bing pixel

鶹ԭ

Gift Announcements

“A way to help others who were like me” first-generation college graduate Lars Sandven ’69 says of planned gift

Posted on
Lars Sandven '69 holds photo of himself standing with King Olav V of Norway who visited Augsburg in 1968.
Lars Sandven ’69 holds a photo of himself standing with then Augsburg President Oscar A. Anderson and King Olav V of Norway who visited Augsburg in 1968.

Many who benefit from an Augsburg education say thanks by designating a gift to the University in their estate plan. But only a few pepper their lives with intriguing thank-you stories along the way. Lars Sandven ’69 is one of those.

The son of Norwegian farmers, Sandven was completing his compulsory service with the Norwegian air force in 1965, stationed north of the Arctic Circle at a base that also served American soldiers training in the frigid elements. At night he taught English, capitalizing on the year he had spent as an exchange student in Pennsylvania, for extra pay. During the day he worked at a desk job, “shoveling paper.” One of his duties was to file government newspapers, each issue a four-page compilation of name changes, divorce decrees, and other essential ephemera.

“I was supposed to just put them away, but I had plenty of time. So I read them. I happened to see an ad from the American-Scandinavian Foundation about a new Augsburg scholarship in honor of Norway’s Crown Prince Harald V. I was fluent in English, so I applied,” Sandven recalls. His application was accepted; the scholarship was his.

“It was so funny—they called from the palace! It was a big deal. I have an image of the lieutenant, my boss, standing at attention while he talked to the royals in Oslo,” he says. Returning home on leave, he discovered that they had first contacted his small town in fjord country. “It sounded like a fairy tale. The ladies at the switchboard were all abuzz. It was very humorous.”

Sandven knew little about Augsburg, of course, and having just lost his father to a farm accident, lacked travel funds. When the ASF “asked sweetly” whether he might need some help, he accepted. Passage on a boat shipping out of Bergen was negotiated, as long as he was willing to join the crew, loading fruit, aluminum bars, and other cargo as necessary. After navigating the Atlantic and the St. Lawrence Seaway, he disembarked in Montreal and took a Greyhound bus to Detroit and then St. Paul.

“I got there in the morning, very disoriented. I never got a sense of direction in the Twin Cities. It was so flat—no Eiffel Tower, nothing,” Sandven, then 21, remembers with a chuckle. He moved into freshman housing, where he secreted Wonder Bread and margarine (it melted) in his metal locker to help stretch his limited finances. To supplement his one-year scholarship, he taught Norwegian as an “instructional assistant” while the Augsburg professor was on sabbatical, worked summers at the Concordia Language Camp, dug ditches, painted walls, translated for pastors, and donned a Beefeater costume to wait tables at the Sheraton Ritz Hotel’s Cheshire Cheese Olde English Beefe House. He was paid $100 to join three other foreign students and two American drivers on a six-week, cross-country, Ambassadors for Friendship road trip. Organized by Macalester College and underwritten by American Motors, the experience was “eye-opening,” memorable and meaningful, with homestays in locations ranging from Salt Lake City and New Orleans to Las Vegas (where he got lost) and Nogales (where he slipped across the border for a beer). He also worked in the kitchen at the Minikhada Country Club; his colleagues there served him and his mother a fancy dinner when she visited Minnesota. Thanks were in order on all fronts.

After finishing his Spanish degree in three years, Sandven (and his skis) shipped home to the University of Bergen, where he met his California-born wife, Ann. It was during a celebrity-studded World Cup event, at an intimate party of about 20, that he got the opportunity to thank Crown Prince Harald directly for his scholarship. “We came full circle. After I got home, the staff sent me a Christmas card from the palace with a picture of the royal family and a note that said, ‘come and see us while you are in Oslo.’ I was feeling very ‘close’ to royalty for a while,” he jokes. (He had met and been photographed with Norway’s King Olav V during the king’s 1968 Augsburg visit.)

Following a rather common path of first-generation farm kids becoming teachers, says Sandven, he taught elementary school in Oslo. He also worked in television before he and Ann headed back to America, two small sons in tow. In 1982, the growing family settled in Boise, Idaho, where he worked as an educator and school counselor before retiring. His sons graduated from Stanford and his daughter from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin; all have thriving careers, and two of them have settled their families in his home country.

With their planned gift, Sandven sums up his gratitude and expresses appreciation for his philanthropically inclined wife. “It’s a thank-you to Augsburg, and a way to help others who were like me,” he says. “It’s wonderful to be able to share our blessings, both of us.”

Agre Legacy at Augsburg Continues with Planned Gift to the StepUP Program

Posted on

Jim, Brenda and President PribbenowThe Agre legacy at Augsburg University is well-established. The late Courtland L. Agre accepted the position of chairperson in the chemistry department in 1959 and became a beloved professor, inspiring hundreds of admiring students to stake out careers in science. His lessons were not lost on his three sons, all of whom majored in chemistry: Nobel prize winner Peter Agre ’70, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute; Jim Agre ’72, professor of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Minnesota; and Mark Agre ’81, a rehabilitation medicine specialist in St. Paul. (Their sister, Annetta Agre ’69, majored in elementary education and taught in the Minneapolis school system.)

So when Jim Agre and his wife, Brenda Gauvin-Chadwick, designated a planned gift of $1.25 million to Augsburg in their estate, it certainly fit the family tradition. But this couple also has deeply personal reasons for committing their funds to the StepUP program. Alcoholism contributed to the early deaths of Jim’s first wife and Brenda’s sister.

“We saw how awful the disease of addiction can be. Now we are in a position to be able to give back,” says Jim, who also serves on StepUP’s board of directors. “The StepUP program offers recovering students an opportunity to regain control of their lives and become fulfilled and productive citizens.”

Health and wellness have long been a touchstone for him. He majored in biology and chemistry and participated in team sports; both he and Peter joined Augsburg’s original men’s soccer team in 1968. After graduating at the end of soccer season a few years later, Jim spent five months in Hamburg, Germany, where he played on a Hamburg soccer team, brushed up on his German language skills, and worked at a light fixture manufacturing plant.

He came home to attend the University of Minnesota medical school, then one of the few in the country that offered a specialty in physical medicine and rehabilitation. He recalls being drawn to that specialty because its treatments were focused on the recovery of individuals who had experienced severe loss of function due to medical illness. Becoming part of the medical team that restores function and quality of life to those individuals proved very fulfilling.

“As I look back on my career, I am very happy with the decision I made,” he says.

Jim and Brenda skiingJim plans to retire this spring but has no plans to slow down. He takes Swedish classes and returns often to Sweden and Norway to visit family and participate in cross-country ski competitions; he and his wife are both avid skiers. At home, he takes part in Loppet Nordic Racing at Theodore Wirth Park.

He also remains connected to Augsburg. Back in medical school, he coached men’s soccer after his classes and labs were done for the day. Last fall, he volunteered as an assistant coach. “It was nice to see those young boys so full of enthusiasm and energy,” he says.

The supportive environment he encountered on campus 50 years ago has not changed, he adds. Although he had considered attending the University of California, Berkeley, where he lived with his family while his father was on sabbatical, he feels blessed to have chosen the smaller school. “Even as a freshman, I knew my professors, and I could go to them if I had questions or a problem. They knew me as a person, not just a number in a class. That personal touch was very helpful.”

The sense of caring still pervades the campus, creating a firm foundation for StepUP, one of the first comprehensive programs in the country to emphasize and support students in recovery. Services range from sober living space to sobriety pledges to counseling as needed. “They are helping folks who have various challenges that the average student doesn’t have. It makes me feel good to be a part of Augsburg,” Jim says, “and doing wonderful things to help folks along also helps our society.”

Fahlberg Scholarship will encourage and support students to have a holistic Augsburg experience

Posted on

John FahlbergA serial entrepreneur who relishes new challenges and opportunities to share his leadership expertise, John Fahlberg ’68 has not forgotten what it is like to work hard, play hard, and struggle to afford a college education. He and his wife have designated $375,000 as a planned gift to establish the John A. and Martha C. Fahlberg Scholarship, which will support students who have financial need and enjoy participating in extracurricular activities.

Extracurricular activities marked Fahlberg’s early life, but they were not always the fun kind. Yes, he played sports as far back as he can remember, and he was happy to serve as student council president and captain of the football team. But he also started pumping gas at his father’s filling station at age 13, shoveled snow, and did whatever odd jobs needed doing in the small town of Alexandria, where his family moved when he was in the third grade. He also spent a college summer as a spot welder on the assembly line at the Ford plant in St. Paul.

“I learned about the world of hard work at a very young age, and it stuck with me my whole life. I was very lucky. I chose the right parents,” says Fahlberg, who is now a business consultant and executive coach in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. “My dad was a stoic Swede and my mom an outgoing Norwegian. They married in the early ‘30s, during the Depression, and they had a rough life. They never got a chance to finish college, but they taught me great values.”

One of those values was education, of course. Sportsmanship was another. Both Fahlberg and his brother, ten years his senior, were very competitive and became outstanding athletes, following in their father’s footsteps. Fahlberg’s prowess in football and baseball attracted offers from several good liberal arts colleges. He chose Augsburg because he wanted to live in the “big city” and “hit it off immediately” with the late, legendary coach Edor Nelson ’38. A scholarship paid his tuition.

Fahlberg pitched baseball for the Auggies throughout his college years and earned several division honors as football quarterback. He was inducted into the Auggie Hall of Fame—a surprise he was not expecting—in 2001. “In retrospect, it was a great four years, and the late ‘60s was an interesting time, to say the least,” he says, recalling Seven Corners and the funky Cedar-Riverside neighborhood during that turbulent time. “I got a good education on all fronts.”

A business administration major, he grew fond of assistant professor Bruce Budge, who “really looked after us, really cared about us,” and treasured his connection with the late Jeroy Carlson ’48, “one of those genuinely great, warm human beings who supported any and all of us. He made the Augsburg experience a real plus.” These and other faculty members became a community of friends who shared the value system his parents had instilled in him: treating people fairly and well, respecting honesty and diligence, admitting mistakes, trying again after failing, doing the right thing no matter what.

Those values would also serve Fahlberg well in the business world. Getting a job was difficult in the late ‘60s, but a chance opening in the University of Minnesota’s MBA program gave him a degree and 15 job offers from around the country two years later. His financial planning and analytic skills took him to Exxon in Houston before friends eventually convinced him to move back to snow country. He joined Target, where he met his wife, Marty, and became director of accounting by the time he was 31. Preferring scrappy start-ups to large corporations, however, he quit to embark on an eclectic entrepreneurial journey that took him from freight services (Murphy Transportation) to supercomputers (Zycad, where he became CEO), retail signage (Insignia Systems), and golf courses (LinksCorp).

Tired of long winters at last, Fahlberg and his wife decamped to Chapel Hill 19 years ago, although they return to Alexandria every summer. He stays busy as an angel investor, a member of several boards, and a coach who helps young executives plumb their strengths and weaknesses.

“We all have our ups and downs, but I have always felt that if I do it right, even if I fail, then I will be all right. My Augsburg experience really helped me solidify my values and live my life. I have never wavered from that,” says Fahlberg. “I can’t think of anything better than to help students get into and get through Augsburg University.”

Full Circle: Music Educator Duane Esterly ’75 Establishes Planned Gift to Augsburg’s Music Department

Posted on

Duane EsterlyWith his planned gift to Augsburg University’s music department, Duane Esterly ’75 has come full circle in his musical life, helping to ensure that future students who share his passion can pursue similar dreams.

By the time he reached fourth grade, Esterly had teaching goals clearly in sight. A church choir director had named him a boy soprano and instilled in him a love for music, and his parents sang in the senior choir at Calvary Lutheran Church of Golden Valley, where he took organ lessons as a high school sophomore from the church organist. The senior choir at Calvary was directed by Dr. William Halverson, professor of philosophy at Augsburg from 1959 to 1967, and often performed anthems by Leland Sateren ’35, who headed Augsburg’s music department from 1950 to 1973 and directed the choir until retiring in 1979. By the time Esterly was ready to choose a college, it was evident that Augsburg was “a good place to get a music degree.”

Such a pursuit was “challenging then. They had nowhere near the facilities they do now,” Esterly recalls. In those days the music department was housed in a group of renovated churches deeded to Augsburg by dwindling congregations. Recitals were held in an old white church where one could also hear toilets flushing throughout the building. The organ studio was housed in a converted grocery store, and the band building was located across the freeway on Franklin Avenue in another former church with a questionable heating system during the winter months.

“By the time I graduated in 1975, I figured the college had better do something about their facilities in order to stay competitive,” says Esterly.

His music education, however, was top-notch. He took voice lessons, sang in the choir, and learned much about choral technique, conducting, and interpreting text through music. As a senior, he directed the student production of Oklahoma, facing the formidable task of turning the old music building into a theater in a mere three weeks. He made good friends, such as Peter Hendrickson ’76, who became artistic director of the Masterworks Chorale and recruited Esterly, who sang for the Chorale from 1996 to 2015. “I’m very appreciative of the tools I learned while at Augsburg. They taught me quality, first and foremost,” he says.

Esterly worked in sales administration, market research, training, and finance with such companies as Sandoz, Novartis, and Nestle for 35 years, but he never left music behind. For 27 years he taught privately—adults mostly, whom he deems often more difficult than elementary or high school students. He has held church music positions with various congregations throughout his working life, and, since retiring from the business world in 2016, he claims he is now “down to one job.” That means working with three different churches at present, fulfilling principal organist duties at each on alternating Sundays, directing a vocal choir and a handbell choir, and being on call for plenty of weddings and funerals.

When he is not working on choral arrangements for his choirs in his home office in Plymouth, Esterly fills his time with books, concerts, plays, flower and auto shows (in season), and dining out with friends. Because he has no children to inherit his financial legacy, he has chosen Augsburg’s music department as one of its worthy recipients. “I am so pleased to see what’s happening there now. Almost all the professors I had are no longer living and my contemporaries are retiring, but I am very impressed with what I currently see,” he says. “Their degree of dedication is deep, and I believe in all the possibilities they can offer to the students to come.”

Two Students Find Support and Mentorship from Augsburg Women Engaged

Posted on

Checking your email can get tedious, right? But for two Augsburg students, the digital chore yielded unexpected benefits. Informed that they had been selected as recipients of this year’s Augsburg Women Engaged (AWE) scholarships, they registered both shock and delight.

“I was very, very surprised. It was not something I had applied for, so I was very excited to hear I got it,” says Nayra Rios ’20. After earning an associate degree at Century College in White Bear Lake, she decided to transfer to Augsburg to major in biopsychology, the next step on her way to becoming a physician’s assistant. Unfortunately, the deadline for obtaining a transfer scholarship had passed.

“I was disappointed, but I figured I would just have to find other ways to pay for school. Then a month later, this email arrived,” Rios says. She was familiar with financial challenges. Her parents are laborers who grew up in Mexico but immigrated to California, where they met, married, and had three children. They moved to Minnesota when Rios was seven years old. She attended a charter school for Hispanic students before transferring to Tartan High school in Oakdale, a transition that carried its own culture shock. But Rios found friends and pursued academic success.

Although her older brother is now pursuing a degree in law enforcement, she was the first in her family to attend college. As a child, she had encountered health issues that scared her, but compassionate treatment relieved that fear; she has wanted to pursue a career in health care ever since.

“My parents always supported my dreams,” she says. They had their own dreams—her mother wanted to be a nurse and her father a lawyer—but lacked resources. In Mexico, she points out, families had to pay for everything related to school: books, uniforms, etc. These days, Rios helps support herself through her off-campus work with STAR Services, which supports young people with disabilities.

She has enjoyed meeting the women involved with AWE, which was formed in 2009 to unite women with shared interests and passions through events, mentorship, and philanthropy. “They are very kind, and they made me feel important,” says Rios.

Her sentiments are echoed by Sydney Fields ’22, who describes her benefactors as “really cool.” She, too, was surprised by the scholarship award, although she recalls meeting the person who recommended her through a multicultural diversity engagement group. A graduate of Champlin High School in Brooklyn Park, she chose Augsburg for its diversity, its proximity to home, and a chance to play on the basketball team. She is #10, a guard.

“I love playing at Augsburg. It’s such a welcome and supportive program,” she says. And although she got good grades in high school and was expecting to work hard at college, she was not quite prepared for the amount of schoolwork she would encounter. Studying, on top of basketball practice and her work as a housing specialist, “gets really exhausting!”

With four older and two younger siblings, all of whom have or are pursuing some sort of college degree, Fields did come to Augsburg prepared with goals. Currently a finance major and management minor, she wants to launch two businesses. One would be a college prep class for teens, to help them prepare for the onslaught of responsibility she is discovering. The other would be a nonprofit 24-hour childcare center, designed for low-income families who need extra help because they work nights or have other scheduling challenges.

As she navigates her college years, Fields is grateful not only for the financial support AWE has provided, but also for the connection to people who understand the various situations she will experience at Augsburg. “We participants know we have a resource in this group of women. They will help us with anything we need.”

Inspiring and Supporting Augsburg Women through an Estate Gift

Posted on

Lisa Zeller ‘81 has long been a vocal and enthusiastic fan of Augsburg. She was part of the first class to complete the Master of Arts in Leadership (MAL) degree in 1989, and she was a founding member of Augsburg Women Engaged (AWE). She volunteers regularly for both and supports their fundraising initiatives regularly. But her latest effort—to support the endowed AWE scholarship with a substantial estate gift—is born of a deeper connection.

The first in her family to attend college, Lisa did not have the usual college experience. Shared dorm or house living, evening study sessions, weekend parties, and fun with friends were not for her. Her mother was a single parent who “struggled her whole life. Money was always a worry,” Lisa recalls. Yet “my earliest memories are of her instilling in my sister and me that we get an education and become self-sufficient. She planted those seeds early and strong.”

At church, Lisa had noticed two posters, one for Pacific Lutheran University and the other for Augsburg. Pacific Lutheran was too far away, so Augsburg became her alma mater. But tight finances meant she was living at home, working several jobs, getting parking tickets on a regular basis, and devoting all spare time to her studies. “I was shy and introverted, although I loved college. The one thing I regret is that I had no social life. I think that is actually a big part of why I’m involved now.”

Lisa majored in communications and religion, the latter surprising her. While taking the requisite classes, she discovered that she loved studying religion and philosophy that went beyond Lutheranism and Christianity. Undecided about her future, she considered going into the ministry until one of her business professors explained that “the business world needs good, ethical people, too.” She pursued an advanced business degree elsewhere but found that accounting and statistics classes felt “like sticking needles in my eyes. I hated every second.” Augsburg, on the other hand, was “talking about creativity and a whole new liberal arts approach to leadership. If I could have designed my own program, MAL would have been it.”

As part of the first cohort, Lisa made the lasting friendships and connections she missed the first time around. “It was such a great experience,” she says. “I give so much credit to Augsburg for my self-discovery and becoming who I am today. No one had told me I was smart before. Augsburg helped me cultivate my passion and interests.”

She embarked on an eclectic business career and in 1994 founded the Phaedrus Group, a training and consulting firm she still runs with her husband. As a member of AWE, Lisa has observed that women approach philanthropy differently from men, seeking more connection with causes and recipients. Her planned gift to the AWE endowed scholarship provides just that. This scholarship exists to support Auggie women, especially those who are first-generation, students of color, or other underserved populations, so perhaps they will be able to earn a degree without giving up friends and fun. It is her way of paying it forward.

“I’ve had an opportunity to meet the first two AWE scholars, and these young women inspire me and give me hope for the future. It is so fun to cheer on this generation of women!”

Honoring Dr. Raymond and Margaret Anderson’s Tenacity and Commitment to Augsburg with an Endowed Scholarship

Posted on
Brian J. Anderson ’82 and Leeann M. Rock ’81

In memory of his parents and in celebration of his brother, Augsburg professor emeritus Stuart Anderson, Brian J. Anderson ’82 and his wife, Leeann M. Rock ’81, are donating $50,000 to endow a scholarship designed to encourage future students’ “rigorous education and academic excellence.” Yet the rich legacy that accompanies this gift goes far beyond those lofty goals.

Brian’s father, the late Dr. Raymond E. Anderson, joined Augsburg in 1949 as a speech and communications professor, helping to establish the department now called Communication Studies, Film, and New Media. Students adored his wry sense of humor as well as his warmth and compassion. He made his speech classes “fun” while maintaining high standards.

“He was very committed to his students, but he demanded the best from them,” says Brian, naming several who used those formative public speaking classes to build acclaimed careers: the late U.S. Representative Martin Sabo, who served Minnesota’s 5th District for 14 terms; Rev. Mark Hanson, former presiding bishop of the ELCA; and Minnesota District Court Judge Bev Benson. “He was also committed to honesty and integrity. When a student once admitted almost proudly that she would say anything in a job interview just to get the job, my father explained that if he were asked to write a recommendation letter, he would disclose that fact to the interviewer. He had standards, and he stuck to them.”

Brian remembers his dad coming home and “working like a dog” till 9:30 at night, listening to speeches so he could grade and return them promptly. Brian also remembers him confessing that he loved his job so much that he felt guilty getting paid to do it. A man with many interests, including trumpet, piano, painting, woodworking, and writing, Ray retired in 1990 and died in 2013.

Brian’s mother, the late Margaret J. Anderson, joined Augsburg in 1967, using her master’s degree in library science and the college’s limited resources to make Augsburg’s library the best it could be. She became library director in 1977, and, after retiring in 1990, continued to volunteer for cataloging and archiving projects. She, too, was known for diligence and deep commitment to community and family as well as her own violin, cuisine, and literary pursuits. She died in 2017.

That Brian should follow his older brother, Stu, to Augsburg is little wonder. Stu was to become a physics professor; Brian majored in math, physics, and religion. In recent years, Brian strongly supported the Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion and has followed closely Stu’s leadership challenges and successes with its development. “All of my majors were right there, which made it special. It was fun to be in on it from the inside,” says Brian.

During college, grammar had not been Brian’s strong suit. He confessed his strategy in freshman English: “raise your hand immediately if you knew the answer so later the teacher would skip you when you did not.” The girl who sat behind him, alphabetically in Old Main’s narrow classroom, always knew the answers, he reports. That was his future wife, Leeann Rock ’81, who had accompanied a friend pursuing a music major to Augsburg’s Discovery Day. Leeann had planned to attend a different college, but when she heard biology professor Neal Thorpe speak, she was hooked.

Brian earned his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Minnesota in 1987 and taught briefly at Augsburg before joining The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where he often hosted summer interns referred by Augsburg physics professor Mark J. Engebretson. Leeann obtained her M.D., also from the University of Minnesota, and is a pathologist at Frederick Memorial Hospital. Now living in Mount Airy, Maryland, both want to honor Brian’s parents, who were so instrumental on campus during their lives. Endowing a scholarship seems like a natural next step, Brian says. “It’s a formal way of maintaining our relationship with Augsburg while ensuring more opportunities for students in the future.”

Accessibility to Education and an Open Community Inspires Graves Family Endowed Scholarship

Posted on
Sam ’16, Hazen and Kathy Graves with President Pribbenow at their scholarship signing.

When Hazen and Kathy Graves toured Augsburg with their son, Sam Graves ’16, they immediately felt they had found the right place. “We were totally impressed,” says Hazen, a retired partner at the Faegre Baker Daniels law firm, where he advised nonprofit organizations and handled legal matters related to charities and charitable giving. “Just walking through the campus, we found students very respectful, friendly, and eager to engage.”

They also found that Augsburg offered the unique assistance Sam needed as a young man with cerebral palsy who uses a power wheelchair. “As we learned more about the support Augsburg offers to students with various kinds of challenges, we came to understand that Augsburg had been doing this for a long time, long before ADA,” says Hazen. “The University’s attitude—that’s the way the world is, here we all are, let’s get on with it—came through loud and clear, and it was reinforced as Sam went through four years there,” he adds.

Education is a high priority for the Graves family. Sam had a very good experience at Minneapolis South High School, where he excelled in academics and played in South’s robust adapted athletics program. After graduation, however, the choices were more difficult.

“Sam is very bright and has always done well in school. One of our goals was to make sure he could really capitalize on that,” says Hazen. He and his wife, Kathy, a principal in the communications and planning firm of Parenteau Graves, quickly learned that not every higher education institution was able to—or even seemingly wanted to–serve students with physical disabilities.

A tour of Augsburg was all it took. Sam agreed with his parents’ assessment and enrolled in 2012. He graduated with a degree in psychology in 2016. Now 26, Sam manages social media and creates digital content for the Minneapolis-based technology company Accessible360. He fondly recalls Augsburg’s CLASS program as well as his favorite teachers, Michael Lansing, Bill Green and especially his advisor, psychology professor Bridget Robinson-Riegler. “She was really fun and really, really smart. Plus she talked about the Twins a lot,” Sam says. An ardent sports fan, he is the co-author of the baseball blog “Two Men On.”

Sam’s parents applaud Augsburg’s “great services, great students, great faculty, and great accommodations made for those with disabilities. And they appeared happy to provide them,” Hazen says. “We had the overarching feeling that Augsburg embraced differences and made sure everyone has an opportunity to get a good education.”

The idea of supporting Augsburg financially occurred to both Hazen and Kathy independently, and they decided to donate $50,000 to endow a scholarship. “This is the most open community that I’ve experienced anywhere, with the possible exception of South High, and it’s pretty clear that this attitude permeates the place,” adds Hazen. “Access to higher education is a big issue, and we’re just doing our little part.”