. This bunch of
guys from our battery went down to and heard about “Mom’s” place and they had found women
and they came back and I can still hear “These women don’t shave under their armpits!” and
German women didn’t!
Chris- So I guess kind of going off that, you talked about the jeep hitting the chicken, was that
kind of misconduct or accidents prevalent?
Don- Not tremendously, we were pretty much warned about what we could do and couldn’t do. I
suspect maybe I didn’t hear all things but I do know one of the fellows that I got to know a little
bit, neat guy, I should mention in a way I didn’t see the real army because, well I did, the guys I
was with after hours and so forth, most of them were guys with college educations who were
going to become professionals one day. They weren’t 18 year olds, we had enough of those. I
was 24 years old. Most of the guys I was with were similar age and well one of these guys, that I
didn’t know terribly well, proved to be gay at a time when being gay was certainly not permitted.
He ended up having an affair with a German fellow, roughly his own age, and the German
fellow’s father found out about it and there was hell to pay over that. That probably would have
happened anywhere, not just because they were Germans.
Non-sequitur, we had one German friendship day a week I guess. We were supposed to bend
over backwards to let the Germans know we like them and whoever planned it saw to it that one
night, the officers were to go to the opera in Furt and furt was the city adjacent to Nurnberg. The
general knew I’d like to go to a free opera and he saw to it I got a ticket and so on and that was
very fine. Most of the officers I knew could care less about opera but they had to go and they
were supposed to bring their wives and so forth. I can remember, of course the opera was in
German, I don’t remember what it was, but somewhere in the opera these guys were trying to
stay awake to watch and listen. At some point in some scene one of the characters “auf deutsch”
two of the few words almost everybody learned, which was mach schnell (make speed) and all of
a sudden “Mach Schnell!” and the whole audience just burst into laughter because finally they
understood something. It was kind of, obviously, a formal affair. It’s kind of difficult when
you’re given an assignment trying to like these people and the Germans, who were there, it was
the mayor and some other officials who were probably as unwilling to be there. Anyway enough
of that.
Chris- You kind of touched on the Germans initial reaction, at least when you first got there..
Don- At least what we perceived
Chris-Perceived, did that perception hold over time?
Don- No, I quickly learned. I made German friends who, partly some of them wanted to learn
English, some of the Germans liked to meet Americans because Americans would give them
cigarettes and those sorts of things. And some of the guys in our outfit, who had wives, brought
their wives over and they rented apartments on the economy and they lived down in the
economy. I know the general, for whom I worked, had a very nice house that had been assigned
to him and he had a soldier who was his valet for all practical purposes, taking care of his clothes
and so forth. Al was a really neat guy and the general saw to it that Al could live out of the
house. There was an apartment above the garage and I was invited to move in there. But I didn’t
have a car and it was about 3 miles from the casern so I declined that.
But there were fellows who lived off camp and there were a number who got into serious. Oh
and I dated, well I guess I can use the word dated, a very attractive young German girl in the
village who I met in this English language group. Her parents were highly suspicious of all this
and even though I went to their house and met them, I realized they were fairly unsure of all of it,
of what this was all about. In fact, they decided I wasn’t all bad when I invited her to be my date
for that opera I talked about and that was proper cultural stuff. I don’t even remember her name
now but she recognized that I was not about to propose to her and as I say she was cautious but
about, and I can’t remember how long afterwards, but somewhere along the line I had a letter
from her telling me she was getting married to an American officer that she had met. I don’t
know anything more about it but look what I led her toward.
Whereas there were some guys in our outfit who never left the base unless they had to. They
were mad about being in the army, they were lonesome, they never got over that they weren’t
back home in Kentucky. Ok, I’m not sure if that answered your question.
Chris- That answered that and my fraternization question which seems it was pretty high
between…
Don- There’s another thing here. While we were there, a film was released about the Nurnberg
trials and after the war German leaders were tried at Nurnberg and it was a major event that went
on for months and a documentary was released somewhere, I suppose in the spring of 1958 and I
was intrigued by it and I went to see it. I remember sitting there in that theater surrounded by
Germans and all of a sudden it dawned on me: I was very obviously an American because
Americans were picked out because we had to have military haircuts and Germans wore their
hair long. We smelled different, I don’t know. I remember suddenly thinking what am I doing
here, what if we got some real Nazi fanatics who are angry about what’s happened. Will I get
punched on the way out and so forth? None of that ever happened, I was not aware of anything
but it indicates that one had to be somewhat aware, suspect so forth, what might happen.
Chris- I had a question about the Bundeswehr, the federal armed forces, that were formed in
1955. Did you ever have to interact with them? Could you describe that if you did?
Don- Not very closely but usually in the spring of each year we had a major practice war and
there would be for maybe a week or so and we would be out in the field living in pop tents and
what not. I think the first year I was there was the first year the U.S. army cooperated with the
German Bundeswehr, which they obviously should be doing if we have to fight together. I don’t
remember if we had any German troops coming into our base but I was somewhat aware of what
was happening with the Germans because this fellow Al who was the servant for the general. He
was a German boy and had come to the united states and had agreed to be in the army because
this would get him citizenship faster but Al came from a village 50 miles south of Nurnberg and
he had a younger brother who was in the Bundeswehr and occasionally that younger brother
would come and he’d be around or we’d hear where he was.
I don’t remember any other, I’m sure the general was involved but when it came to those tactical
things, I really wasn’t involved in finding out about things. I had to get a top secret clearance, I
don’t remember ever getting close to anything that I would’ve considered secret but that was just
one of the army rules and I passed. I hadn’t done anything to suggest I was unworthy of the job.
Chris- You kind of mentioned earlier how you were always ready for the soviets in case there
was an attack. Was that threat really taken very seriously? Could you describe the kind of feeling
you had about East Germany?
Don- Yes and we were not too far from the Czech border so we were frequently reminded. We
were soldiers and soldiers were to be ready to fight. Ya know I don’t even remember if I had a
weapon during those years. I know I had a weapon in basic training and so on. If I did have a
weapon it didn’t amount to much, I have a typewriter I kept saying I had to throw. But I was due
to get out of the military, to be separated I think about the 20th of May 1959. That was when my
three month extension would expire and I think it was on the 10th of May or 8th of May
something happened, I don’t even remember what it was, but all of a sudden there was real fear
that we may be on the brink of conflict and so our outfit was ordered out to the field and we were
located at a place where I don’t remember exactly if we could just look out and see across the
border.
I was quite aware that as our tanks, and men, and artillery and so forth were gearing up on our
side, the Russians were doing it, or we assumed, were on the opposite side. Somehow I could not
believe we were likely to go to war directly but I’d seen enough of our drunken sergeants to
think it would be just like it for one of these goofballs to do something that looked provocative
and fire his weapon at them and they’d fire back and we’d be into something by accident. That
did worry me and I thought “Damn, could it be because I extended for three months could it be I
end up being killed in conflict over here.” As it turned out it didn’t happen and I don’t remember
how long our outfit had to stay in the field because when the 19th or 18th of May came along, I
was shipped back to our casern.
I packed up my stuff to leave, however one of the really nice things…the general knew, it was
my last day in the office, that morning captain whatever his name was who was the general’s
helicopter pilot came by. I was surprised because I knew that we had not laid him on to take the
general on a tour like he often did. The guy came in and I said “What are you doing here?” and
he said “Well Gus I came for you.” It turned out as sort of a farewell gift to me, the general had
asked his helicopter pilot to give me a ride around the country side and I’d never been in a
chopper before. I think we were up in the air for an hour and a half or so and it was tremendous
fun because I was seeing villages and woods and so forth that I had only seen from the ground.
Don-Well next question we must be close to 25 by now.
Chris- Pretty close.
Don- You didn’t think I was going to be this…
Chris- No I was making sure, I figured you would be…um that’s a good thing.
Chris- So did you ever have interaction with people from the other side, refugees coming over.
Don-Nothing, I wasn’t aware of anything like that. Maybe it was occurring at some point, even
though I was working with the general and, as I say, he wasn’t high up either. So, I did after
leaving, after getting out of the service I stayed in Europe and I didn’t take off for the states until
August sometime. I had several, couple, of months. Much of that time I was up in Finland at a
camp. On the way from Finland I came back into Germany because the ship I was going to be on
was from Bremerhaven and at that point I stayed overnight in Hannover I guess it was and then
took a train into Berlin and spent the day or two wandering in East Berlin. This was so long ago,
hell, the wall had even’t been built yet but, and then I was simply a tourist. Otherwise I have no
recollection of any contact of that sort.
Chris- Can you kind of describe what it was like being in East Berlin, because I think that was
pretty interesting that you were…
Don- Oh in East Berlin
Chris- As opposed to the West…
Don- I didn’t know except I just, I had my passport which I knew I better have with me and
walked through Checkpoint Charlie with no trouble and simply wandered. I know I got into the
museums, visited a church or two. We did go, I had traveled, this was in 1959. Five years before
I had been, I had spent the summer in India with a group of Minnesota students, one of whom an
incredible woman. Blonde, who had chosen the summer of 1959 to do a bicycle tour of Europe
and we had arranged we’d meet. So we met, not in Hannover, in Hamburg we met. So she and I
did Berlin and she absolutely left me terrified more than once, guts turned to ice because Joan,
Joan was used to doing her own thing and more than once she’d say “Hey this is an interesting
ruin I want to get a picture of it.” And I said “Joan!”. Because we heard about what could happen
to people that might be doing things that the authorities…
But I don’t remember a single moment when anybody, when any official, police and so forth,
even looked daggers at us or anything. So, I do remember being rather jolted because we did get
into East Berlin and changed some money because…and we found, ya know, we knew that the
economic situation in East Berlin was not good. But hey their coins were so flimsy. I almost
thought they were made of cardboard. They weren’t, they were metal. But there was so little
metal in them that, uh, whereas the West German coins were good, solid coins. Those little
indications, it’s another world. Well push me.
Chris- Ok, um, so now looking back could you describe how you feel about the American
approach to the occupation.
Don- Well we had, it was assumed…come again? The American approach, what?
Chris- Kind of how the American military approached, the way they handled the occupation or
so forth.
Don- I guess maybe I had been brainwashed well this is the way the army has to operate. I don’t
remember, hmm, well I can remember being sometimes embarrassed. For example like that night
at the opera when the officers around me were obviously klutzes, cultural klutzes and things like
that. I had never thought of things in that direction, so let’s pass.
Chris- Ok, let’s just finish up with… as your service came to an end, how did you feel? Like
could you describe the emotions you went through, the experience you felt in Germany. How
that kind of all…did you reflect at all at the end?
Don- Well I was kind of sorry to leave in some ways. I was, I had a college education, I had read
about these places, suddenly I’m there. You discover Europe is a place where everything seems
to be on top of each other. If you had a car you could have breakfast in one country, lunch in a
second country, and supper in a third country because you just moved around in that way. I
didn’t get a car until just a few months before I separated from the service. But I did have friends
who would have vehicles and our service club at the casern, every so often they did the kind of
things that tried to get us out, on a Sunday afternoon, we’d go tour a place that had some historic
interest. I felt I got around a fair amount, but the woman who I eventually married came to
Europe just as I was leaving. She taught for the army, so she was a civilian so she wasn’t under
the kinds of limitations I was. And the amount of traveling she and her fellow teachers did, just
awesome.
So and well I, it was just great fun being there and, oh, and the food. To get off base and eat
German food, that was just so great. Some years later when Bev and I returned to Germany, for a
few days, we both just laughed at ourselves because somehow we discovered all we wanted to do
eat kartoffel and get those hard rolls, and it was the food! I didn’t make any long range German
friends. I didn’t, I had acquatances and in a couple cases we maintained contact for a year or two.
But, whereas my wife, she spent two years in a small town called Permisons and now 50 years
later she still corresponds with people. But then she was a civilian. She didn’t have to be on the
base when she wasn’t teaching and so on. She just had more freedom.
You haven’t asked me this but for me, the army was my liberal arts education. In that I don’t
think I had led a really sheltered life but I certainly got to know new types of fellows that I had
never really associated with before. I had never had much work experience; I had a bit but not a
great deal. But to see how power worked and I really left when I got back home I missed the
army in some ways. In fact I even checked to see if I could get in to a reserve unit somewhere. I
didn’t but, well there were certain things about the army that I liked, amazingly.
And partly I was just, just this morning I was skpying with one of my closest buddies who was
fellow I met when in the army in Germany and I was asking him something about Pinder
barracks that I had forgotten about and amazingly even, at the time I sort of, got, wasn’t happy
about being a soldier but this morning it was amazing his comments were very positive. He said
it was really a good experience. Now if on the other hand Tom was just a very lowly clerk in, as
to the, of his battery. Whereas I was a person of some prestige, I was the general’s secretary. You
know when I was out wandering some of the lieutenants almost would salute me because “he
know the general”. The assumption was that because I was his, well, who knows. But it was the
aura of power. If I had been where Tom was I probably would have had a somewhat less
glorified picture of army life. I’m, well, come on you must think up a question of your own.
Chris- You’ve answered all of mine for the most part. Even without me asking some of them,
you just answered them.
Don- I ended the service, well I can’t remember when it was but I finally was promoted to a rank
of E5 which was a specialist 3 as I recall, the equivalent of about sergeant but I was not called a
sergeant because I, the kind of my responsibilities were not directing people. I think the only
time I had any sort of command in the army was once I was told to see that these three fellows
did a good job of cleaning the latrine.
One of the things that the army in general did for me, Chris, is that ya know I grew up knowing I
was a weakling. In grade school when we had recess and chose up teams, I was always the last
one picked to be on a team because “Well ok I’ll take Gus”. Well I wasn’t, I didn’t give two
hoots about it. So I just assumed but ok, but when I got into the military I wasn’t quite as weak
as I thought I was. Basic training had some bad moments, hard moments but hey I did a heck of a
lot better than lots of the fellows. I loved the obstacle course. I still remember the fun crawling in
the mud on my elbows with my rifle while they were shooting blanks over us and barb wire in
part because I was a farm boy. So that was, that was good.
I came away very impressed with that the army knew what they were doing. Ya know I
frequently said “oh my god” and yet boy I learned a lot. So I honestly am sorry for guys like you
that you don’t have that chance at a military experience. While I’m not telling you go on out and
enlist, I suspect if I had stayed in the army and spent my whole two years in Levenworth, Kansas
I’d have a heck of a lot to forget. That one month at Fort Hood, longest month of my life. Partly
because of the situation, partly because Fort Hood was such a hell hole, no trees. So do you think
you have enough?
Chris- I think, yeah, I learned a lot I think we got enough and we almost got to an hour.
Don- Well let’s see
Chris- No we’re fine on time, so…
Don- I can’t, hmm, I do remember some very good moments, some pretty rough moments. I
remember a couple of times we were called to go out for reveille and it was cold and I hid in my
wall locker knowing it would be hell to pay if I’d been found, caught, those kinds of things. It
was good for me; you know you people have had chances and experiences that I hadn’t up to that
point but I had never had interaction with Afro-Americans. In the military I met a couple of
really neat Afro-Americans with whom I connected. One of the fellows, who was among my
closest buddies in Nurnberg, has become well known in church circles for his music. I would say
three or four times a year I find myself at a church service or something and they’re doing a
number by Hal Hobson. Well good enough guy.
Chris- Thanks Gus, I appreciate it. It was enlightening.
Show less
Inteniew with Garry Hesser
Inteniewed at Augsburg College, Oren Gateway Center 106A
Minnerpolis, MN
Interviewed on March 4o 2015
Augsburg College Oral History Project
Interviewed by Heidi Heller
Please note that the
narator, Garry Hesser, requested
of additions and edits to the final
tran... Show more
Inteniew with Garry Hesser
Inteniewed at Augsburg College, Oren Gateway Center 106A
Minnerpolis, MN
Interviewed on March 4o 2015
Augsburg College Oral History Project
Interviewed by Heidi Heller
Please note that the
narator, Garry Hesser, requested
of additions and edits to the final
transcript before it was approved. These edits resulted in a tanscript that varies in a number of
places from the recorded interview. The changes do not change the context of the interview, but
serve to clarify, expand upon and enhance various items discussed in the oral history interview.
a number
GH: Garry Hesser
HH: Heidi Heller
HH: The following interview was conducted with Garry Hesser on behalf of the Augsburg
College Archives for the Augsburg College Oral History Project. It took place on March 4, 2015
at Augsburg College. The interviewer is Heidi Heller. Alright, so my first question is how did
you get interested in sociology.
GH: I was a history major as an undergraduate. I used to ridicule my Sociology major roommate
because history dealt with specifrcity, and sociology, only offered sweeping generalizations that
everybody knew. I think probably that the sociological perspective came later, as I attended
Union Theological Seminary in New York where two of my favorite professors in social ethics
and education used sociology and sociological theory as a framework for what they did which
was my introduction into sociology. To make a long story short, I wanted to do a graduate degree
in Human Relations at New York University. New York University accepted me, but didn,t want
to offer me any money and we had a baby on the way. But Notre Dame, in a fit of generosity,
thanks to the federal govemment and National Defense Education Act, had received some major
scholarship money for graduate students in the sciences. So, in a sense, Notre Dame '.bought me
off'to become a sociologist. The degree I was going to do at NYU was a joint Sociology and
Psychology degree. But Notre Dame offered the scholarship, and we lived in South Bend
already. So, to make a long story short, I was always interested in sociology because of those
seminary professors, and I had also become increasingly involved in civil rights, fair housing and
issues related to social inequality. sociology is focused on that kind of interest, but it never
occurred to me that, without a sociology undergraduate degree, that any school would accept me
for graduate work, but Notre Dame did because ofa unique set of circumstances. They were
seeking a cohort ofus that didn't have sociology undergraduate degrees. They were trying to
compete with Chicago and Berkley by attracting older and more experienced professionals. So I
became a sociologist almost in the back door. I was bought and glad ever since. [laughter]
HH: Ok.
So you had your Masters of
Divinity before you got your Masters?
GH: Right, I had an undergraduate degree from Phillips University, a school like Augsburg, in
oklahom4 with majors in History, Religion, and Philosophy. I went to seminary and was serving
Page2ofl5
(Disciples of Christ) congregation in South Bend, India''a. That is how Notre
Dame, which was there, came into my life.
a Christian Church
HH: Ok, alright.
So how did you discover an interest in experiential leaming and service based
leaming?
GG: Um, probably since I was bom. I was bom into a family of educators. My father was a Boy
Scout leader and volunteer; and so Boy Scouts became, along with the church, central to my life.
And you don't do Boys Scouts, whether it's Indian dancing, like I did, or become an Eagle
Scout, camping and hiking, without becoming experiential; it's almost at the core. But, to be
more specific, you don't go into something applied like the church ministry without being very
experientially oriented. I was up to my eyeballs in civil rights and issues like that with local
priests and activists, so my own leaming curve and my own learning process was always very
experiential. And when I went to graduate school and had to teach a class as part of my training,
my colleague and I, who also stayed in serviceJeaming/experiential education for many years,
desiped it with an interactive game, SIMSOC, in the class. We were labeled "Sesame Street"
sociologists. fiaughted And then, in summers I worked with OEO projects, as part of the War on
Poverty to support my family, doing community-based service related projects. But probably
more specifically, when I started teaching at the College of Wooster, my job included being the
director of Urban Studies. We had six sites around the country in Detroit, Philadelphia, Portland
where students would do an urban semester. The students went there and were involved in
service and govemment related intemships. Now we would probably call most of what they did
"community serviceJeaming," because it was basically community-based, experiential leaming
in challenging urban settings. Then they retumed to a small town, Wooster, Ohio, much like
Northfield, with a reverse "culture shock." Two of them, Don and Margie, literally walked into
my office and confronted me with: "You sent us offto the big world. Now we're back in this
place and have changed. What are you going to do with us?" They basically challenged me and
my wife and our two children, four and two, to live with them in a student-faculty livingJeaming
arrangement. And we did, thanks to the students pushing us. We organized a communitycentered livingJeaming anangement involving two houses. It was called the "community service
house." We designed a course on the topic of "community" together, and we lived with students
for the entire year. We would have continued, but we wound of getting pregnant again and had
twins. And four children was little bit too much for continuing. So, in a nut shell that experience,
that kind of conversation and collaboration with students was a lot like what was happening here
at Augsburg in the late 1960s and early 70s with Joel Torstenson and the emergence of HECUA.
I was also on the faculty advisory committee in the urban semester program in Philadelphia
which brought me into contact with other faculty involved in this emerging experiential
education focus on community engagement and service. Overall, it was second nature for me,
but it was also because of circumstances and students pushing and saying'Now what are you
going to do with us", because at that point, except for these urban locations, Wooster didn't have
an intemship program. So we were making it up as we went along within the context of the
Wooster's commitment to these six urban sites where they were sent to study for a semester.
HH:
Were there a lot of colleges at that time doing that or where there a few kind of at the
forefront?
Page 3
of
15
GH: Not many, but it was starting to emerge when I became involved in the early days. But this
was a second generation establishment of serviceJeaming in higher education. I later discovered
it was really during the 60's that colleges, including Augsburg's role in founding HECUA - the
Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs. Joel Torstenson was among that first wave of
people during the 60's when much of this started. If you think about this in context, there was the
opposition to the war in Vietnam, and the Civil Rights movement was still evolving. For
example, the sit-ins were in 1960. There was a lot ofdiscontent on campuses that was starting to
take shape in different ways, and different campuses embraced that. The 4-l-4 Academic
calendar was one invention, so colleges could be free for a January term of exploratory, usually
experiential, courses. That was the original idea, but it evolved in not very create ways later.
Even then, we would say in those days "Experiential leaming education was still marginal."
And in that 1970's context, it is accurate to say that I am at Augsburg because of differing
opinions about experiential education in higher education. I didn't get tenure at Wooster.
Paradoxically, the college where I was involved in the community service, student-faculty
leaming community and community-based research with students, which made me recognized as
a pioneer in serviceJeaming, made a decision based on traditional criteria for what they wanted.
Even though I was doing a lot of faculty research and publishing, they made a decision that the
kind of scholarship I had embraced did not fit with their priorities for tenure. As a result, I lost
and somebody else won the tenure prize. Bu! not to be bitter, I am gratefirl for that for that loss.
[laughter] But that was an indicator that experiential education and serviceJeaming were not
mainline, even in liberal arts colleges; it was still marginal. The urban quarter programs at
Wooster were valued, but seen as something extra, though commendable, if you had time. Does
tlat make sense?
HH: That makes
sense. So, when you came
in 1977 to Augsburg was it because you didn't get
tenure?
GH: That's correct, yes.
HH:
Was there any other things that drew you here to Augsburg?
GH: The job description certainly. A good friend looked at it with me and said "They wrote this
job description for you." I was looking for ajob because ofthe tenue decisioq so I felt lucky to
see this one that fit so well. On a personal level, I'd also just gone through a divorce, so we also
needed to make a change and find an urban location where my former wife could find employmint. we were co-parenting as well. smdl towns usually are not too easy to do all that in. And
so, there were whole lot of things about the Augsburg position that were attractive. And the more
I found out about it and discovered what Joel rorstenson had been doing, including the HECUA
consortium, I was eager to come here and work in academic arrangements that were so similar to
my wooster work with the urban semester programs, but with more experiential education.
Augsburg was looking for a sociologist to be chair ofthe urban studies program and that is the
role I played at Wooster. So, yes, it was kind of a match made in heaven for me and many people
think it was mutual. It couldn't have been better and more timely. And another side story. It was
a real accident of history, because Joel rorstenson was forced to retire at 65. I gotthisjob
because of another form of discrimination. You had to retire at the age of 65 in those days, or he
Page 4
of
15
would have, I am sure, stayed on and done even more creative work like I was able to do after
65. But because he had to retire, and the college saw the role he played as cenfral to its mission,
Augsburg did a national search and hired me a year earlier than his retirement so I could work
with him for a year. And due to another strange accident, made possible by Bob Grams taking an
unpaid leave, it became possible financially, which usually wasn't the case for Augsburg. so I
was able to come a year early, at precisely the time I needed a job
HH:
So everything lined up.
GH: The stars were aligned in stange a1d unFredictable ways. I walked into a position marked
by two realities: the faculty had decided, which the wooster faculty had not, that experiential
educatioq including intemships, were important for urban studies majors, but also for all
students at the college. I like to say that "Joel and the faculty set the table, and I have been
feasting at that table ever since."
HH:
So
it was, at Augsburg, it was a campus wide sort of thing; it wasn't just in the sociology
departnent?
GH: oh, absolutely. In fact, tlat was what was brilliant about it. Joel, the sociology professor,
started the sociology Deparfinen! Social work, urban Studies, and HECUA. In 19t7, he got a
sabbatical leave and traveled around the country. He and Frances visited penn, chicago, Rutgers,
and a whole lot ofurban based colleges. He came back and wrote his classic paper linking liberal
arts objectives to community-based experiential learning, identifying what wi now embrace in
the Engaging J\rfinneapolis and Augsburg Experience elements of our curriculum. It wasn,t just a
paper;_it was literally read by the faculty and voted on. And a whole new curiculum emerged
from that paper, "The Liberal Arts college in the Modern Metropolis." He wrote it bas€d on his
research, experience, and his observations of campuses that were engaged in their community as
a leaming site. under Joel's leadership, the college grasped the validity of experiential,
community-based leaming and emerged as a pioneer in the field, establishing an intellectual and
operational base for all that we have accomplished since 1967.
It took the university of Minnesota another l5 years to even grant credit for intemships. The
Augsburg faculty, with Joel's leadership, the entire faculty, including chemistry, English,
religroa I mean everybody. I wasn't here to watch the vote, but it liGrafly was-voteJ on as a
principle and then operationalized in a curriculum that could include four intemships, that's four
ofyour 36 courses. It also included a required urban related course that demonstraied what that
discipline could contribute to the understanding of cities and the human habitat, as well as how
the resources of the Twin cities could contribute to the content of any particular course or
academic discipline. They called it the "Urban concerns" course. so when I arrived in 1977,
that decision had been made and the curriculum was in place. I inherited a campus wide
commitrnent to what Wooster and most of Higher Education still considered "marginal." I don't
lvant to overstate it, but Augsburg was truly a pioneer in community-based experiential
education. Yes, chemistry had a different view of it, Religion had a different view of it, but
every department was encouraged to offer courses that had an urban focus, thus embracing our
urban locafion as a valuable asset to student leaming. we, and higher education" were not-using
Page 5
of l5
the language of serviceJeaming at that point. But, it was experiential education, and it was based
on intemships, community-bases service and urban studies programs.
HH: Hmm, so what was going on when did arrive
Augsburg?
n
1977, what kind of things were going on at
GH: Well, HECUA was one, in addition to the campus
based intemship program. In the early
stages, Joel got a grant and Augsburg created an Intemship oflice called MUSIP - the
Metropolitan Urban Studies Intemship Program. It was similar to what we offer now in the
college-wide Stommen Center, the Career Planning center that supports intemships in all
academic majors. And it addressed what Mary Laurel True and others in the Sabo Center do in
temn of community service leaming. MUSIP had a staffto support lntemships and active
engagement in the community and HECUA programs. I write about MUSIP more in the chapter.
But another activity that was going on that was really, really important was what was called
CHR [Conserving Human Resources]. It had its own parallel story. I don't know its whole story,
but it orbited around vern Bloom, whom Joel had recruited to teach Social work. At trrat point
all the social work courses were still in sociology; then we split just as I anived, so they could
get accreditation. vem Bloom was a social worker recruited from the Model cities progam. ln
the early 70's Cal Appleby, an adjunct professor, began taking his students to Trevilla in
Robbinsdale to meet and study with the severely disabled adults who lived there. At the same
time the college began to provide co-leaming classes in prisons [stillwater and Shakopee] and
with the elderly. One outgrowth of that was students in wheel chairs coming to campus thanks to
the efforts of wayne ("Mo') Moldenhauer, an ex-con who had taken Augsburg courses at tre
stillwater prison. wayne had talked his way into a job at Augsburg after he completed his prison
term. Augsburg Work Study students drove the accessible vans purchased with money Mo
raised, and this became the forerunner of Metro Mobility region wide. In addition, this led to a
retired alum, Abner Batalden, raising money from Lutheran Churches to make the campus
accessible for people in wheel chairs, well before the legislation was passed requiring
accessibility. So cHR, which was called conserving Human Resources, added significantly to
both Augsburg's traditional students and expanded education for persons who often did noi have
access to college. All these efforts were very experiential and firther expanded our communitybased, experiential education and the diversity ofthe student body. It grew into the GLASS
office. We also established residential programs in Senior Housing in collaboration with the
Housing Authority on the North side. Joe Bash, who invited Joel to bring Augsburg students to
!!g North Side after Dr. King's assassination, resulting in the Crisis Colony, which grew into
HECUA, invited me to recruit students to live with senior citizens in public housing on Olson
Memorial Highway shortly after I succeeded Joel in 1978. All of thes€ efforts buili easily on the
foundation, "at the table," that Joel Torstenson and the Augsburg faculty established in the late
60s and early 70s. To recap, when cHR began it was a group ofcollege students from Augsburg
that got in a van and drove to the prison with the teacher. Half the class were Augsburg sudents;
half were Shakopee women students, Stillwater prisoners or Trevilla residents. I taughi at the
Stillwater prison shortly after I came in 1978. By that time students weren't always going to the
prison, but faculty were going there, so it didn't involve as many students as in iti origins. nut
cHR also reflected the powerful experiential commitment of the college and faculty, along with
the coJeaming model associated with community based service-Ieaming in which Augsburg
students leamed while serving and studying with others in the communiiy. that, to me, is almost
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of l5
always the best kind of service. It's where you are co-leaming, when you are also being served
by those you serve, [conects himself], the men and women in the prison were helping studenr
understand things that they were trying to leam. we were also serving them by hetping to
provide an education for them. So that was one of the most exciting things and daailed more in
in a file recently. I will give it to you to rake a look at. It islirerally a letter from
y_h1 Ut
Mo [wayne] Moldenhauer, who then wound up being that employee at Augsburg after he got out
ofprison, the one who wrote a letter to the student body thankingthem for ttre opporttrnitiei to
study with them. Then Mo, after he got out of prison tumed to vern Bloom and iaid ..I need a
job, because nobody will hire me." Vem says ..We don't have any money,' and Wayne replied
that "I was in prison because I was a con-artist and I took people;s money, so let me ty to raise
th9 money for my own job." And Mo did, and essentially when you drive around this city,
without going offtoo far on a tangent, you see Metro Mobility vans. well, that began at
Augsburg college. Mo raised money to buy vans and Augsburg students with work-study picked
up people at Trevilla in wheelchairs because they retrofitted the vans to haul people because
-lvlo
nothing like that was being offered. And so, Augsburg students, with the money
raised,
picked up people brought them to campus and we then had all these people coming to Augsburg
in wheelchairs. And, as I said earlier, another alum named ebner Bataldin, who hid created an
employment program during the Depression while a student himself, had retired from church
world service/Lutheran world Relief. As a volunteer, Abner raised money to make the campus
accessible, putting in the elevators and walk way. It's a complex causality world, but that was
going on when I arrived. So in addition to Joel Torstenson and the Urban Studies program, tlere
was a lot activity going on in a variety of different places that took Augsburg studentJ out into
the community to leam and grow. And, of great importance, this was considired central to the
Augsburg education and mission, unlike most other places in higher education up tmtil that point.
*9
HH: Hmm, I did not know any of this.
GH: And I found an old file Joel had given me that I had never looked at very closely, which
was this letter from Mo when he was still in prison and it has an article the students had written
in the school newspaper about the CHR program and taking courses at the prison with prisoners.
HH:
So the impact is long and deep here.
Yes; I have always said that Augsburg reflects the philosophy of ..let a thousand flower
blossom." You are pretty much free to do whatever you wantedtohere. There was not always
much monetary support, but ifyou had the your energy and enthusiasm, there was and is a lot
of
freedom to create programs and find support to makJthem work, just as we have done with
serviceJeaming and many ofthe experiential education endeavori over the years. In hindsight,
as I reflect back to 1977, it would appear that Augsburg was looking for someone
to replace Joel
Torstenson who also understood the centrality of experiential education to the teachinj
and
leaming enterprise. This was welltefore the rest ofhigher education did, as we curreritly see
in
AAC&U's LEAP Initiative and what ttrey call High Impact pe<ragogies, or see in campus
compact's. service-I,earning and civic Engagement. ai I have aieaay noted Joel tea ttre
zuutty
and administration of Augsburg to embrace experiential education thirty ye*s befo.e
ttrey have
become mainstream. It was also clear to me wfien I was being interviewei to succeed
Joj1 that
Augsburg was seeking someone who would affirm that pioneering spirit and build upon
the
9H:
Page 7
of l5
"shoulders of the giants" who early on established the college as a leader in bringing experiential
education into the center ofthe curriculum and effective teaching and leaming. Ironically, and
fortunately for me, the very qualities that Augsburg was seeking were the qualities that Wooster
had decided were not central to their own mission and future. Over the years, it has been clear to
me that the national awards and recognition that I have been honored to receive - the campus
Compact & AAIIE's Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service-Leaming (1996); Sociologists of
Minnesota's Distinguished Faculty Award (1998); MN professor of the year (2002); NSEE's
Lifaime Achievement Award in 2014 - were also a stong recognition of Augsburg's firm
foundation and enduring support for all that we were able to do together as my colliagues and I
have expanded upon what we were given and feasted upon at tlnt "table" all these years.
We got paid to teach at the prison and we had faculty release time in order to supervise the
intemships which supported the efforts. And there was great support from faculty and
administration for the program. Again to make the important and simple point, compared to any
other campus, and I have done faculty workshops by now at more than 60 different campuses
around the country--compared to any campus I have ever been to- there has always been wide
spread faculty and administration endorsement of experiential education at Augsburg, unlike
most places. This was not "top down", forced upon us by a president, as marked the beginning of
Campus Compact when college and university presidents initiated community service programs,
at Stanford, Notre Dame, Brown, or Michigan. It bubbled up from the facility and the students.
HH:
Has there ever been push back that you have experienced from the faculty?
GH: well, the push back would be mostly financial in light of other priorities and limited
resources.-The push back, if you would, came when we had to cut out funding faculty to
supervise intemships, especially when you would have a departrnent that didnt many students
doing intemships. And when finances got touglr, which they did in 1982, when we aimost
declared financial exigency, the support to supervise intemship was taken away. Faculty had to
teach more classes and we didn't receive additional credit for iupervising intemships and ttrat
kind ofa thing. But I don't think tlnt there was ever, by faculty, any serious push back or by the
President or leadership or that faculty ever said this was a mistake. It's been a pretty natural
evolution and, my role in this, I hope it's been to just keep greasing the sled and moving us
frrther and deeper.
In light ofthis, I suppose what made it possible to take it to the next level, and I reflected on that
in the chapter of the book on Successful service Leaming programs, "on the shoulder of
Giants", is something that happened in 1980, to put it in historical terms. I had been on the
search committee for a new Dean, Richard Green, an African American chemist from capital
University in columbus, ohio. when Richard had barely gotten on the scene, our Associate
Dean, Patricia Parker, had to have emergency surgery. Dick tumed to me and Earl Alton, from
the chemistry deparhnent, to be the acting Associate Deans while she was recuperatirg. b*irrg
the period of time that I was the Associate Dean in 1981, I was given responsibility foi
intemships, because that was part ofPat's load. I decided to taki advantage ofthai and do some
of the things she and I had talked about. ln the process, I discovered cooferative Education,
which was a federally funded program that Gustaws and concordia collige in Moorhead had
been taking advantage of. Federal funds were available to restore the origi-nal "MUsIp.
Page 8
of
15
Intemship support office that we had to discontinue because of funding in the 1970s. so I, along
with Bob clyde, kept rewriting the proposal. we were successfr.rl in gating the federal co-op Ed
Grant grant. when the 5 year grant was approved in 1983, the Dean iumed to me and said l'Ygulll do it won't you?" we had always put my name and resume on the application, but I
initially said'ho" to the Dean. I didn't think I wanted to spend the next stagi of my career
getting intemships mostly for business majors. And I had a sabbatical leave coming up
to write a
book with a former Wooster colleague based on our interviews of 500 Minneapolis-residents.
But I went home that weekend, and my wife said "who are kidding, Garry? Augsburg is never
going to lave money to do this sort of thing again. you're going to look over thi shoilder
of
somebody who takes thejob and moan and groan and whine beiause they're not doing it right.
why are you tuming this down?" So I called the Dean on Monday moming and saia *ls it stitt
open, I want to do it." so, that gave me not only money to hire and superviie the staff overseeing
and promoting intemships, but also time to secure additional funding io hire Mary Laurel
[Truef
and really expand and deepen the service-learning aspect of experiential education. lronicaty,
at
a time of very limited financial resources, after almoit declaring financial exigency,
I had money
t9 havel and attend Cooperative Education and NSIEE meetings. There was rio travel money at
the college, but there was federal money in the coop grant so icould havel to support the
program. As a result, I became involved in the National Society for Intemships and
Experiential
Education INSIEE] in Pittsburgh in the fall of 1984. As a tenured faculty member, I walked into
a national organization that had been instrumental in promoting experiential education
and
intemships in higher education and was a leader in the emergirig service-learning movement.
And, to give you an idea about faculty involvement at that time in experiential ef,ucation, I went
to NSIEE's faculty interest group. There were seven people who showed up, four of them
weren't faculty members; they had come to talk to faculty members because-no faculty members
back on their campuses wouldtalk with them. The point is, I was one of the few faculiy members
and virtually the only tenured faculty member from an institution that actively supported
experiential education. And within two years, I became not only its vice-presideni but
its
President. This was not because I had a whole lot ofskills or knowledge at that point,
but
because they knew that NSIEE needed someone with faculty status from an institution
that
supported experiential education in leadership in their organization ifthey were going
to be taken
s19y9[11the rest of higher education. So the funding let me travel anddeeperimy-affiliation
3+_IIIE_E-_14 the cooperative Education network. In addition, I got tained as part of
NSIEE's FIPSE Grant [Fund for the Improvement of postsecondary Education] *d b""u." u
*q"t"l consultant in experiential education. So there is a lot accident and the intentionality tied
up in what happened, but I always come back to say "IfI hadn't been from Augsburg,
an
institution that_s_upp9fieq experiential education deiply, going way back to my-predJessor
and
before, probably little of this would have happened.;, Dois that make sense?
i
HH: It does make
sense. So where do you think Augsburg foundation in that came from?
GH: Well, I think I tried to explain-that in the chapter in the book on successfirl service-leaming
programs.Augsburg began as an educational institution to train preachers and
teachers. So in its
DNA and bones [emphasizes this word], Augsburg understood Iiewey ana practiJ
exfirience
well before it evolved into a liberal arts college and a co-education one and-became finally
accredited in the 50s. And I think you could say that this distinguished us from
Gustavtrs or St.
olaf, which began as fledging liberal arts colleges, even ifwe didn't call them that then. This
Page 9
of l5
was a "prcacher school" and seminary until the 50s, and that would be one
explanation. The
other-is that, by accident, Augsburg relocated from a small town in wisconsin
to a rapidly
The founders got kicked out of their building in Marshall, and you t noi, tt ut purt
ryyrng.citr.
of that history. ole Paulson, an urban pastor, up here, responded to so*"
f"tho, ioea trrat
*we need a
college over here in Minneapolis besides the university; they"ity
looked over in st.
Paul, where they had four, Hamline, Mac, st. Thomas and St. catherine,s.
what are we going to
do?" My point is that our urban location was also an accident and quite foreign to
this bunch of
Norwegian farmers who supported tlis new school. virtually none orth"- rivea a ttracity,
tut
there_was this Norwegian church in Minneapolis that got them to come here.
So I think it's, as
Joel rorstenson would say "It's our location, location, location.', If you're in
Northfield or St.
Peter or Moorhead, it's not that you are disengaged with your community,
but the community is
just not really in your face all the time. And the reaity of ttrat
city location in the midst of CedarRiverside's immigrant realties has made a huge diffeience as the'new initiatire ty
rirsten
[Delegard], is documenting.
HH: Historyapolis
GH: Yes, and this college arose in the middle of snooze Boulevard and the west Bank, which
wls home to immigrants and we were an immigrant college itself. And that is different'tlr*
-o.t
all the other Protestant liberal arts
that were mostly established in small tor-r, pu.tiafy
^colleges
because Protestants were scared ofcities.
Catholics tended to live in cities and established their
colleges there to oversimpli$r a bit. Two faculty members had the mort
to Ao JU, e"gJ*g
claiming its urban location, Joel rorstenson aod c*l chrislock, who was a histo.y p-ioror.
Both carl and Joel went here as students, I think. I know Joel did. But they,
rrayr.,
stenshoel in Political Science, a1d n9b clyde, inspired generations of student
"rorjriitr,
to-affrm the crty,
is political in$sges, history and reality. But again, theri ul*uys seemed to be a comfort with
application and relevance to the dynamic and challenging world tlat sunounded
us so that the
applied experiential education emphasis wasn't foreiga wasn,t a uaa thing.
Hence, the link
between the liberal arts and professional studies has irarked our history
6r" til*g;;;g.
lrH: o. k, backing
up to your time when you were serving on the Nationar Society for
Experiential Education President. what do you think yoir experience on that? ylu
talk about
what you were able to give to them. what do you think bang on that
brought back for
Augsburg?
GH: well, the conference I went to in pittsburgh featured the FIpsE Grant from the
Fund for
Improvement of Post-secondary Education, which NSIEE received to promot.
*a
r*"rty
and.staff in the development of experiential education. ril/ith the .".o*"".
"qG
of tt C"-lp-'g*,
I
could cover my expenses related to my training as a consurtant. I was
" back-to
able to bring
j{ugsb_ure, two things, I think. one was an ability to say were on the right toack, tfrat what we had
been doing for decades, higher education is nowaff*ming. And the
selona trring *as aat r
learned how the emerging community_serviceJeaming fiid was
unfokring ana ;kin! shape. es
a rgylt we w9r9 a!19 to vev
qrlckly frnd and get funding from a Mi*"r&. bgi.lrtii" grant that
to nire Mary Laurel rrue. That put us in touci- with eveo rnor" r.roil"",
ys
9na!t9{
*a?-aiog.
And I think the reason I was asked to. write that chapcr in the book was that
our service-Laming
program was grounded in what Augsburg had been doing for
decades. It also gave us a chance
Page
l0 of
15
to tell Augsburg's story on a national level, which I also have been
able to do in the sixty prus
g1:Effdevelopment workshops I have done across the
u;ini"I).
on or
the few FIPSE consultants who had faculty stat s. But I was
aso exposea to frressiona
colleagues.who had pioneered in,the deveiopment of serviceJeamiri
*a
education
overall and add their wisdom and experience to Augsburg and rrectla;s "*frri."tia
p.*ti."
*J
experiential educatioq further enriching and expanding
efforts here.
My other colleagues, Lois olson, Mary Laurel irue, ira Ira.oi" Benasutti,
added further
p.resence at NSEE and Campus Compact,_while
expanding student invok;"rt
development. And I think it's fair.to
thTe a{e ro,n" kiy
we keep receiving nationar
:ay
recognition from the President and others.
Certainly it is because ofnumbei of studenft we have
involved, the_Bonner program and a wide embrace by faculty. But,
modesty *i0",
it i.
also, in part because I have had the opportunity to bi involved
nati"rarv.
trr"
campus compact Erlich Award ror rliaerstrip in Service Leaming
recognized me, but also my
colleagues_and the college that had supported us in creating
high q;lfty I*p"ri"rtia-"Ju""tion
programs. Indeed, Augsburg almost stood alone in those early-auy,
ufor" oa.. i*"rty ro*a
support from their institutions to engage in serviceJeaming. i t"n"rrtt"a
i**"nr"iv
trr"t
support and unique history.
c;hy.
l*W
iil.
,iri*
ir
"r
;Jil;;rr_
.*o*
i*."-"
i.i.Ji*ri.r,
til-
As regards my career, {rs I indicated previously, I had to make
a decision. I,m going in two days
to Detroit to visit my friend that I was doing research with beginningi,
wr"r[, Jtf,aG
neightorhoods and housing. During the swnmer of 19g0, we got several grants
and we hired four
Augsburg students to do summer rese-arch on housing ani neilhborhooar]
random sample of 400 households in Minneapolis. We hua g;h"."d
"
neighborhood dynamics and housing maintenance. Then Aulsburg "ll
re."i*a trr. c".p
funding in 1983 when I was schedulid for a sabbatical to wriL oui
book. rrre aeclsioi to tat<e
the co-op job meant I had to tum to George Galster and say..the
boot i, yo*r.
iJgoing to
have the time or be able to take the sabbaticar that r was
eligible f"r.,'
trr"t
research career to do what I have done at Augsburg. But
I can say in ..t o.p".t, it i. "p *or"
consistent with who I am and my sense of vocation', to use
the Augsburg.'-t l. i"r:"v"a trr"
research and the topic of housing and neighborhood dynamics
whi-cr,
ut tlr"
Ji,,,v
teaching and the Metro urban studies pro-gram. And f bved
".nti', lrgsb*g
the
students out in the community interviewing and doing research. "pp"rt""ity "irr"rtig
i"rp"?*. e"a
it was a bit painfril to let go oiit, ro. *y
no-d;gltl". nut trr" opportunity took me and
"e-o,if directiJns.
Augsburg in some very exciting and rewarding
and *causi'aaiis #tui eug.u*g
needed and wanted me to undertake, the synergy has been,
I think, mutuaty teneiJJ.T
certainly have benefited immensely and hive no regrets foi pursuing
tt
*J putr, trri.
opened for me. I think that both the college and I ha-ve enhanced
" becaus" oitt *uy
eacJr other
things developed.
"
rrr"virl*i.*.a
tlri"a;;;;*r.
ia
ir*
s;,idi;*"
*L
ririt**,lJry
"o**
HH: And have an impact.
GH: Yes and a reputation.
HH:
Yes, yes
Page
ll
of
15
d,
GH: Yes, my experiential education workshops have been well received and beneficial because
they are grounded and significantly augmented by the overall Augsburg successes and practices
of my colleagues, as well as my own community-based teaching and supervision of internships.
IIH:
So during the 80s, you
talk about "On the Shoulders of Giants" from 1984-1989, you were
you
talking about
spent most of your time on experiential leaming that was when you were
working as the President and Vice-President, ah, on the board ofNISEE. What kind of changes
happened here on campus?
GH: During that time period when we had the co-operative education gant, I continued to work
fr.rll time as Director of Co-operative Education and wasn't teaching much Sociology or Urban
Studies. Then as the funding for the federal grant wound down and we found funding for Mary
[,aurel True to expand the service learning, we created.t]e Center for Service, Work and
Leaming. We brought the oversight of intemships into this Center. Lois Olson became its
Director, and Mary Laurel worked with her, along with Susan Giguire, Sandy Tilton and Menie
Benasutti. All that has now expanded to form the Strommen and Sabo Centers as the TorsGnson
vision and legacy continues to grow. But during the period you're asking about, I think that one
ofthe biggest things that happen was that we evolved as current curriculum was designed. It had
two important "book ends." Every first year student is required to take a course called Engagrng
Minneapolis that is embedded in one of their liberal arts courses. This is supposed to introduce
them to what the urban location would means for their education and introduces them to the
leaming opportunities available in the city. The other "bookend" is basically an experiential
education graduation requirement called the Augsburg Experience. We more broadly defined
what the Augsburg Experience would be, but there were only about 2 or 3 colleges in the country
that had an experiential education requirement for graduation, Monmouth and DePaul. An
internship is one option, as are study abroad, student-faculty research, an upper level serviceleaming course, and a student can design his or her own experiential project. ln that new
curricular context, I retumed to the Sociology department full-time and Urban Studies. And this,
I think, is very important to stress. Many of the colleges, like Gustaws and Concordi4 that got
the Co-operative education grants, when the money ran out, the programs dried up. Augsburg,
and I really credit the faculty and administration, found the resources and have continued to
support these endeavors that significantly enhance the quality and reputation ofthe college. As I
said, I retumed to teaching full time, and we institutionaliz€d that with the Center for Service,
Work and Leaming. And the college continued to support the staffthat had been hired using
federal money to start with, affrrming that "Yes, this truly is who we are and we can't let this go
when the federal grant ends." The Sabo and Strommen Centers, along with the Center for Global
Educatiorl are Augsburg centerpieces because the college faculty and administration have said
"we can't be Augsburg College without providing the support systems for students and the
faculty related to experiential education." Have we arrived or gone as far as we should and could
have? Probably not, but the commitnent is shong, and it has always been a work in progress.
HH: You would
have liked to have seen more pushed?
GII: Well,
yes, I think the lack of funding is just pure and simple, but given that, the fact that
is institutionalized and the support is there is a testament to the college and its leadership.
Page 12 of 15
it
HH: And it still remains today,
so.
GH: Yes, and maybe it is even stronger. When we split the Center for Service, Work and
Leaming to forrn the Strommen Center to oversee the internships and career service and the Sabo
Center to intensiff our work in public service and public involvement, it reflected President
Pribbeno's vision and call when he came here as President. Paul says that he was athacted to
Augsburg College, as were the other candidates, when I recall their speeches, because of its
embracing of its urban location. His competitor was a person who was Provost at the University
of Colorado in Denver. Paul wanted very much to be at a school that was committed to
community service and its surrounding community. And he was attracted to Augsburg because,
of all the Lutheran colleges, we were the one most engaged. So you could say, and he does say,
that he came here because he knew the college was already committed to
leaming.
HH: And that is current President Paul Pribbeno?
GH: Yes
HH: Ok. Alright
so what do you believe your greatest challenge in work here at Augsburg has
been?
GH: On a personal level, the greatest challenge is to stay focused. There are so many
opportunities. And my own personal inclination is to tackle too much. I would sometimes
describe myself as an intentional dilettante. I get excited about new ideas and my wife says I
have trouble walking in a straight line fiaughter]. so, on a personel level the greatest chalienge
was to stay focused and see things through before I launch into another idea and take on
something else. And that, I think, is the institutional challenge for Augsburg as well. We
probably should have been more disciplined and strategic, but who knows?
HH: What do you believe
has been your greatest challenges in your work at Augsburg?
GH: I think that when we embraced the new curriculum, we had to give up original Urban
Sfudies required course. There used to be a required course in urban studies that went clear back
to that curriculum in the 60s and 70s. But when we identified the Engaging Minneapolis and the
Augsburq Experience as requirements, I chose to go with that decision. But I think my biggest
sense of failure or biggest challenge tlnt we've faced was that the Engaging Minneapolis course
very quickly, for practical reasons, became first just a serviceJeaming course that often didn't
really accomplish the larger objectives. It specified very clearly that the inhoductory courses
would introduce students to leaming opportunities in the city, notjust service, as valuable as that
is. so if you were a history major, the intro course would intoduce you to the resources and
accessibility to the Minnesota History center, the Hennepin county Historical. If you were
chemistry or business major it would introduce you to research and work going at 3M, Ecolab,
Target or Medhonic. It wasn't that you would always be doing service. So, first Engaging
Minneapolis tended to become identified with just service, which was not the primary inG"t.
That tended to introduce students primarily to the problems of the city even more than seeing the
city and region as a resourc€. It did not meet the goal that Joel rorstenson and I believed in,
Page 13
of
15
namely equipping students to understand cities, how they work and how people, as citizens, need
to be actively engaged, not just servicing people, but politically and socially making the
community a better place by working together with the people who live in it. And so even to this
day, the Engaging Minneapolis course doesn't usually meet lyhat the criteria are, which was to
introduce new students to the leaming opportunities of the city and how the discipline of the
course being taken contributes to an understanding of the city-whether English, Literature,
History, Chemistry, etc. That is a weakness, I think. When I became the Sabo professor of
Citizenship, and when I retired last year, I became less and less engaged with the actual
gurriculum. My own personal sense of failure and the institutional challenge is what do we really
do with the Engaging Minneapolis requirement related to what it was designed to do. The
graduation requirement ofthe Augsburg Experience is, I think, still pretty solid, but, like
everything, can always use more attention and support. And we are starting to do more support
for intemships. we now have a major frrnd and grant to give support to students doing unpaid
intemships, so more people will do intemships. So, for me, the biggest challenge is to simply
make the curriculum "book ends," the Engaging Minneapolis and Augsburg Experience, be what
they were designed to be and intended to be. But no one thought that would be easy anyway.
HH: Ok,
on the flip side, what do you hope to be remembered for? What do you hope your
legacy is here at Augsburg?
GH: well, I say it
a lot, and
I know I really mean it. I hope my legacy is that I contributed to and
helped the Torstenson platform and legacy continue. I hope I have deepened that in some
important ways. And, in a broader sense, hopefully my legacy is that i played a role in
increasing the quality and quantity of what is "on the table,', using the metaphor ofJoel
Torstenson, carl chrislock, Bob clyde and Myles Stenshoel setting the table for us. I deeply
believe they did, because the curricular pieces were mostly in place when they retired, too.
Hopefirlly, my legacy is that I put more on the table, that I helped put a lot ofvariety, good
"food" on that table to help Augsburg students, faculty, and staff to feast at and to takJ advantage
of as they d,ine at Augsburg [aughter]. Sorry, I may milk that metaphor too much. And I hope
that in my final role as the sabo Professor of citizenship and Leaming, we have been able to
transfer and continue to translate community engagement in some new ways. community
engagement should mean, I think, looking at the city as a place to leam along with otlers, but
also as a place to co-create as we listen to the voices of community members and co-leam
together as a leaming community. That also should help us understand what citizenship is about,
namely, citizens engaging each other in problem-solving. citizenship is not about me fixing you.
It requires working together to make our communities healthy, generative, and humane for all.
And so hopefully that is an emerging role for the college that I have contributed to. Having Harry
Boyte, Dennis Donovan, and Elaine Eschenbacher and the Center for Democracy and
citizenship move here from the University of Minnesota is giving us a way to keep expanding
the Torstenson vision. And that is very consistent with that vision, namely'equipping every
Augsburg student to be an active citizen and community builder, exercising their civic agency, as
Harry would stress, and work with others to address the issues and challenges facing theiity or
community where they live. Joel rorstenson's basic theme was that we need to eqoip every
Augsburg student to be a community builder. we don't know where people are going to live, but
we know trrat communities are dynamic, organic, and evolving, so through engagemEnt in the
city, through service and whatever modes we would call experiential education, itudents from
Page 14 of 15
Augsburg are, we hope, better equipped to be community builders. I hope that my legacy is to
have conhibuted to that vision and the educational preparation that enables all who leam and
work here to be active community builders the rest of their lives. So, hopefrrlly, I have
contributed to that vision and that I have helped my colleagues at Augsburg embrace it as well.
It certainly has become central to Augsburg's reputation, and I know many ofus have helped
that happen. The other legacy of Joel Torstenson that is consistent with my own values isi deep
belief in a multi-cultural community that values and honors people of all beliefs, reputations,
ethnicities, skin colors and orientations. That is also the college's new demographic profile,
which is quite unlike any other Lutheran or most other Protestant related liberalarts colleges.
And it represents a foundation that our urban location makes possible, where that diversity has
happened and is happening. That is a legacy that I hope I contributed to by what I have done over
the years, but it is the result of many, many hands and efforts that I have been privileged to
share-u,hat a gift and good fortune. This should equip us to be even better community builders
and civic agents.
HH: Ok. Well, I want to thank you Garry for your time.
GH: You're welcome and thank you.
Page 15 of
l5
Show less
Interview with Mary Kingsley
Intenieryed at 2426 Sheridan Ave'
Minneapolis, MN
Interviewed on March 18th, 2015
Augsburg College Oral History Project
Inteniewed by Anny Finch
Mary Kingsley- MK
Anny Finch- AF
Time
toe
0.13
Ar:
The following interview was conducted with Mary Kingsley on be... Show more
Interview with Mary Kingsley
Intenieryed at 2426 Sheridan Ave'
Minneapolis, MN
Interviewed on March 18th, 2015
Augsburg College Oral History Project
Inteniewed by Anny Finch
Mary Kingsley- MK
Anny Finch- AF
Time
toe
0.13
Ar:
The following interview was conducted with Mary Kingsley on behalf of
the Augsburg College Archives for the Augsburg College Oral History Project. It
took place on March 18th 2015 at Mary Kingsley's home. The interviewer is
Anny Finch. Mary Kingsley is a fonner professor of Modem languages, taught
Spanish for 42 years at Augsburg College. During her time at Augsburg, she was
a key member in faculty govemance and encouraged and engaged students about
how one should be in the world She also has a passion for justice. Thank you
again for your time. My first question is just to tell me about your background and
education, kinda a back-story?
1.03
MK:
Well, I grew up Crosby-honton, a mining town and my father was a
mining engineer and I went to school at Crosby-konton High school and then I
followed in the tradition of our family and went to St. Olaf. Where my
grandmother had been widowed at a young age and she we'nt to Nortbfield,
bought a house and made a living there so that she could educate her children and
have them go to St Olaf which they did. So we came into tlnt tradition. So I got
my B.A. from St Olaf in 1962 and I was a member of the Span Program that went
to Spain in the summer of 196l before I graduated. And because ofthat I feU, I
switched my major in college which was French to Spanish which was my minor
and went back to Spain on my own and went for a year to the University of
Madrid and got (Spanish Spoken here) from the Univenity of Madrid and then
because I wasn't planning on getting any degree, I was just was doing it for
myself , I decided that I better stay and get a master's degree so Middlebury had
its own program by that second year and then I finished that in 1964. And I
applied for ajob by mail, I applied to four colleges or universities and I got ajob
at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, South Dakota. And everybody
there would ask each other how did you end up here? And I was only 24 years old
and I had already ended up somewhere and I was but I did, I did enjoy that year.
But, when I was there I called Mimi Kingsley who had beeq who taught Spanish
at Augsburg and Mimi Kingsley and Jim Kingsley were my span advisors and she
said that they were going to go to Chile to work for the Ford Foundalion on the
library in Chile and why didn't I come to Augsburg to teach. So anyway, she
recommended me to be hired at Augsburg and...and in March I think, they called
me and I thought I was suppose to stay two years at least at someplace. Well
anyway, I thought well if I get offered the job well I'll take it so I left and went to
Augsburg after one year al the University of South Dakota. And I had never been
to Augsburg so I had never seen Augsburg so when I told the dean, Martin
Quanbeck that I had never seen Augsburg when he offered me the job and I
accepted, he was kind of shocked. So therU I decided I better go, take a look at
Augsburg and I gave them a look at me. So
went to Augsburg and Mimi
I-I
Kingsley introduced me to the dean and we talked for an hour and we talked only
about religion for the whole hour. And I was never introduced to the chair ofthe
depaxtrnent ofmodem language. (laughing) Butn so the reason we talked about
religion was in those days it was legal to
question and I had been in Spain,
"sk the
and I had had a lot ofquestions about my beliefs so I had been raised a Luttreran
and then I spent two years in a residence ran by a Catholic Order so I was very
introduc€d to Catholicism as well but I was kind of slipping out of Christianity at
that so I wrote my Augsburg application that I was half Catholic and half other
(laughing) so he wanted to know what I meant by that. So that's uihat we
discussed for an hour and we had an interesting conversion and he didn't take
back his offer (laughing) for the job. So that was, that was my introduction.
5.30
AF:
Tell me about when you first started at Augsburg, how the feeling was,
how the people were?
5.42
MK:
Well...we had faculty workshops in those days and there was a new dean,
dean Ken Bailey and I was new and the president Oscar Anderson I think- I'm
not sure, he was, I don't think he was new that year but he was quite new and he
had hired Ken Bailey from Moorhead from which he had come, originally to, he
was a pastor before at a well known church in Concordia, Oscar Anderson was.
So anyway, we had this workshop so I knew I was coming into this with relatively
new people in the administration and, and so I first went to a language department
meeting before the faculty meeting so I heard all the conversation about
something they were talking about and I heard what they were going to present to
the faculty. And when we got to the faculty meeting, the chair got up and
presented something entirely different. (Laughs) once the department head had
decided so I started wondering oh what is this? What is going on here? you know
here they had decided something and he goes and presents something else well so
that was my introduction to the departrnent and to faculty meetings so I was more
or less just an interested, igrrorant bystander to those first meetings. But I had
when I first started, I had-I think I had, I think we had 8 courses then at that time
ifl remember correctly, courses a somester, oh a a year, a year rather, four a
semester. And I think I had two beginner classes and two intermediate classes and
it stands out in my mind is that, I went and told that
grade
intermediate class that the
they got would be exactly what they deserved
and there was a visible gasp (aughing the grade they deserved) so the whole
one thing that stands orit, well
group came up afterwards and said oh well we had this terrible class last year and
we all signed up for the same one so that so that so there wouldn't be, they
wouldn't believe how little we knew and everything was so and so they were
worried about what would happen and, and I think that it tumed out alriCht, that
somehow we made it thrcugh thaf, that second year but they were but I think
someone had been fned to hire me. They were planning on doing it but they
waited till the last possible minute tlat's why I got the ofer in March to come in
so this person had not been to successflrl with the students. So they were worried
but, but it everything worked out alright I think, I think we had, has a good year.
8.40
AF:
8.50
MK:
Talking about you becoming a deparftnent chair, can you describe the
role ofa deparanent chair, why you took it on?
Well that was, that was sort of a interesting thing, it was prctty much well
known that I didn't enjoy deparhnent meetings. (Laughs) And here I was, I was
first asked to be the interim chair because Mimi Johnson who was the chair and
taught French was asked to take on some other work. So the dean asked me ifI
would be acting chair and I think everyone was surprised when I said yes that I
would do it cause I think I was, it was well known that I didn't enjoy deparhnent
meetings. For one thing, is I recall there wasnt much of, we didn't really have an
agenda to stick to so when I went to be acting chair, I told them that I figured that
they probably knew that I, they were probably surprised that I accepted this job
and I said that we were having an agenda and we were going to start our meetings
at a quarter to four and we were going to finish at five, our meetings just went on
as long as the last person was talking and ifanyone was still left (laughs) to talk
to. So I was trying to bring order, oh and then I discovered that I eqioyed bring
order to chaos (laughs). Which I saw happening and I think that-that the
department enjoyed that too. Because we got out so the next year, I was elected
chair unanimously I think and I had a lot of support by the second election ofa
three year term, I had made some decisions that (laughs) caused some, so I didn't
enjoy such a support, by that second election and by the third, I think I had to vote
for myselfto make sure (laughs) I would get elected. So I was chair for three
terms and then Frankie took over for six years and then after six years she didn't
want to do it anymore, I came back in for another nine years- three terrrs. So,
but the work of the chair...involves a lot things and there were personal
di{ficulties, questions from students but mainly getting the courses, deciding on
the curiculum and getting the courses set up and assigmng everybody and all the
adjuncts to courses year by year and keeping that going in an orderly fashion. And
I think, deans have told me tlat almost everybody handed in programs for the
following year with mistakes and I had several things, oh, oh well. No I didn't
think I had made any mistakes, well, oh well maybe not, but then I did make one
and it was a lulu. (laughs) That was that I assiped Don Steinitz to two classes
(laughs) at the same time. And, and we found out about it two hours, he came in,
oh no there is a terrible mistake and he hadn't noticed it either, something had
shifted, changed something in the summer or it was different from what I had in
the fall when I handed it fuL I put him into an open spot, we had filled it with we
had moved his other class and neither one ofus noticed that so another Spanistr
teacher switched with him and before the class met and before the classes met,
sort it out again was a litfle hicky but so that was, ah that was a lulu to have
somebody assigned for two classes (aughs) at the same time, for someone who
was bragging about not mak- not making mistakes. A-nd so I donl I don't just
make little ones, I made a big one so that for me was and keeping everything, you
know. Solving questions, somebody for example, had a question ofa student
cheating in a class well then it ended up in my lap with that and that, I dealt with
that and different, all sorts ofthings. But mostly, mostly people took care oftheir
own issues with students and things but once in a while, you'd deal with
something like tlat.
13.15
AF:
Did the experiences or responsibilities, did they ever change over
time, since you first started as a deparfiment chair or to later coming in? Or has
it
always been consistent?
13.26
MK:
By the time I was elected chair, chairs were elected by the department but
when I first came to Augsburg they were named by the administration. And I was
um, telling Phil Adamo yesterday, that shift where I can remember going in to
dean Bailey and I said we need to have a process at Augsburg for getting rid of
departnent chairs and he looked at me and said I don't like your language.
(laughs) And then I realized getting rid of sounded, (laughing) sounded a little bit
fierce. So, but anyway, if you look in the faculty handbook there is a process now
for the removal of department chairs. And then it went into voting I don't
remember exactly how that came that of the departrnent votes that came later after
that. But that would be another process that came before I was chair, where the
departnents elected chairs and we had the tlree year terms and another election
and so on and so on. So tba! that process changed in that way, there was a process
for deparfinents, I think it might have been used once only. Butjust having a
process helped so that people, and having people elected to so that would so that
they would try not to do things that would be too disruptive. One of my
colleagues said to me, one time, oh everybody meaning all of the permits look out
for their own piece of the pie. I was famous for always thinking ofthe college
first much to the consternation of the deparEnents sometimes because it meant
doing what I thought departrnents should do. Which was to cut classes if we didn't
have large enough enroltnents and to ty and try to be responsible in managing
the money that we had and the resources that we had. Keeping the overall college
in mind as well and not holding on to everything we could so I said to the person,
not everyone looks out for their own piece of pie, my answer always was there's
no piece without a pie. So we have to look out for the pie. (aughs) So as in that
sense, I was also looking out for our piece. Because but the college so I always
did try to look out for the college as a whole. On the other hand, when Frankie
came iq I think Frankje was really good at looking at, thinking about how the
department should maybe change over the years and so it is good to have different
people if you can have different people with diffetent visions. So I was trying to
keep things together, keep it going with the needs of the college but and looking
out for the department too and my way. Frankie, I think was better, looking out
for some of the shifting trends and, and the departnent did change after I left it.
They were working on that my last year. I had Frankie on a committee working
with people to change the name of the deparfinent and the name changed even to
cultural studies or something, I can't even remember exactly what it became. I'm
confidante the departnent has taken care of all of that (laugh$ after I've gone.
They ended up going offin a new direction and that's a good thing.
17.00
17.18
AF:
I'll shift a little bit to your involvement in the faculty governance cause
you kind oftouched on it. Can you kind of discuss your role in the faculty beyond
just being a deparhent chair and kind of how many deans or presidents who've
served under while you were at Augsburg?
MK: Well, first I served under as I said Oscar Anderson and Ken Bailey and
then Ken Bailey- left the deanship and he went into the faculty which was a
difficult rhing to do and I always admired him greatly being able to make that
switch. It would not be easy to be removed as dean and then go into the faculty
and he did that and he did it well. He was elected to faculty senate and played a
major role as a faculty merrber so I served with him as dean first then as a
colleague and I always had a high regard for him and considered him a friend.
And that's when Chuck Anderson came in as dean and when he first came in as
dean, I had just written a little play (laughs) that was criticizing the
administration. And it was criticizing the Oscar Anderson administration cause
the faculty at that time had a personal committee that decided promotions and
they had gone through the whole process of making recommendations but hadn't
announce them yet. And Oscar Anderson announced that we had too many people
in the upper ranks and he was suspending promotions for the year. So I wrote a
little play criticizing that action. (laughs) I was sick at home with the flu and I sat
down and wrote this play. I think it was called the little engine of morality play
and it was about how this poor engine was trying to get over to (made up Latin
spoken) my made up Latin sounding like things, you know, and I had a good time
with it. And with everyone trying to get through and then things changed and
shifted and it was quite critical. Well I showed it to Chuck Anderson and a- a- he
was riding through the hall pass my office often and he stopped in and intro- he
was the new dean and then I gave him a copy of this play and he said I can't wait
until you start writing things for me. Well, he probably would have (laughs)
shifted on that waiting for me to write things for him. We had a complicated
relationship and I did have quite a few complaints about things and did write
things and talk with him later so he. He was the dean under Oscar and then he was
chosen dean and he, chosen president, in fact I think Oscar retired a year early
maybe because St. Olaf was looking for a president and I think, he was concemed
that Chuck might go to SL Olaf instead of stalng at Augsburg. So then by that
time I was on faculty senate and I could back up and tell a little bit more about
that but I was on faculty senate and I was the committee to chose the new
president could include one male faculty mernber and a female faculty member
and the faculty senate was going to chose these people. And ihe faculty senate
chose me and- John Holm in chemistry and I had mixed feelings because as
usual I had just been through some big confrontation (laughs) with Chuck
Anderson. And so I went and talked to him and I was trying to figure out whether
I could be completely unbiased in that role and then I decided, I thought I could
be but I thought I shouldnt stay in that role knowing that we had had these
differences of opinions and I thought it would be better if somebody else would
do it. Just in case anybody would think thBt I would be biased or whatever, I
thought I could be unbiased but I removed myself from that and then I think
Maureen Mcniff served in that role. So there was good faculty administrative, I, I
I think good faculty govemance procedures going on and as I recall, I think this is
accurate, the committee to chose the new president decided that it was clear who
should be the new president early on and they suspended the search andjust chose
Chuck Anderson. And I remember that I saw him out in the parking lot and I
think I was one ofthe first people to congratulate him on his win and the search
and then he was president for many years. So then after Charles Anderson and
then I served under Frame until he left and then I was, and then that was with his
dean who was then Chris Kimball, who was a colleague of mine, who came from
being an associate professor to being the academic dean which is not an easy
thing to do. And then ah one year under Pribbenow before I- retired. And, and
that was with then Barbara Anderson who was, he didn't call her an interim dean
but she was sort of placed in there for a temporary time and then became the
official dean at the request ofPribbenow who named her his only, his only
chose. So she was a friend of mine and I wanted her to be the dean but I thought
there should be a search. So I was the only friend ofBarbara Farley's who wrote a
letter and said Barbara Farlee is a friend of mine, I want her to be dean, we should
follow the official process and have a search, an open search because this method
is not good for Barbara Farley, it's not good for the president and it's not good for
the college. So that was ignored (laughs) which was ok with me because I did
what I thought I should do and I thought I was being a good friend to Barbara
Farley by pointing that out. So that's tlrc history ofthe presidents and the deans,
so when I first got to Augsburg, one of the first committees I was on was the
social committee. The social committee was made up of all women and guess
what their job was?
AF: What?
MK: (augls) To decide what should be served at the faculty meeting and one
of them, one of the five women on the committee would pour the coffee and a
good time was had by all of course. So I sat dovyn and I wrote a letter to Oscar
Anderson, one of my first letters to a president and I said that I thought that the
social committee should be abolished. Because we as faculty have much more
important things to do such as to plan a faculty love-in, a faculty pot party, I bad
about five things that were equally as serious, (laughing) you know, and, and in
response, I got a very formal letter from Oscar Anderson saying fhat the social
committee was a very important committee and would have to continue and
needed to continue or something on that order. So we named all men to it and it
was abolished immediately (laughs) after that. So in those early years things were
quite different from what they became and in the early, I went to Augsburg in
1965, in the early 70s about ten people were fired and most of them were women
and some women anonymously who were not fired I thinl, who weren't affected
by the cuts filed a lawsuit charging sexism. And it became big news in the paper
and it was the president was going to name a committee to study this whether or
not there were biased against women at Augsburg. So he named Marjorie Sibley
to chair-person of that committee and the faculty senate named the four other
members and the four other members were Mles Denchel, Jean Skibby, Norrran
Newman and I was the fourth one so the 5th one. So we went to a meeting with
Oscar Anderson and other administrators and in that meeting, President Anderson
said that we may study the documents of Augsburg to see if they were sexist but
we couldn't study any cases. So I looked at him and I said do you mean to say that
if Augsburg was unfair to a faculty member or faculty mernber was to Augsburg
you don't want to know it? And I get emotional easily so I assume that it's true I
had tears in my eyes probably and another administrator said well you people are
really uptight, Mary's got tears in her eyes and another member of the committee
said no we're not uptight but if we can't look into the cases then I'm resigr.ing
from this committee, me too, me too, me too, me too, me too. So immediately he
shifted and said we could look into the cases which we did for two years and then
we made recommendations and in the credit to Oscar Anderson and his
administration they followed our recommendations. So we started with a new
salary scale that was pretty objective it didn't take into account subjective criteria
and Miles Denchel and I spent a whole Easter vacation, siuing in here studying all
of the documentation about every person and we found that in almost every case
men were favored over women in the salary and even disciplines that were
considered more feminine were discriminated against in salary. So something like
English verses Chemistry, English would have a lower salary. So that was an
important committee and it made a big difference and I think it gave that
Augsburg was ahead of a lot of other private colleges in trying to hire women,
promote women and they weren't any women on faculty senate at the beginning
either and I don't rernember how tley were nanied or if they were elected. But
Miles Denchel is due to the heiress system where you could weigh! you could
name, if you named it if any group ofpeople named, I think you needed about
ten or twelve votes if you had number one, were rated number one by ten or
twelve people, you could get elected. So it weighted the vote sort of like that last
election on the mayor in Minneapolis so that helped women get on senate. And at
one year after that I remember one year there was only one man on senate that
was very unusu"l. (laughs) But so senate became more representative ofthe
desires of various groups on tle faculty. So senate was an important part and I
was on faculty senate for at least 25 years staight so I was on there a lot-but one
person speaking out could have a big afect- also and I did think like my play
that I put out all over and other time Charles Anderson announced that he was
going to, he- well he didn't annormce, he sent letters to five people. And told them
that they weren't guaranteed a contract the next year and the reason was, he had to
make some cuts in order to have raises for the rest ofthe faculty. So one of, so
somebody who worked under me, Joel Muggy worked under me as I was Director
of Intemational Programs so that was another role that I played and he worked
under me and he came and told me that he had gotten one of these letters. So then
I suspected that somebody else who was a friend of mine in the English
depaftnent, I didnt know who had all gotten them but she had gotten home so I
went and asked Chuck if she was getting one and he said yes. And I said, you
should call her so she will know that's she is getting one ofthese letters otherwise
she is going to come in tomorrow moming and find it under her door and that
would not be good. (laughs) And he said, you got yourself into this mess, you get
yourself out cause I think I had mentioned to her that some ofthese letters had
gone out but we didnt know whether she was getting one. Well he wouldnt call
her, so I ended up writing a letter to the whole faculty and I asked them to vote to
give up their raises for a year to save those five people. And some colleagues
whom I respected didn't think we should make that vote and they got up and left
when the vote happened cause they didn't want to vote no but they didnt want to
be voting yes either and I respect that. And they left, but the faculty voted to give
up their raise to save those five people and those five positions were safe in those
departments for many years to come. I think they are still, all, they didn't have to
be cut. That's the only thing I've ever fought for that I think now was a mistake,
that we shouldn't have given up our raises because it put us even farther behind,
that we should have argued for something else. But it did save those five people
and the faculty in general is, was willing to do that and in our deparfinents
sometimes too, we offered to cut back in our departnent so save somebody in our
departnent but the administration wouldn't let us do that and tlnt probably was
right. Because you have to keep thinking about what's going on and what you can
reasonably sustain. People sometimes making these generous sacrifices, maybe
it's not the b€st thing, maybe that wasnl 11rc $s51 thing oveiall for our salaries for
example. So I have wondered about that but at the time, I was convinced it was
the right thing to do. That would be one thing I wonder, look back and wonder
was that you know maybe that was a mistake.
33.27
33.41
AF:
You were talking about being on the faculty senate, during your time on
what was- can you discuss kind of the priorities of the faculty senate and how
they were determined?
it
MK: Well-I think that they probably were determined by the issues that were
brought to us by other faculty mernbers or the administration or the board. And
one year, that was really important, all thou I don't remernber what year it was but
one year-{harles Anderson announced in the fall that he was going to declare
financial exigency which is a really big step that allows you to fire tenured
people. But it means you are in serious financial trouble, well the faculty senate
that year because somebody on the board had requested it was studying the
committee structure so that was what we were working on. And a friend of mine
kept saying to me, I don't think we really have to declare financial exigency, I
don't think that's what we should really be doing, in one ear, out the other. Finally
there was something in between one eye and the other to stop that, Ijust started
listening and thinking well, well she is right, we really shouldn't do that, so I went
to senate and I said, what are we doing talking about committee stnrcture when
the president's talking about declaring financial exigency? Why are we talking
about committee structure? We should be talking about this, so we started
building up and we had other people in the faculty interested in one thing and
finally convinced the president that was the wrong thing to do and
gave reasons and he listened. And we stopped it and we, the dean was saying well
we are going to be better than ever, well without any plan. Well how are we going
to be better than ever, we cu! how many tenure people would we cut and how
another, we
would be then, how is this going to get out and so on, so anyway, we convinced
the president and he convinced the board and we had a big committee on where
we could cut elsewhere and, and a lot of the things we said we would cut, (augh$
the committee decided to cut football. Well you can see how well that went over,
we also decided to cut Norwegian but of course that didn't save a lot ofmoney.
It's always hard to cut we have, that is one of our weaknesses at Augsburg is
knowing where to cut and really evaluating how are things going; where could we
save, what do we really need and, and now in languages be an example with
French and Ge(nan have lower enrollments a lot ofplaces and we don't have a
strong, we don't have a whole lot of French students or a whole lot of German
students so is there or with Frankie Shackelford leaving Norwegian, do we really
need to have, Norwegian was saved and it was saved by Ed Stebella of the
Business departrrent. Who got up and spoke against it said we should not be
cutting Norwegian, we are a Norwegian school and, and that came back in. I don't
know how football was saved but I'm sure the president had a role in that and it
probably wasn't a good idea. (laughs) That's right that probably wasn't a good idea
but the faculty and the administration working together, I mean, we all ended up
being together and so-in a lot of these things where I had differences of opinion
with Charles Anderson and I was a faculty leader who spoke out often in
opposition, he wrote me a letter one time and said lve tried to think about why
you and I are so often on opposite sides and he was trying to tmderstand which is
something that I look back on and I respect and admire and know it was an
important characteristic. And- he said, I think it's because I get as much for the
college as I can and you try to get as much for the individual that you can.
Because I defended individuals who were in trouble with the college, who were
fired or removed as chair or something like that and I tied to help them through
the grievance procedure or the faculty acuity committee, the ah-- in one case it
was a chair person had been removed and there was a process for that and he
could have an advocate. I was his advocate and on the staff, to make a long story
short, I was named StaffAdvocate by a staff committee the A.O.W. the Augsburg
Office Workers, because I had helped a woman who had been fired. And I didn't
get her, her job back but at least the committee said stre had been misteated and I
thought it was important to help her. And I helped her, um, because nobody came
forward to help her, I didn't even know her but I knew the procedures hadn't been
followed. And I thought, they should follow their procedures and her boss was a
friend of mine but the only, the only mistake she made was she hadnt given her a
fair, critical evaluations, she had given her good evaluations always but then she
got mad one day and fired her. (laughs) And that's what you can't do and so she
was trying to be nice, I think and so the H.R. person told her, well you got to, I've
kind of slipped offtrack wittr this story about the staff member person so the staff
person, a[ needed help I thought, so I went and told her boss who was my fiiend
that I was going to help her. She said, how did you get into this, and I said well
nobody was helping her and I felt that I had to do it and she wasn't very happy. So
I did help her and the committee did say that she had been mistreated but they did
give her a sum of tuition rernission for her children so at least she got something.
Well then later, she went to the human rights commission and filed a suit against
the boss. So then I felt, she charged thag tlnt the boss was using ageism as
discrimination. Oh it was because her husband was a doctor and I don't know
what, you know, diferent things, and I knew she didnt really believe those things
and I didn't think they were tue. So she enlisted me as a wihess, she hadn't talked
to me but she listed me as a witness. So then I went to my friend and I said well
now I've gotten these things, oh do whatever you think you should do, she didn't
want to hear anything about it. So I wrote a letter to the Human Rights
Commission and then I argued against every criticism ofthat worker and
defended the boss and it said that the boss di4 had made a mistake and the reason
I helped her was that the boss had not given her a fair evaluation and had not told
her that she needed to improve in these areas and had just gotten mad and fired
her and of course then she didn't believe it when the H.R. told her, that she should
have told the boss to give her a month to get better and so on and she didnt
believe she was really going to get a free month and I dont think anybody thought
that was possible after that. So anyway, I defended the boss, so then one day I ran
into Chuck in the hallway, we had a lot of face to face in the hallway, he said you
should know, that so and so was cleared of all those charges by the Human Rights
Commission. And I said, oh good, you should know I wrote a letter to the Human
Rights Commission (laughs) negating every one ofthose or arguing against every
one of the charges that the staff member made. Cause, so, I'm glad, so he was oh
so he was, so we are back to where I was. He was wondering why we had these
disagreements, so I sai{ he said I try to get as much for the college that I can and
you try to get as much for the individual, I said, all I want, I don't want anything
for the individual expect fair treatnent, that's all I want. I'd, I'd be happier ifthey
didn't get anything expect that fair treafinent. I'm not after your salary which I got
for somebody else, I'm not after tuition remission, after, I'm after fair treaffnent
and I said, I think that I am also fighting for the college because if we're unjust to
one person, it hurts the whole college. Which I really believe----so he was, you
knoq probably, another time he wrote me a letter when we were in the midst of a
big disagreement. And he said, I want to know in writing if you respect your
president. So I thought for a while, ob, so I wrote back, I show my respect for you
by telling you what I really think---and I think tlnt teachers, professors,
administrators over other people below who, who's salary jobs depend on them
often don't get (laughs) in honest response from those in charge oftheir grades or
their salary or their promotion or whatever. So I, I really believe that showed a lo!
that he was lucky to have somebody who was honest and so, so we had these
things back and forth. And I know we don't have a lot of time so I'll just cut to the
chase and say that underneath it all, I had a deep affection, underneath all those
real disagreements, I had a deep affection for Charles Anderson. And after he
retired, well before he retired, he had cancer, did you know that? And I had had
cancer. So I met him in the hallway and I said, I bet you didn't think I would be
your role model, (grumble) so he didnl I said, I swvived cancer and I want you
to survive cancer. So, in that sense, I should be your role model. (laughs) So after
he retired, he came up to me at somebody else's, Rick Nelson's retirement party,
took one ofmy hands and looks at me and said, I miss our little exchanges. And I
did too, bu! wele probably the only two people who missed them. But in the end,
and, as I wrote to Kate and I becarne friends when Chuck had Alztreimer's. My
husband had Alzheimer's too. I understood a lot of what she was going through
and I was really sorry when Charles Anderson came down with Alztreimels.
Because I knew what it was and I always thought of his family and I bet there was
no body as sorry as I was. Um, but, well, when he died, I sent a memorial to them
and I wrote in there that I thought a lot about our relationship and I thought that in
the end, we were really deep allies. We were working from different positions,
from different points of view, different perspectives but we were both fighting for
the college as we sought best to do. And wha! one of the things that I re-regret
not having told him, I told Phil yesterday too, I never thought I could do his job,
he probably that I did. But I never did. (aughs) I was only fighting for those
issues one at a time. You can see, I have strong emotional feelings about him.
(tears)
He made me madder than anybody except my husband. (aughs) And I
think that's because I cared. I cared what he did. I guess I probably wanted him to
be perfect all the time. (laughs) And he was, he was a important person in my life.
And I was happy to hear that when he had Alztreimer's, a colleague, a former
colleague of mine and staffworked where he was and she told me that, she would
tell him before she would go out to eat with some of us from Augsburg would get
together once a mont[ she would tell him, that she was going to see so and so and
so and so and so and so and every time she would mention Mary Kingsley, he
would laugh. And I was happy, I was happy. (tears) So I don't know where we've
ended up but.
-
47.18
AF:
Ah, we can talk abou! um, why you decided to retire after 42 years?
47.25
MK:
OtU
well-well I was 67, for
one thing, so I, I thought 67 was probably a
good age. I also had had, well I had cancer in 1991 so I was 5l and, and 2005, I
had to have a pace maker put in so I had that health issue but that worked fine. I'm
on my second one now and I'm doing fine but I also had bad knees and I needed
surgery in both knees. But I don't think that any ofthat really that much. I just
think that I thought, I should retire when I was at my prime and still going strong.
And I slrculd make room for others and so people would ask me, oh are you going
to travel a lot? You gonna travel a lot? And I says-said uno, moono, only inward.
I'm only interested in traveling inward. And to two people, I said, vrhen they said,
what are you going to do? I said, I'm going to get ready to die. Well that didn't go
over well. Qaughs) That, vftat, oh no. Well why should we slrouldn't really be
surprised, I've since found out that Leonardo Da Vinci said, I thought I was
leaming how to live but really I was leaming how to die. So his pretty good
company for this. But I have thought about that a lot and so I am tryhg to, IVe all
my life probably tried to reconcile loving life and being ready to let go. ... So
that's part ofwhat I tried to try my students and now I'm too close (laughs) now
I'm where, where it's, I've always felt close because really, no matter how old we
are, we're close.
So life is short, and we have to use it to the best, as best we
can. So that's why I fought for what I thought was right. And I have to hope that I
was. One time I lost a big battle, and one of my colleagues said, what are you
going to do now? And I said, I'm going to hope I was wrong. I did the best I could
and I'll hope I was wrong and I think I probably was. So.
-
50.24
AF:
50.29
MK:
Can you tell me, what you miss the most from your time at Augsburg?
(augls) Yes. I miss one thing the most, I miss the big battles. I enjoyed
those battles. I enjoyed fighting for what I thought was right and I, I enjoyed the
excitement ofthe confrontations. I guess, I think that one of Chuck's favorite
adjectives for me was, combative. Well, (laughs) I think that combating, is
something that is wrong, that you think is wrong, is good. I think it's good to be
combative. But, I did, a[ I was always combative with humor. There was always
humor involved. But there was, a strong drive for what the issue or, you know,
whatever, I was fighting for, I was, I loved kying to figure out how to make the
argument in the best way. So I, I miss that. I miss that and I like he$ing
somebody who needed help. I had one woman over her who had been fired one
time, one time I could help her was at eleven o'clock till midnight. And she said, I
feel so guilty having you do this but I was sitting there, trying to figure out hodd
we could win our case. And she looked at me end said, you love this dont you?
Yes. (laughs) Yes I do. Yes I do. So- I miss my students and I enjoyed
especially towards the end. I had enjoyed advising them as they were coming in to
one of the most exciting times in their life. When they're just going to college,
changing, growing and going out at the beginning oftheir lives. That was a
privilege to be a part ofthat. (tears) So I miss that. But I'm happy now too. I have,
I could always be happy and figure out a re- I always tried to have, well if this
works out this well, it will be good for this reason, if it works out and Frankie said
to me, oh Pollyanna, I said, oh no, not Pollyanna. I know what it means to have
bad things happen but you can always so appreciate good that can be found in the
bad. So-right now, I'm painting, as I said, painting the coal bin, and the fumace
room, painting the basement. So I'm fixing up my house but at the same time I've
never realized so much that somebody else will be here someday- but in the
meantime, I'm here and I'm enjoying it
53.35
53.40
AF: Well, thank you so much for your time, you being so open and honest.
MK: You welcome. Can't help it. (aughs)
Show less
INTERVIEW WITH
PETER HENDRICKSON
AUGSBIJRG COLLEGE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Interviewed by Meridith Main
March
6th
2015
Augsburg College Archives
Interview with Peter Hendrickson
Interviewed at 221 1 Riverside Ave,
Minneapolis, MN, USA
Interviewed on March 6ft 2015
Augsburg College Oral H... Show more
INTERVIEW WITH
PETER HENDRICKSON
AUGSBIJRG COLLEGE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Interviewed by Meridith Main
March
6th
2015
Augsburg College Archives
Interview with Peter Hendrickson
Interviewed at 221 1 Riverside Ave,
Minneapolis, MN, USA
Interviewed on March 6ft 2015
Augsburg College Oral History Project
Interviewed by Meridith Main
Peter
Hendrickson-PH
Meridith Main-MM
Time Los
00:02
MM:
The following interview was conducted with Peter Hendrickson for
the Augsburg College Oral History Project. It took place on March 6s,
2015 at Augsburg College. The interviewer is Meridith Main. Hi Peter.
00:15
PH:
Hi Meridith.
00:17
MM:
So, the
00:.22
PH:
Okay, um, started in
first question I have for you is to tell me about your time as
an undergrad at Augsburg College.
l972.Um,I basically was following my, my,
didn't actually make Augsburg my, my, choice among many, I
just simply followed. I had three older sisters and my oldest sister was at
Gustavus as my parents went, as well, my older brother did that as well,
we were all supposed to go to Gustavus because we wer€ Swedes. And my
sister Sharon fell in love with somebody who was going to seminary here
in Minneapolis/Saint Paul and um, she then transfered to Augsburg so
that she could get married. Well then, my sister Rachel, the next one, sorta
followed suit as my sister Rosanne and I sorta just did the same thing. I
guess that's just what we did, and as much, very much, sort of a family
orientation. But I didn't necessarily do it all for myself, Ijust did it
because that's what you're supposed to do. Um, and it wasn't a bad choice
sisters um
at all. One of the things that was uh, really uh, prompting me to go was
um, Gabe Gabrielsen, the college organist for forty sum years here, came
out to Clarkfield to play for my sister Rachel's wedding, when I had just
built a shop project. Oh sorry, I built a um, a harpsicord as a shop project,
my uncle said, 'lvell why don't you buy a kit and make a harpsicord, you
seem to like woodworking." So I bought a superman kit for $150 and then
I, uh, as a shop project, put the case together and all of that, but uh but
when Gabe came out, to um, to play the wedding, he came to our house,
and sat down at the harpsicord and, started to play some Bach piece, and I
was so taken by it that at that point in my life, you know I wanted to go
and I want to live in the land that Bach walked. You know I made that
choice at the age 15, but that's what I was going to do, I didn't know how
I was going to do it or where, but I was going to do it. So anyway, I came
to Augsburg, and my intention was to be um, a doctor, so I was doing the
calculus, the chernistry, and physics, all of that sorta stuff. After the first
semester, I got straight A's, but I also got an ulcer, so, I had also been
starting music theory from day one, so I kinda thought, you know this
science stuff is not really for me, so I, I, kept going with the science,
because I actually did enjoy it, um, I kinda had a minor in the natural
sciences, I did some biology, some chemistry, physics, calculus, but that
was just for fun. But I was taking, I was taking some music theory, so that
was uh, and I was in the choir, as a fluke in a way. Because I intended, I
was an all-state trumpeter in high school. I had intended to join Mayo
Savold's band that year, and I auditioned for the band, but I didn't make it.
He had a lot of trumpets that year. But my sister Rachel said, "Well, you
should try out for the choir." So, I tried out for the choir and Leland
Sateren, who was the director at the time, and um took me, as a freshman.
And I spent the next four years, um, studying with him and being in the
Augsburg choir. And so he sorta became one of my first mentors. Um, I
joined the choir and I went through it and in a couple years, in my junior
year, we uh toured Norway in May, and I actually got elected president in
my junior year and my senior year. Um, I enjoyed myself, I mean I really
loved singing; I made some of my longest term friends in choir. So that's
sort ofwhat happened at Augsburg. You want to ask another question?
04:31
MM:
O4:40
PH:
Oh yes, um, so since you said that Sateren was kind of your first
mentor then um what type of style did he give to Augsburg?
Well, it was very much the Lutheran college choir background, the
Norwegian Lutheran sort of started F. Melius Christiansen um, St. Olaf
and was at Concordia and um, Luther, Augustan4 it was all, it was
basically that tradition, started because the immigrant Norwegians,
Scandinavian, swedes, whatever, um, they weren't very wealthy. So, they
didn't really have instruments to play. So, their instrument was their voice
and the sound of the sort4 Lutheran tradition, was first to be like an organ,
that's how it was intended to have that full richness, an orchestra could
have that an organ does have, and to mimic that sort of combination of
voices, like an organ would. So it was sort ofthe premise of the Lutheran
college tradition, is that we're supposed to be an organ. That may sound
really weird, but you can understand that there were no instruments, or
very few anyway. Wealth was not among the Norwegians and swedes.
05:58
MM: I understand that you studied in Berlin correct?
PH: I did, yes.
05:59
MM:
06:02
PH:
Well, as I said Gabe Gabrielsen came out to Clarkfield, played my
harpsicord when I was 15 and he had studied in Germany, uhm, and I
studied German in high school, as I said I'm going to go to Germany and
walk in the land where Bach walked. So, I would say that just that alone
was the premise upon which I decided to go, was Gabe playing the
harpsicord when I was 15 years old in my house, he had been to Germany.
I was going to go to Germany. I was going to leam German. So.
06:39
MM:
O6:46
PH:
05:54
and how did Augsburg set you up for that?
Um, do you try and connect to the previous director's styles, or
create a new directive for the choir?
Well, um, it, well, it's sort of hard to say, I honor the past
director's for sure, and I think every year that I've been here, this is my,
20,21"1year., every year I think I've done something by Leland Sateren,
just to honor his hadition. I also have my own idea of vocal sound for
example, Le had a very muscular sort of strength, strong, gutsy and it hurt
actually, when I sang. After an hour and a half singing with him my voice
often times would hurt, as he wanted so much muscle he kept drawing,
mor€, more, more, louder, rrrrr. And I, and after I was at Augsburg I went
to work with Dale Warland at Macalester and actually it was Le, Le
Sateren, who recommended me for that job. When I went with Dale for
those two years, at Macalester, uh, I could sing for five or six hours, and
not hurt. So that's influenced my vocal production, sound, I don't try to
make people sing, uh, any older age that they are, but I want them to sing
ifthey're 16, I want them to sing like they're 16, but a full 16, but not
pretend like yott'rc26.I think that does more harm than good for voices
when you try and force them to sound at an age that they're really not.
08:19
MM:
.
Um, besides your duty with the Augsburg Choir and the
Masterworks Chorale, what else do you do in the classroom to try and
bring the Lutheran tradition out?
08:29
PH:
Um, well, let's see, in choir, as I said in choir, I do stuffby Le
Sateren, but I also do things by F. Melius Christiansen, Paul Christiansen,
um, Rene Clausen, who is at Concordia now, um, just try, you know try
and keep it alive, but you know things change over time and then the
strength ofthat Lutheran choral tradition is not as strong, except for
maybe at Concordia, St. Olaf, but you know and it dwindles in a sense,
but, so, it's in a way up to me to decide you know to yes, I want to
preserve it, honor it, keep, it. That's been a conscious choice of mine, is to
you know, keep it alive. It has merit on its own and it's part of Augsburg
History. I really think that tradition is honored and kept alive.
09:26
MM:
09:36
PH:
Mmm. Well, for one thing diversity has many different meanings.
The way I started, I've always been this way since I was you know 20
years old. I like languages. Uh, I've studied many languages, and my
choirs over the years have, I think I've counted and I think we've sung in
as many as 30 different languages over the 21 years I've been here. That
to me is the ultimate diversity. The language of another culture becomes
your own, and you can't help but understand it, and get into the culture
just a little bit. That to me is uh, in choral music, the way you can show
diversity. It is not necessarily who is up there, whether its white, black,
Mexican, whatever, it doesn't matter, what matters is the music, for me,
personally. I'll take anyone who can sing, anyone who has an ear. I uh, if
they're qualified, I'll take them. But for me the diversity is most easily
accessed t}rough, I think singing the language. My favorite language, for
the choir to sing kr, is Russian. Ijust love that Russian sound. Low second
basses, awwwwwww.
l0:54
MM:
l:14
PH:
Ohwow.
l:15
MM:
To uh, what you have now?
I
1
What types of measures do you try to take to um, to incorporate
Augsburg's new and diverse community and student population?
Um, so, it seems like you've been around the country, like for
places to study, you've been at the Manhattan school of music, you've
been to Columbia University, and Macalester and Augsburg, and tlen way
over in Europe. So, how do you bring all different the pieces together?
I
l:16
PH:
This is sort ofa hard question to answer easily. I guess, each one of
those places, um, has influenced both me musically but also personally,
and I actually have three times in my life when I felt like I was in a state of
bliss. The one, the first one, was when I was in, at Holden Village. That
was 78-80, I went up there as a cook, and I cooked for two years. I ended
up doing all the music, I played all the Beethoven sonatas with my
violinist that was there, but I skied every day in the winter time, I skied 6700 miles. I climbed 15 peaks. I was just in bliss at tlat point. And all I
had to do was wake up at 4 in the moming and make the bread and cook
until noon and I was offfor the rest of the day. It was great, I was in a
state of bliss. And then the next one was when I went to Berlin. I was just
lucky that I was at Holden Village, because the director ofthe Lutheran
World Federation, at that time, came and he actually got me a spot in a
great institute, which was the German language institute in Freiburg in
1981. From there I spent three years in West Berlin, when it was still West
Berlin, and that was again a state ofbliss. I practiced the harpsicord for 6
hours a day. You know I went to the Kinieapa um, I just had a lot of fun,
but I worked my butt off, I worked my tail offso much that I actually
could have stayed. I had some enough gigging possibilities, and jobbing
opportunities in West Berlin. Um, I could have stayed. I was a continual
player for a Swedish chamber orchestra. So I could have made a life there,
but I came back for various reasons. And then my next state ofbliss this is
the third one now, was when I was in New York. I absolutely loved it, I
loved living in New York. It's so ironic; you know everyone says New
York is so loud and crazy. And I had an apartment, um, 400 sq. ft.
aparEnent, 2 bedrooms, really small. But you know it was so quite in there
you couldn't even hear the street. You come off into the building, go into
the apartment; it's totally dead, dead silent. But there I studied harpsicord,
I studied some conducting. Musicology at Columbia was really sort of was
driving me at the time. So all of these things, I didn't really have a fi.rll
time job, with benefits, and health and all that kind of stuff, until I was 35.
So, I sort of took a very, very, circuitous route to get to a place where I
actually had ajob. I was jobbing all the time. I had churchjobs and all that
all the time, conducting things. But the real job where you have pension
and benefits, and all that, until I was 35.
l4:18
MM:
So, you were on faculty at Macalester? Is that correct?
l4:22
PH:
Briefly, yeah.
l4:'24
MM:
Briefly?
l4:.25
MM:
l4:27
PH:
No, I was, no no, I was, Macalester was very early on. That was
right after college,T6-78. That I, uh, was assistant choral conductor at that
time. No, I uh, came back from Berlin, no sorry, came back from New
York and I went to Westminster Presbyterian Church downtown
Minneapolis, and was the organist and choir director there for a number of
years. Then the position opened up here at Augsburg and I was asked to
apply and I was the first of three interims. Um, and then nobody took it, of
those three interims, so they came back to me and said would you like it?
And I said yep, I'll take it. I had had a really good experience as the
interim conductor, so I thought, okay I can do this.
15:13
MM:
l5
PH:
15:
So then you left there and came to Augsburg?
What is an interim?
Oh, interim. The former conductor had left mid-year, so I came in
as the first to do the last semester ofthat year. And they did a search but
couldn't find anyone they wanted, so then the next year there was
somebody in the fall and somebody in the spring to fill the position while
they searched again. And then that's when I put my hat in the ring there
and said, yep okay I'll consider it.
15:41
l5:44
MM: And whose position did you fill?
PH: It was Tom Rosen. Well, Le Sateren, and then Larry Fleming and
then Tom Rosen, and then I was the next one in line, yeah.
l6:00
16 :05
16 :06
16:07
16:09
MM:
So you said you're Swede by um, heritage...
PH: Swede, Fin
MM: Swede, Fin
PH: Don't forget that Fin part!
MM: Sorry, so then how do you, do you try and bring that into the
Norwegian at all?
l6:14
PH: Actually,
16:15
MM:
Or,
l6:16
PH:
Oh sorry.
l6:17
MM:
No, go ahead.
16:18
PH:
Oh, um I, it's interesting because uh, um, Le Sateren, he was, you
know, Scandihoovian, you know as they say as Norwegian as they get. He
was very instrumental in bringing sort of contemporary Scandinavian
music; particularly from Norway into the United States, he created a
relationship with Knut Nystedt. Um, who was a Norwegian composer and
conductor. In fact Knut came over here for a year and they sort of
exchangedjobs. He went to Bergen, I think, and oh no Nystedt was just on
the faculty, that's what it was. But he was here for a whole year and
Sateren premiered many, many works of Nystedt. So that continued
because when I was uh, my fifth year or so, there was a commission ub
see Halverson, I can uh, anyway, somebody commissioned Knut Nystedt
to write a piece for the Augsburg Choir. Uh, and so we premiered that and
it was, uh, 1998 or something like that. So then I've done lots ofworks by
uh Scandinavian composers that's sort ofbeen what, what, uh, Sateren
started out doing is doing a lot of stulfyou know by Scandinavian
composers, and in fact, you know the piece we uh, in choir, um we end
concerts with is um Stay With Us is from Egil Hovland he is a Norwegian.
It's from his opera Captive & Free.
18:03
18:07
MM: How has the music program evolved since your time as a student?
PH: Ah ha, good question. Well, um, when I came um, I had a very
small Augsburg Choir, and only a few handfrrl it was kind ofa program
that had diminished a biL so I had to rebuild that. When I first came, one
of my, part of my job is to do the Masterworks Chorale. Which is a town
and gown group um, students, audition students, faculty, staff, friends,
alums, um all lumped into a symphonic chorus. That's the one rqrertoire
that Augsburg has never been able to do, the full choral orchestral
literature like Mozart's Requiem and Brahms' Requiem that kind of thing.
So, I changed the format a little bit, making four choirs and no one was
competitive. Whe'n I was in college there was the Augsburg Choir and
there was the Choral Club. The Choral Club were always felt like they
were second rate, and I vowed never to have anyone feel second rate. So,
I started the Augsburg Choir was there, I started the Masterworks, which
was symphonic chorus. The repertoire is different. I started in the
Riverside Singers and then evolved into the Cedar Singers as well, so we
had a men's group, women's group, symphonic group, and an a Capella
group. So no one, no one has to go across the board and say you're better
than I, no we do different things. That was my, that has, I reached that
goal. I mean it's happening now as we speak. It's never going to be a huge
program, but it never was. It's vibrant and alive with those four choirs.
19:.47
MM:
How has the music program in general grown, like the band, and
the classes?
19:55
PH:
Well, one big thing is we keep adding classes, although they keep
money
taking
away from us. Which is unfortunate, uh, maybe I wasn't
supposed to say that, but I did, too bad. One thing that we've done was uh,
which was sort of our gift to the community is the Advent Vespers, where
we have everybody involved. That actually was started by Larry Fleming
who followed Le Sateren. He started it in 1981 and as a matter of fact, I
was actually part of that first Advent Vespers. I was working at the
seminary as a cook, but at the same time I was doing the choral club, so to
speak, for that one semester when Larry started it, so I was there at the
very first Advent Vespers. But, anyway, it continued from '81 and then I
came in '94, and it had been going on each ofthose years, so that we've
really kind of charged ahead. Starting out with four services with maybe
500 per service to five services now with maybe I 5,1 8,2000 per service so
that is really, it has really mushroomed and grown. I think that is
departmental thing as well, it is notjust the choral program. The
instumental program, the orchestr4 the faculty play alongside students in
a mentor situation, it is really, that's probably one of the biggest crowning
achievements, I think during my time here, that we've gone that far with
it. Yeah, I'm very proud of that.
2l:31
MM:
2l:33
PH: Yeah you know! You know the drill.
MM: So, you're a part of the Midnimo?
PH: Midnimo, yes.
MM: Yes, Midnimo, can you explain that a bit?
PH: Well yeah, Midnimo is the Somali word for unity. The Cedar
2l:37
2l:42
2l:45
2l:46
Well, it's a great show.
Cultural Center got a big grant to combine, um, Somali music at the Cedar
and Cultural exchange at Augsburg. So I have, so they asked me to have
one ofthe cohorts um, people from the choir, my cohort, so to speak, and
we've um, had the Somali's music in our classrooms, we have gone to
their concerts at the Cedar Cultural Center. It's a way to cross over you
know the boundary between two different cultures and to at least
understand, not necessarily assimilate, but to understand each other
through music, basically. Because all the residencies are, ar€, musicians,
bands, or single. It's a great project.
22:43
MM: How long do you expect it will continue?
22:46
PH:
Well, right now it is just this first year, there is only one year. I
think it is the Doris Duke Foundation that put a grant in for the, this year
to do I think, five different residencies, but beyond that I don't know what
would happen.
23:02
MM: Finding different residencies meaning what?
PH: Yeah well, an artist comes in and is here for a week. A week's
23:05
residencies so to speak, and then he goes away and then another one
comes in and she stays and goes away. So we have five discrete bands
coming in.
23:21
MM:
23:31
PH:
Well, my singers I think love music. I think they like me. They like
to sing, they better anyway. I'm being, not arrogant, but it's true. I think
my students love to sing and I, I can't do anything else but you know
facilitate their singing so, it's just sort of who I am. Music just oozes out
of my pores and I share it with my students. It's pretty easy actually. It's
like a no brainer for me.
24:07
MM:
What types of things have you leamed and brought them to the
classroom tlrough your conducting and just your love of music?
Where do you think the music program here at Augsburg is headed
in the within the next...
PH:
24:13
Well I hope it's headed upwards and onwards, um, the school at
this point in time is having struggles with um, finances, and that's always
a question as to what happens and how it works. So, I'm not quite sure but
we are plugging ahead. I'm recruiting as many singers as I possibly can. I
have lots of really good singers, fine arts scholars are coming in. We've
got a lot of endowed scholarships, named scholarships, they call them. So
we, and we're out in the community, I think there is an Augsburg group
out in the community probably five times a week somewhere, somehow,
and tlat's a lot.
24:58
MM:
25:02
PH:
When you say they're out in the community, doing things what?
Concertizing, choir goes to a mass at the Basilica, j""z land 9695
out on, er, gospel praise goes out on a Sunday moming to a place. We've
got students playing in clubs around the area um, some ofthem have
gotten their start through being at Augsburg and connecting with other
singers and instrumentalists, creating their own bands.
25:28
MM:
25:35
PH:
26:ll
MM: How do you try and keep up with the times of evolving music and
Do you have any part or part that you play in the music therapy
program?
I don't, although I believe all music is therapeutic. That is, I
understand music is therapeutic because it touches the soul. It's got an
energy that um, is connected to the spheres and ether and all that, there are
sign waves that go through our bodies that affect us. Acoustics prove that.
I just feel that you know, music is everywhere.
the new styles and everything?
PH:
26:19
Well, um, again I'll go back to doing things in different languages.
Um, there's been a lot of multicultural things happening where you're
working with music from New Guinea, for example, I mean the doors, and
the intemet, has basically opened up the door for us musicians as well.
Suddenly, we can get a printed score from someone in South Africa or
from the mid part of China. There's one company called Earthsongs which
has produced a lot of , lots of, songs from the Earth, so to speak, from all
over, from around the world. I do a lot of, I've done, as I say, I've done
stuff in a lot of languages, intentionally. Because I think that brings us
closer as humans of the world.
27:22
PH:
27:23
MM:
27:37
PH:
Am I doing okay?
You're doing great.
One
ofmy most favorite concerts, I'lljust back up for
a second,
I
work for Dale Warland and the Dale Warland singers, and he um,
there was a woman named Marie Gannon, whose still alive, she's from
Venezuela, fantastic conductor, and Dale brought her um, in to do a whole
concert of Latin American music, and I, I um, got to prepare the Dale
Warland singers for it in advance of her coming. I'll tell ya, that was one
ofthe best concerts I've ever been part of. I actually didn't sing in it or
conduct it, but I prepared the choir ofall those pieces, um, they were
complicated! Some of those pieces from Venentela arc very, very diffrcult
to sing. Rhythmically, and texturally as well, it's got some difficulty.
use to
28:22
MM: Do you take part in bringing new, not necessarily new, but u[ the
performers here, or anything related to just maybe chapel, or maybe the
convocations or anything?
28:38
PH:
28:54
MM:
Um, I'm not a part of that, I did the chapel as a part of the interim
for about two years. Um after Gabe passed away, um, I took over for a
couple years before they found somebody to do it on a permanent basis.
So you said that you went on tour when you were an undergrad
here.
28:58
PH
Yeahmhm.
28:58
MM:
So, has tour for the Augsburg Choir always been something in the
works?
29:02
PH:
29:26
MM:
Oooooo
29:,27
PH:
Yeahhhh.
29:.28
MM:
29135
PH:
Culturally rich and musically rich on both ends, yeah. I, we go,
well, now a days you go anywhere in the world and it is music rich. Um,
all the very different kinds of music.
29:50
MM: What do you think touring brings back to Augsburg?
29:55
PH:
Um, global understanding for sure, um, connection to a wider
community. The intemational tours are eye opening for some people,
something they never forget. I went on the, I went to Norway with the
Augsburg Choir in '75 and I'll never forget some ofthose things, like, I
wrote the King of Sweden a letter to come to our concert in Stockholm. I
was being bombarded by all of these Norwegians and I thought, "Hey I'm
a Swede!" So I wrote a letter to him, he didn't come I don't think, but the
invitation was there. You know that's a cross cultural exchange right there
you know. I'm trying to get the king of Sweden to come to a concert. That
wouldn't have happened if we hadn't have gone on an overseas trip.
30:43
MM:
Yep. When I started in 1994, I want to go every four years some
intemational tour. We have been able to do it. '98 we went to Scandinavia,
2002 we went to Finland. 2006 we went to Hungary, Czech Republic.
2010 we went to China. 2014 we went to Ireland. My next hope is to go to
Iceland.
Are you, for the places that you try and chose to go, are they
musically rich or what are you trying to find?
Have you ever tried to take them, the Augsburg Choir, back to
Germany and show them around or anything?
PH:
30:51
Um, well, we did one year, that year we want to Scandinavi4 in
1998. We started out in Germany, I was the conductor of the Leipzig,
Leipzig choral festival for many years, and the Augsburg Choir was part
of that in 1998. That was about as close as we got, but I haven't been back
to Germany per say with the Augsburg Choir, it is very expensive these
days. Europe in general is expensive.
3l:25
MM:
So you are taking, or pieces of the Augsburg Choir to
New York
City...
3l:32
31 :33
31 :35
3l:41
3l:44
PH: Yep.
MM: In a week or so, aren't you?
PH: Yeah well, let's say two weeks, don't rush into these things.
MM: And you're going to sing at Camegie Hall,
PH: Camegie Hall, yep, I'm going to conduct a piece by Morten
Latidsen, Lw Aeterna. lt's
a large mass choir, 83
ofAugsburgites from
alums, see um, Augsburg Choir, Masterworks, alums, and some guests as
well. We 83 going, and there is another chorus from Virginia that will join
us on these pieces. The other guy conducts one piece, Doug Mears is his
name, um, and I conduct the piece Lux Aeterna.
32:16
MM:
And how did you get to be able to do it?
l8
PH:
He called me up, asked me to do it. It's Mid-American productions
32:
in New York. They have a lot of conductors come through. They might,
it's a way to sing in Camegie Hall, it's their signpost, you know, "Wanna
sing in Carnegie Hall? Well we can make it work." So it's very appealing
to singers to be able to say, "Yeah I sang in Camegie Hall." Um, so yeah,
look forward to conducting there.
32:46
MM:
32:51
PH:
Have you been offered many um, conducting opportunities?
Yeah over the years, lots ofclinics. I do, probably, six or seven
clinics every year with high school choirs. Um, I do festivals, yeah all
kinds of stuff.
33:05
MM:
How do you think that your time at Augsburg and around the
country and in Berlin and things set you up to have such a wide reach in
different festivals and such?
I
33:
l8
PH:
Well word of mouth a lot, well are you in the know or not? Do you
go to conventions and talk to people and get to know school directors?
Stuffjust comes out from networking, I think, more than anything else.
They know that a product will be good. Augsburg has a reputation in
terms of choral music and I think people know that so they would trust
that whoever is there will come in and work with their festival or choir.
33:51
MM:
34:O4
PH:
34:47
34:50
How do you try and keep Augsburg expected outcome of product
compared to all the other choirs in our...
Well, I try not to think about competitiorl although because we are
one ofthese Lutheran colleges, I have no choice but to consider it. I prefer
not to, I prefer to go sideways; I'm not going to try and go over the top,
that's pointless. It's not really thinking about your students. Your students
are mor€ important than the 'lre're better than" some other college.
There's always been some banter back and forth between Concordia and
St. Olafand Augsburg and Luther. They all have good programs. I like the
conductors, I like the music, but I do my own thing. That's the way it has
to be.
MM: Do you have a lot of athletes in your choir?
PH: Not so much, but I've worked very hard to find ways to make it
work. I've had some football players, a woman who plays lacrosse this
year, track people, that's about it I think. There's probably been about one
or two or three that I've had to kind of coordinate timing within the
athletic department.
35:16
MM:
How do you try and get them to join if they have a prefty good
voice?
35:22
PH:
35:47
MM:
What do you think your legacy will be...
35:51
PH:
Oh boy...
35:52
MM:
at Augsburg?
Well, I just walk up to them and say do you sing? They say no, I
say why not? I've gotten lots of people by just asking well why not? Well
I don't have a good voice, and then they audition for me and I say well
yeah you got a good voice. So, it's beating the bushes, knocking on the
door, seeing someone and say, "Hey I like the way your voice sounds, do
you sing?" No, oh well why not?
35:53
PH:
My legacy. Ha. Ijust hope I have legs when I leave here, how is
that? No I just want to make good music with people. My job as conductor
is to facilitate my singers, teach them good music, teach them how to sing,
and get that out ofthe way. So, it's more important that the students are
serviced instead of I'm just servicing my own ego or my own legacy
guess. I don't even think about that.
36:29
PH:
So, the legacy
line and not mine.
36:40
MM:
will probably
I
be someone else's decision down the
I'll just do my thing.
So, um, the main point of this interview was to see how your time
as a student in the music and the choral program is compared to your
time
as a member ofthe faculty now, and conductor of all the choirs. How do
you think those two correlate or match?
36:58
PH:
Oh they don't at all because I never wanted to be the Augsburg
Choir director. It never occurred to me. I was an instrumentalist, I sang all
the time, I conducted choirs, but I was going to be a musicologist for a
while. That's what I was at Columbia, get a Ph.D. in musicology. I was a
harpsichordist when I came to Augsburg in that first semester interim, I
wasjust there to help them out. I wasn't looking for ajob, I had a great
job. So, in some ways I sort ofjust fell into this, it's not something when I
was a student at Augsburg, "oh I hope I can be like Le Sateren and be the
conductor ofthe Augsburg Choir." That never existed in my mind and
suddenly I was like, oh okay, I guess I can, it was in my face. I guess I
better do it then.
37:50
MM:
Was it a happy fall?
37:52
PH:
Yea[ pretty good. Yeah, it's had its moments
here and there. By
job.
in large, I don't hate my
Hahah4 there are times when I love it. I hate
rehearsals most ofall. Ill tell ya, I get some sort ofanxiety that I cannot
get rid of, once I'm in it I'm fine but I don't like to prep for rehearsals, I
don't like how it feels. They seem odd, because I've done about 2,500
rehearsals and I counted them one time, like x number per year, okay that
adds up to this, and this is about 2,500 rehearsals, I think I've done over
the 34 years.
38:31
MM:
My goodness.
38:32
PH:
Yeah. I know my goodness.
38:33
MM:
38:39
PH:
Yeah, musicology, yeah.
38:41
MM:
What exactly is that?
38l.42
PH:
Well, it's um, it's sort of, well mine was historical musicology.
That is um, studying music history in depth um, keatises, people usually
pick a specific area to study. Mine was going to be um, Mahler's use of
early music, that was going to be my dissertation, but I left New York to
come back and have babies. That's basically what it was.
39:19
MM:
39:22
PH:
Well they were already gone. They're done with school No they
didn't come here. My daughter went to Grinnell and my son went to the
University of Denver. So they had the opportunity to look all around and
they had friends in their school that looked all around too. Of course
Augsburg was a consideration, but I let them where their heart landed, you
know. That's the best way.
39:52
MM:
Um, earlier you said you wanted to get your doctorate in
musicology?
Are your children going to follow your footsteps and come here?
If you could summarize the choral tradition
at Augsburg College
in
a sentence, what would you say?
40:02
PH:
40:29
MM: Do you think that Le Sateren was the one who set off Augsburg's
Uh, a tradition bom out of Norwegian immigrants with love for
music, a love for the lord, so to speak, and its inception, and always,
always, always, trying something new, I guess. That's what I would say,
Le Sateren sort of started that, looking for something new all the time, but
steeped in that Lutheran tradition.
music progtam or was it always at the top?
40:38
PH:
Yeah, no, he was here from about you know 1949-1980, that's a
long time, thirty-some years I think it was. He is the one who brought the
music program, you know, to the floor. He was sort of like the F. Melius
Christiansen there and the Paul Christiansen there and Weston Noble at
Luther. He was the guru at Augsburg I guess.
4l:09
MM:
4l:10
PH:
PH:
41:13
The guru.
Yes.
Prolific composer too, he wrote lots of music.
4l:17
MM:
4l:79
PH:
Have you done any composing?
Yeah, I do a lot ofarranging, orchestrating. Because I'm an
organist I orchestrate pretty easily. We're always drawing stops so you
know to make a certain sound on the organ, same thing with diving out
instruments, in a piece for vespers for example, I orchestrate a lot ofthose.
4l:45
MM: What do you think is the next step for the choral program here is?
PH: More.
4l:46
MM:
4l:47
PH:
42:01
MM:
42:06
PH:
4l:19
More?
More singers, more music, more touring, more frrn. I don't know
anything more than that. Just keep going, just keep going.
Well Peter, thank you!
Thank you Meridith! It's been fun, I babbled didn't I?
Show less
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---- ---- ----· ----- INTERVIEW.WITH·---·JIM TRELSTAD PORTER
AUGSBURG COLLEGE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Interviewed by Jwokamer Debock
March 9, 2017
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---- ---- ----· ----- INTERVIEW.WITH·---·JIM TRELSTAD PORTER
AUGSBURG COLLEGE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Interviewed by Jwokamer Debock
March 9, 2017
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Interview with Jim Trelstad - Porter
Interviewed at 2211 Riverside Ave
Minneapolis, Mn
·_ ~nt~ryie~ed ·on March_ 8~_20.17
Augsburg Oral History Project
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0.01
JD:
The following interview was conducted with Jim Trelstad - Porter on behalf of
the Augsburg Archives for the Augsburg Oral History Project.It took place on
March 8th 2017 at the Admissions office at Augsburg. The interviewer is Jwokamer
Debock. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background, your
education?
0.28
JTP: Alright, do you want to know about just my education before coming to
Augsburg? So I graduated from another Lutheran private Liberal Arts institution in
South Dakota Augustana and I majored in International Relations, Spanish and
Theology and then I actually went on an Augsburg College program my final
semester of my senior year in 1988 in Mexico. Augsburg had a program offered
through the Center of Global Education called program and Global Community and
that was a very significant program in everything I've done ever since and that was
also my introduction to Augsburg.
1.13
JD: How did you get the information, how did you find out about the opportunity?
- Interview with Jim Trelstad - Porter
Interviewed at 2211 Riverside Ave
Minneapolis, Mn
Interviewed on March 8,--2017 ·
Augsburg Oral History_ Proj~ct
Interviewed by Jwokamer Debock
. . - Jitrt ti-clstiid~ Porter _: JTP ..
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JTP: I was looking for a program that focused on Social Issues and" Social analysis
that was really the only ones being offered that had this type of a focus to sort of
engage a cross border global issues. After that program I committed somewhat to
going deeper into working on similar issues to the types that I was exposed to by the
program and I ended up getting a Masters degree in Latin American Studies from
the American University in Washington D.C. While out there I actually started
working for a small office for Augsburg College because we had a small office out
there that did fundraising and promotion for the Center for Global Education at
Augsburg. So I would go to different Universities on the East Coast and promote our
programs in Mexico, Central America and then we were opening the program in
Namibia shortly after that. During my Masters I was already working for Augsburg
in that program and then directly out of my Masters I was hired to teach in the
Mexico site so I taught for four and half years in the programs that I had originally
attended back in 1988 so I was a part of that team for a little more than 4 years in the
mid 1990s from 1993 to 1997.
__
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Interview with Jim _,Trelstad - Porter
Interviewed at 2211 Riverside Ave
Minneapolis, Mn
--- ----_ -~ lntervie"."ed on March 8, 2017
-____-·-_ Aug~b_urg Oral ffistory Project_
... Interviewed by. Jwokamer
Debock
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3:02
JD: Can you tell us a little more about what you did or taught i:r;i Mexico?
3:08
JTP: Yes, Our approach to Education was largely in dispensary and the type of job I
held was a Program Coordinator which meant that I taught or assisted in a number
of courses. One of the was International Models of Social Work so the social work
theory was done a in conjunction with an Augsburg professor that would be visiting
and then a lot of the teaching I did was setting up the meetings in the communities
with folks involved in both formal and informal efforts that one might consider
related to the field of social work and co facilitating reflections sessions on those.
Experiential Education I would say, at it's best, that's what Augsburg has done here
in Minneapolis but also in sites elsewhere. I was also involved in a course called the
Development process which included different facets of Political Science and cross
border issues that were being looked at in Mexico. I also worked with a program
called Women and development which later became gender and development which
looked·at different lenses to approach and grounded-in gender identity and what it
meant to engage the different issues that were happening both in Mexico but also
. . . ....
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laterview with Jim Trelstad - Porter --- - -· -•·-·
Interviewed at 2211 Riverside Ave
Minneapolis, Mn
Interviewed on-March 8,--2017· --. _A_~gsburg Ora~ Hist~ry Project
Interviewed by Jwokamer Debock
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bunch of short term groups, Church groups, nonprofits groups, and Minnesota
Human Rights lawyers, Kellogg Fellows, professors from different universities
focusing on particular issues of interest such as the North American Free Trade
Agreement which was signed in 1993. We focused on root causes of poverty, we
focused on bilateral issues in the United States and Mexico all of those sorts of
things.
JD: How was the experience of teaching or program coordinator different from
going to learn?
6.08
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comparatively in Central America and the United States. We also worked with a
5.56
. - ·.: - :
JTP: I think the fundamental is that I was responsible now for everybody else. We
probably averaged 90 to I 00 hours a week because the type of work we did required
lots of time to set things up because it was grounded in personal relationships. We
had relationships across all sectors of society so maintain those and building trust
required- time. -I was a chauffeur I drove 15 passenger vans and tried to· played tag
with two other vans while we were buzzing through 8 lanes traffic in Mexico City. I
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Interviewed at 2211 Riverside Ave
Minneapolis, Mn
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Augsburg 9ral History Project
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was emergency responder for health issues somebody get stung by a scorpion, has
typhoide, has whatever we had to be first responders. We set up family stays in
rough conditions, we had families who didn't have phones, we had families living at
the bottom of ravines, in different area we had known and even at that time for ten
to 15 years. For example I'm still contacted with my host family from 1988 which is
almost 30 years now. The program has deep and broad context in the regions in
which it operates.
7.47
JD; You said you also worked in D.C., can you tell us a little more?
7.56
JTP: That was an attempt for a couple of year where the Center for Global
Education office on Augsburg had to be self funded a lot of their work and so in that
office there were intentional fundraising efforts with former participants from the
Center for Global Education short term travel seminars either to Mexico, Central
America or regions in the world. There were a number of those folks out in the D.C
area or the surrounding area and so there was a donor-relation aspect I was not
responsible for but helped support it. My biggest moment of glory was going up to
: ·-:-
·,Interview with -Jim Trelstad - Porter
Interviewed at 2211 Riverside Ave
Minneapolis, Mn
Interviewed on· March 8, 2017
A~gsburg Oral History Project_
Interviewed by.jwokamer··»ehock
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New York City and helping Peter Yarrow from the 1960s Folk group Peter, Paul and
Mary. I spent the day with his housekeeper setting up for our joint fundraising party
with Oxfam International which is a very well known international development
organization. Oxfam was a support of the center. Peter Yarrow has gone on several
of our trips and is a big supporter of the center. I supported that work even though I
wasn't in charge of that. The other part. was simply recruiting, going to different
schools such as William and Mary, American University, Georgetown University to
all these schools and fairs and talking to perceptive students about coming to the
programs.
9.37
JD: It sounds like Augsburg has had a strong relationship or International Studies
program (Global Education) can you tell us about what region students come
from,or where augsburg sends students as of today? How has it developed?
10.25
. ......... .
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JTP: It's part by choice, part by accident, Just like Augsburg History here in
Minneapolis, during the Race Riots of the 1960s it formed something called The
Crisis Colonies which Sociologist here named Joel Torstenson was deeply involved
Interview with Jim Trelstad- - Porter
Interviewed at 2211 Riverside Ave
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in shaping Augsburg's commitment to being in the city, to people of all immigrant
background which had always been apart of Augsburg's history. So Augsburg
became the founding member of Higher Education Consortium for Urban
Affairs(HECUA). I mean Augsburg has always been deeply involved in social
issues, issues of justice and equality even though it hasn't always been named that
and it's messy to be involved. I think that entrepreneurial innovative spirit
permeated early efforts to be involved in things that were going on in Mexico and
wars raging in a number of countries in Central America so there was a tramous of
U.S. foreign policy money being spent in these regions. Thousands of people were
being killed and fleeing to the United States so we were deeply involved while much
of the population knew little about what was going on. The Center for Global
Education was involved in efforts to continue to educate U.S. citizens about what
we were doing in the region. There was a sanctuary movement in for Central
American refugees throughout the United States where Churches and individuals
were providing refuge to folks who were in a situation very similar to what we're
experiencing today. Augsburg was· very committed to ·having people understand
those issues so we would meet with policy makers,decision makers, political folks
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and lots of people directly. In fact, we were on both sides of the issues so people can
think critically about what was occurring. That ethos also expanded to Namibia once
it achieved it's independence. We had post-apartheid movements in South Africa
and so the Center's program developed again into a very unique set of experientially
based programs looking at issues of developments, what development means, of
issues of gender and development, of issues of what does it mean to decolonize the
mind. All kind of issues. So our programs in Namibia would regularly travel to
South Africa both to Capetown and Johannesburg and they still do today. So really
again that same sort of ethos, I think earlier on being more impacted by the direct
news of the day, as the center continue to evolve just a deeper understanding
commitment of what the educational philosophy was, what it means to be educator
in this context where you 're intentionally exposing people to differing viewpoints
and trying to find information from all perspectives and help people think it through
for themselves but not to try and control the agenda I think that's what
fundamentally separated the Center for Global Education as an educational
institution. As someone committed to that process that with the exposure of people
having access to lots of voices and opinions and good information that people will
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come better informed opinions in their personal lives, in their communities, as well
as in their global works. I think that that differentiates the center and has for many
decades over groups that have particular agenda that they are trying to implement
weather that something I agree with or not that has not really been the center. Even
though it's certainly true that the center has always emphasized active citizens,
people who are engaged, people who do understand that to live is to be political
beings but again without trying to narrowly control people's agendas. I think within
University programs there is vecy little that has been done I guess over so many year
as the consistently as what the center has been able to do. Nothing is perfect but it's
been an amazing group of people who have worked for Augsburg at these sites and
many of whom are still there today. With such an incredible relationship network in
how it has been maintain, build and sustain on behalf of Augsburg and the work
itself that has been accomplished just by people who we had contact with. If we
could gather the information of all the people who could come through those
programs, there are thousands and thousands of people. They're holding huge
positions all over the country and many of whom we know about. It's amazing to
hear people talk about the role that program played in teaching them how to think
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Minneapolis, Mn
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critically about different issues in a way that keeps them learning and keeps them
connected.
16.22
JD: You talked about there being challenges or going to countries where wars were
taking place. Was hard to get people to participate with the program?
16.32
JTP: Not as much in those days. Think about it the internet was not as popular. We
had students intentionally when I was teaching in Mexico writing their papers by
hand because the computers would regularly go down due electricity spikes and so
on. We had one of our colleague who worked in the office in Namibia was clear
across the office during a thunderstorm because a lightning bolt blew up the
computer in from of him. He was okay in the end. Things were simply less regulated
in study abroad or off campus studies as known today. Parent were not as
demanding in terms of safety and security on every possible level regarding things
that really one can't control in one's own city much less when you go somewhere
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and security information now are so high that impacts who goes and who doesn't go
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· Interview· with Jim Trelstad - Porter
Interviewed at 2211 Riverside Ave
Minneapolis, Mn
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to a lot of places around the world. I think that we role with all those changes and
many of our colleagues have been the main presenters again and again at different
conferences and so on talking about these issue mean. I believe we have people who
do the best at that. In monitoring lots of different levels of things that are going on in
the countries in which we operate and elsewhere. That comes from a philosophy that
begins with engagement where we have contact with people across different social
sectors. So we tend to know a lot about what is going on and how to navigate that in
different settings. During those years there was a tremendous amount of people
going on the short term trips that were community based trips in churches and
independent organizations and journalist. People were going and wanting to get the
information which is still very much a part of the short trips that the center does.
There is just a lot of both universities as well as other groups that want to get to
different regions in which we are located and focus on different issues from the
environment, environmental sustainability, cross border environmental issues those
have become big. We had a briding groups from Minnesota that go Nicaragua and
the Central America to study birds that migrate there during the winter. They're
using the birds as the lense to focus on our connection to the region, environment
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help, all those kids of things. We have a professor at Augsburg right now, John
Zobitz, from the Math department who led a short term trip to Nicaragua site a few
years ago called Calculus in Nicaragua. Out of that came an ongoing project where
they monitor satellite imagery and readings to detect moisture levels that are
impacting particular coffee cooperatives in Nicaragua. So they are providing that
data to the coffee cooperatives. These are the kinds of things that the center and
Augsburg have been connect to for so many years, I think many times we lose track
of what's right in front of us. The people who have seen perhaps with the clearest
eyes the value that the sites that are outside of Minneapolis have had to Augsburg
College are people not connected to the college itself but people who have gone and
experienced and taken full advantage of what it is we do at those sites. Then they
come back to the college at one point or another and said "Do you guys realize what
you have?" I think that has been my experience for many years over many years.
That is one of the reason why Augsburg is known in other countries and around the
U.S. is specially because of the work of the Center for Global Education within the
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Minneapolis, Mn
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What growth have you seen from the time you started until now because you
talked about efforts, professors having short term trips. What programs have you
seen grow and what have you seen fall back?
22.26
JTP: I would say earlier on we had a lot political science majors, women's studies
majors, gender studies major, indicpilnary studies major. Spanish studies so we had
a whole conglomerate and our courses, in order to offer programs like we offer and
get student from other universities to go, you have to get course that are developed
that are designed to meet perhaps ge-ed requirements for lots of Universities. So the
course might be somewhat general but one student might get credit for sociology for
a course while another student might get political science credit at their home
university. These are interdisciplinary courses by design so you actually have the
flexibility to get what your professors want you to get at your home university out of
it by how -you do your own research- project and so on. So there are designed in that
way. I think in terms of just saying how it has grown and expanded I would say we
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of faculty around the country and including the programs that we run that it would
require a whole separate interview. We have focused on cross borders issues,
immigration, for years we focus on it's impact on communities in Mexico and
elsewhere.What it means here and around the world. We focused on the
environment. The center has always focused on big questions facing humanity. For
many years the tagline was a quote that was attributed to I believe an Austrian
women that was " If you come to help us then home but if you come to see how our
struggle is bound up in yours than come walk with us." So the idea of not doing
these trips for voyeurism, for helping, for charity but simply to understand, to get to
know each other and get to know each other and problem solve together believing
that somehow it's important for interconnected world, That's sort of been the
evolving ethos for Augsburg for many years. Now you can't find any problem that is
differences and similarities working at maximum to be able to figure out how we
-· · · can-come up with a solution~ That's what the center's work has done for Augsburg. I
started to switch over in the 1998 to working with international students, I came up
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have worked to design so many different types of course for so many different types
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phones, computers and in an office, This is after working with students for years
and being constantly with the students which was intensive more like the River
semester which is offered here. That was pretty much the way our work, we were
like the River semester all year long being very connected to people in close
proximity and all kinds of setting and spending a lot of time to dig deep into issues.
Coming to campus was very much an isolating experience for me for a couple of
years because I was mostly focused on administrative work then I had an
opportunity to assist with a situation. One of the vice presidents asked if I could sort
out a situation which I did. After they said, "You know we need somebody to take
this over. Would you be interested?" I thought this is not teaching but I would love
to have the connection with students again this would be a good shift for me and I
had no idea I would do this for this long. That led me to just being an international
That was wonderful and all the students who came to Augsburg helped raise my
kids. We just had so many good ·connections·. I ·worked more and more on
understanding intercultural development which means navigating cultural
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differences and commonality, what that means, how to challenge students.
Sometimes people just think that international students comes and just magically
know this stuff and I kept saying no they don't just like I don't when I go
somewhere else. First we need to get to know each other than we need to know how
to present the challenge. I think we have been working on that intentionally more
than most other institutions for a long time. We all have work to do to develop our
intercultural capacity and skills. That has been great for me and I think the students
for many years. I think Augsburg has done a good job of really paying attention to
international students and there are many ways that we need to grow fast as an
institution and that didn't always happen. We also -on the international recruitment,
really it has only been about 5 years that we have had a dedicated budget and a more
comprehensive plan, there was some good recruitment work before that but really
no consistent funding or coordinated plan and I was not directing any of that. So
about 5 years ago I accepted the challenge of working to design a comprehensive
international enrollment plan and tried to set up a model for both recruiting
consistent with the values of who Augsburg is but also what it means to retain the
students. I think we had always had better handle on retaining and what we need to
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do even though we had our challenges like any institution but I think we have a
better sense of what the student really are facing and needing. That's not a surprise
to us, we know institutions who have ran out and got a bunch of students to come
but didn't know what to do with them but we've never been in that case because we
deal with a far diverse student body both domestic and international. I think we
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expect it and have some ideas on how to engage it and also how to engage students
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same impact on all groups. You need to understand how messages are filtered across
different groups and what that means. But again my focus has always been not on
how I can sell more com flakes to another market but rather how is it that through
understanding each other better we can better accomplish the things we want as
human beings. I think there is tremendous benefits to that. That's what I think the
work has been moving for. We still have work to do in the area of international
recruitment. Last year when our recruiter got a job at the University of Denver I
suggested that we actually raise the level of that position to the director of
international recruitment for multiple reasons, one being that I think we need to keep
professionalizing the level of everything that we're doing in this area. We had no
idea what type of political situation we would be in terms of challenges and that's
everything from the current and persistent dropping global oil which actually has
impacted a number of countries and regions including Norway where we actually
had recruitment connection and things going on. That makes it more difficult to
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students in other regions who were also dealing with currency that weren't so strong
in order to open up space to get more from other regions. Currently we face a very
challenging global situation, I realize this interview is for historical records but we
have the recent example of the Indians who were killed in the state of I believe
Kansas that is having repercussions all over India in terms perception about rather or
not this is a place people want to come. It hard to find somebody around here who
hasn't tried to go or gone to Mexico for some sunny purpose of vacation or
something. If we think that we can disconnect trips to the beach from what is
occurring in the rhetoric within the country were kidding ourselves. That's
impacting definitely people who want to study not just in Mexico but throughout
Latin America, Europe, African continent, you name it. I mean we are in a situation
right now where we don't know what the impact will be but we are certainly right in
the middle of that conversation. Augsburg's commitments, values, history I think
continues to speak and actually gives us a strong voice within that conversation to
keep standing for what we always stood for, to keep connecting the way we always
connected or finding a way to connect. That l think is ·something unique that
Augsburg has to keep offering as an institution because there are ways we have done
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and do things that I think are more consistent and get to the questions that need to be
asked and perhaps dance closer to some of the answers that many other institutions
don't.
JD:
You talked about how recruitment has not always been strong for Augsburg.
Can you explain how that has changed over the years?
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JTP: Well I think without having enough resources dedicated to really mapping out
a strategy Augsburg ended up having students come here for lots of different reasons
but there wasn't perhaps a way to create visuals of exactly what patterns there were
within that recruitment. There were things like "Hey, we had three siblings from the
same family over eight years" that might happen but a lot of the student stories
would be perhaps more accidental in terms of how students ended up here then a
result of an intentional coordinated effort on Augsburg 's behalf in terms of the
international recruitment. I think that-that is changing and is a big part of what the
shift has been continuing to professionalising the way that Augsburg is interacting
··----------.
Interview ·with- Jim- Trelstad - Porter·
Interviewed at 2211 Riverside Ave
Minneapolis, Mn
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and building connections and relationship in different areas of the world and being
more intentional about tracking data. I think a lot of institutions 10 to 15 years ago
did not have really good data regarding much of this. I think Augsburg has upped
it's game but I think it's fairly recent. One example would be even as we develop
alumni networks, what Augsburg looked like 10, 15, 20 years ago as a campus, who
was here, what families look like, what their understanding of alumni connection
would be when they graduate is very different from the current population. I think
that it is inevitable that we'll need to continue to develop what some people will call
affinity groups connections because there has to be lot of entry point into an
institution once you graduate. What do you want to be with in a relationship with the
student once they graduate. It used to be a consistent pattern of people largely from
the similar demographic, we would come back for homecoming, we might watch the
football game, we would gather with our classmates, we might get certain things
from the college in the mail, sometimes just updates from the news magazine but
other times a request for donation and here is what we're doing now.
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originally called before it became Pan Afrikan Student Union, what is your
connection acknowledge in any of our alumni efforts, was there any sense that your
primary connection was through the International Student Organization, that might
be one of the conversation to have as an alumni is how do I stay connected with
those folks. How do I stay connected to the experience of international students or
whomever and not just limiting it to specific offices or organizations but it simply is
being consciousness of different affinity groups and how those could be the main
reasons someone wants to stay connected to an organization. As long as that lifeline
is maintained there is greater openness to other types of conversations like "Hey, I
know this has been something that has always been important to you. Would you
want to know about what it is we're doing today? I think you might be interested in
this." Than your willingness to check it out might be greater and maybe you want to
get involved now with somethings now with Augsburg that you were never
interested in and you thought Augsburg capable of when you were a student here.
So I think we have growth to do in that area and I think I see signs that we are
··· growing in that-area-but I know I have felt that my-own capacity has been limited in
terms of all the possibility I see about how might really continue to energize the
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work we have done you know around the globe and that includes with our students.
We have both anecdotal and concrete evidence of Augsburg graduates who are very
much open and interested in being connected and involved. Most recently our Vice
President of Enrollment went on a recruitment related trip to India and I connected
him to an one of our alumni from 18 years ago and that particular alumni couldn't
wait to connect with Augsburg. Another person was randomly in a bookstore in one
of the major cities in Pakistan and the owner of the bookstore came up and said
"Augsburg College, I graduated from there." My wife's orthodontists growing up
was a 1970s graduate of Augsburg from India. I was in Norway in a upper level
meeting with ministers of this and that and one of the Associate Ministers of
Education and Research for the Norwegian government steps forward to asks if a
couple of professors were still at Augsburg because he was a 1980s graduate. These
are things that I don't think we necessarily paid enough attention to. There is a
principal called the accurate differentiation which really is to bond on the things that
we really do have in common together but also to accurately differentiate when
· ·perhaps some of the things we were drawn to or did are different and to be able to
make sure that we see those things are different and that not only ok but it's good. I
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confident that Augsburg has the capacity to up our game in those areas.
JD:
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think that there are way which we could do that better moving forward. I'm
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Can you explain why you have stayed around Augsburg for 25 years.
That's a great question and I sure hope I'm not perceived as dead weight at
this point. I think I have grown up at Augsburg, I raised my kids at Augsburg and
the biggest reason that I have stayed connected is a believe in the place, the mission
of Augsburg. I ~on't go around for utopia in other places, I don't think it exists, I
think Augsburg has been a place where I don't feel I have to wear a masks. I can
show up and be who I am. Augsburg has been more open to the most difficult
conversations than almost any other place that I have been. I·have had a lot of time
···to ·look at things outside· of here, have different opportunities come my way but at
the end of the day I really have a difficult time because I have to show up as me
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Interview with- Jim Trelstad --- Porter
Interviewed at 2211 Riverside Ave
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where I am. Coming from the teaching environment in the Mexico programs where
were talking openly all the time about racism, sexism, homophobia, classism all
these sorts of shifting pieces that always are present no matter what issues we're
trying to address and to continue to be in an environment where that is always apart
of the conversation, where we are still curious, trying to learn, trying to grow
ourselves and at the same time provide an environment where others are also trying
to grow as well that's a tall order because from that to campus here. There were a
number of big adjustment for me, where I wasn't sure how the fit would be this is
different place but ultimately I found that the people here were doing some much of
the same thing and have been for a long time. We have always been housed with
Multicultural Student Services since my time here and I think that the colleagues in
our suite have profoundly shaped me and have been my go to people for consulting
a different things that I face. I think we've provided that for a lot of years for one
another and that's been a really important part of this time here at Augsburg for me.
At many school international and domestic multicultural get separated and I think at
· Augsburg··both by choice·and- by-accident because it was not by really people's ·
choice that people would be housed in the same building which no longer exist over
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there. I think the result of being together in the same space allowed for people to
have the kinds of conversations that are furthered our thinking about global
intersectionality. It's all the pieces of who we are right now doesn't matter ifl
transported from India, North Minneapolis or Western Wisconsin but that we show
up with all the different facets of who we are and it's always in the room. I think that
that understanding of the shifting that happens when people are together is the
deepest level of intercultural understanding. I think that our consciousness of that
just continued to grow over the years that we didn't speak the discourse of
traditional international education which has many times set itself apart is something
extra special. Usually it better funded so it's been sort of set apart. Again domestic
being set apart is not engaging issues that have been important to international
education. In Mexico we were constantly bridging those two areas in the early 1990s
and some of the research on bridging multicultural/ international was coming out.
We worked particularly on this with a professor who is self identified as Chicana
from South California who kept coming back working, taking groups to us and
- · really-digging into this and saying-"Why ·are we not-consciousnessly in dialogue and
what are the disconnects?" In a sense deconstructing what some of these reasons
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were that offices weren't talking, that people weren't making obvious connections
that do do exist. Fast forward to 2017 and we have students on this campus that are
from all over, who have dual citizenship, tri citizenship, permanent resident in this
country, this and that. It's coming out of their mouths before you even say what the
issues is. So many of our students take it as a given that the world is that connected
and this is the way it is. Is not that you can isolate it within a mission state boundary,
it has been forever bigger than that. Augsburg for me is a place where I feel that I
am able to be who I am. I'm able to be challenged constantly, I love the people I
work with, I love the students. Everytime I look elsewhere I haven't found a better
fit for me while I've been raising my kids.
49.09
JD:
You 're not only the Director for International Scholar and Student Services
but you also do work around campus. Can you tell us a little more about what you
do around campus?
49.23
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whatever water needs caring. Actually when we worked in Mexico and the garbage
truck would come by and the bell would start dinging all of us would run up to the
garbage cans and make sure that the we got them up the street. We did that for years.
Most of what I have done has been connected to global education aspects of the
campus. I work with visiting professors, we have one currently from Japan and
another one from China. I work with exchange students and we issue all those forms
so again those are all things related to what a typical International Student and
Scholar Services office would do. I am a qualified administrator of the Intercultural
Development Inventory and that is work that we are consciously doing around the
campus with different pockets of students, faculty and staff. The goal is to increase
the intercultural confidence level of any and all believing that developing one's
capacity to navigate cultural difference and commonality more of the time allows us
to actively engage complex intercultural issues. Therefore has more choice and
potentially to contribute towards solutions to challenges and to meet our own
intercultural goals which can vary. If you are a professor, you want to be an effective
develop your intercultural capacity. You will be most successful with people like
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yourself unless you develop your intercultural capacity. Staff is the same thing, if
you are in an accounting office, business office, doesn't matter where you are or a
front line person with student groups you have t~ have this capacity to be most
effective in one's work. As student I think that cultural self and cultural others
understanding doesn't come for free, it doesn't matter who we are, most of our
understanding of culture is not in our awareness unless we work to bring it to our
awareness as a result of learning cultural contrast and then consciously reflecting on
it. The more we reflect on the capacity again I think it's a multiplier for us achieving
mitigating its impact and making sure I'm making my decision based on a more
accurate assessment of what's occurring rather than overreacting to the cultural
difference in the room that I don't know what the heck is going on. So I am a more
powerful person, I'm capable of loving more people who are not like myself more
effectively. I am more capable of achieving my intercultural goals in terms of
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what my skill sets are and convince employers that I can do this stuff. Whatever it
is you want me to do I'm going to be able to do it better because I know these
things. Augsburg is committed to social justice, equity, very big weighty terms but
those terms look differently depending on how much intercultural work one has
done. We need to be able to have conversation where we understand what social
justice means to different people at the table because it's not all the same. What
equity means to different people and understanding the ways we understand or think
we want to see it happen impact us similarly and differently. That comes with doing
intercultural work. So I am deeply committed to that process however and whenever
it can happen the eye is a tool that we helps target one's development but really is
the beginning of the conversation. It's not the intervention, it's the beginning of the
conversation how might I grow, how might someone else to grow. That's a piece
that I spend a lot of time working on. In terms of other things I do are providing
feedback session for other for people who had taken eye to eye, doing presentations
at venues for residence life, staffs, sports teams that are going to be going out of the
·-country for a -particular ten day-trip, talking to different pockets of faculty, talking
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outside of my job now but that's just me being squeaky.
55:18
JD: you talked about both international student and people studying elsewhere. Did
you see a connection between the two?
55.35
JTP: Yes, between what I've been just talking about? The thing is to, again I
started my life at Augsburg in the center, Center for Global Education, now it's
Center for Global Education and Experience and that was my first eight years, and
then since that time I was in the office of International Programs contacted to the
Center for Global Education, and then since 1999 International Student advising and
then since 2011 it was ISSSS (International Students and Scholar Services), so not
in the center. What I can say is that one of the things about Augsburg that rea11y
comes from understanding intersectionality and being able to be simply more effect
· at navigating cultural difference and similarity is understanding how relationship ·
network work. Who knows who. What barriers people from different background
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might face going somewhere that someone else might not face. I think applying that
knowledge my colleagues within Augsburg Abroad, have been extremely effective
at who goes abroad. Augsburg is a one of the few colleges that the students that
have be going abroad have been going on different types of experiences outside of
the country.. Even some other experiences that have been within the U.S. but off
campus. That group of stude~ts have come to mirror the students that are here which
is not the case at other institution put it simply the off campus studies are for folks .
who have money. It is not without challenges, there is always challenges but even
the efforts to make sure that students are apply to get certain scholarships, Gilman
Scholarships, other sorts of scholarships be conscious on again what trips might be
more cost effective and how can we pull together your academic objective with
options so you have options. There's been just a lot of great work to get feedback
from students and also bring good information to students and families. For some
students the family conversation is matters and parents will be intimately involved at
every step of the way. For other students maybe it's just their choice. There going to
make that choice even it· means getting a third job. Just trying to navigate all that
and stay connected to what and being clear about the way of the experiences, I mean
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for us, these are not vacations right? For me personally having taught outside the
country and having been involved I'm not a fan, if this is what it is for somebody. I
also remember it's different when I'm twenty verse where I am now but I still speak
from what motivates me to do this. It is the conscious reflection on these
experiences, the opportunities to share and contrast and compare with people from
different experiences and the potential goal that can come from that if someone
talces that experience in both for professional and personal growth. That's why I do
it. I think it could do such lofty things as possibly prevented a war. I know that's not
always going to motivate people to go to places but sometimes you never know. I'm
not a fan that study abroad or off campus is always beneficial or that it all always
positively changes people because research shows that it doesn't. Sometimes what it
does is just reinforce prejudice, it does all kinds of different things and so how we
go about it and how we set it up does really matter. I like the way Augsburg tries to
do it, you can't control someone's experiences but I think we try to start the right
conversation and carry them forward both before someone goes, while they are there
and also once they get back; ·But again it's hard messy work.
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60.23
JD: You said you were back at Augsburg in 1998, Can you describe Augsburg?
60.34
JTP: Well I had only been on Augsburg's campus twice because I was up here
meeting with all my colleagues from the other countries and the Minneapolis staff
so I never knew what it was like. Even when I studied at Augsburg's program in
1988 I came directly from the other campus in South Dakota so I had never know
Augsburg and how it was on campus. The physical campus was very different, we
had no dome, we had still had quite a few houses that were on campus property so
we had offices in those houses. That's a way a lot of campus have been for the last
twenty- twenty five years. Campuses all over the place had started to essentially to
knock down the house and build big new buildings and all that. Augsburg has been
in that process as well.
61..34
JD: Do you think the relationship; between Augsburg and the community has
gr-own? Can you describe-the-growth?·
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,lriterview mth·•Jim-'Trelstad - Porter
Interviewed at 2211 Riverside Ave
Minneapolis, Mn
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JTP: I do think that has been the two biggest impacts are simply the transforming of
the student body and who is here. That include plenty of students who are from right
in the surrounding area. Th~t's had a huge impact it also says here is how Augsburg
talks about itself, here is how people right across the street really think about you.
We have that feedback loop now in the day to day. It wasn't there as much before. I
think we had more a discourse of we're helping the community, we're connecting to
the community which I think a lot of campuses do in big urban centers tend to frame
themselves in that way. I think Augsburg has become more sophisticated and
changed for the better by being conscious of it matters how one builds a relationship
with the community on deeper levels. Augsburg was already a lot of things way
before the last five, six years that I think we're probably better and more
sophisticated that a lot of schools. I think there were still layers of perhaps things we
weren't seeing as an institution that can only be seen the deeper the relationship
becomes. Also the last ten years of leadership on campus, the President as well as
lots of people who are here on campus··have really continued to build on the ethos
that Augsburg is not gonna build a wall or strong boundaries with our surrounding
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Interview-;•with· Jim---TFelstad - Porter ·
Interviewed at 2211 Riverside Ave
Minneapolis, Mn
-··- · -· lnterviewed on March 8, 2017
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Interviewed by Jwokamer Debock
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area. We are going to do exactly the opposite. I think that the for the folks who made
the decisions both when the Oren Gateway Center went up and now with the new
Hagfors Center to build those building that they actually seek to connect with the
community is an architectural choice. When the Oren Gateway Center went up it
was an architectural choice, it was constant and exploit that we are not walling off
this campus. I think that is probably the biggest statement that Augsburg. Everyday
is a new day and it's not usually about the shining things but being constant and
athletic sometimes saying your sorry, celebrating the things that are worth
celebrating. Over time I think that what builds credibility and I think that to me is
Augsburg I love the most. With ability to say "Yeah, we were really missing this ten,
fifteen year ago we could not see this. Maybe someone was sitting there saying
"you're not seeing this and nobody was paying attention. But the opportunities to
have chances to keep doing thing in a different way and holding ourselves
accountable to high standards. I think that is something Augsburg has managed to
keep doing as imperfect as an place but I some of those decisions and the way they
· have been carried out have· kept me enthusiastic about this place.
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Interviewed at 2211 Riverside Ave
Minneapolis, Mn
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JD: Is there anything else you would like to add?
66:00
JTP: I think I have gone beyond my interview time. I think we _probably good. I
appreciate the questions and a chance to walk down memory lane a little bit. Like I
said I spent a long time here but in a lot of different situation including physical
locations as well as well as the opportunity to connect with people from so many
backgrounds. Which I think is a unique vantage point for me. Both having myself
physically in other places including out of the country and being in multiple other
countries and leading trip to Cuba, Ecuador and other places. It been a good run for
a quarter of a century.
JD: Thanking you for allowing me to interview you. I have learned so much and
I'm sure everybody else will too.
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