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Dusty Froyum: “It Felt Like Home”

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The life path of Dustin (Dusty) Froyum ’98 has had its share of twists and turns, but somehow he always manages to find his way “home” to Augsburg. He acknowledges his gratitude with an annual gift to the Augsburg Fund as well as a recent pledge to sponsor a room in the Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion to honor favorite professor and fellow alumnus Dale Pederson ‘70.

“Augsburg runs through my whole family. It’s a big part of who we are,” says Froyum, citing alumni relatives that include both parents, his aunt and uncle, and a younger brother. “When my older cousins were attending Augsburg during my teenage years, I think I had promised that I was never going to Augsburg. But you know what? I went there on a football visit and it just felt right. It felt like home,” he adds. “I turned down some football and academic scholarships to come home to Augsburg.”

Sports and science connections cemented the bond. Like his father and brother, Froyum played football, and like his mother and brother, he majored in science during his upper division years, landing in Pederson’s notoriously challenging cellular biology class. “He is a tough but fair professor. I never tried so hard to get a 4.0,” says Froyum, who managed a 3.5. “He is a role model as a person of science and faith famous for pushing students to do their best. My brother’s zoology class was famously difficult as well. Dr. Pederson famously said that he could write a test for which no one could get a right answer, and I’m sure that’s true. He is an extraordinarily brilliant person who, quite frankly, could have been successful in a lot of different settings. But he chose to dedicate his vocational life to Augsburg, and that should be honored. With its fusion of science and faith and impact on the community, the Hagfors Center spoke to me. I can think of no better place to honor Dr. Pederson.”

After graduating, Froyum earned a J.D. from Hamline University School of Law, intending to become an intellectual property lawyer focused on biotech and chemical patents. “But I ended up as a summer intern at Wells Fargo and fell in love with it,” he says. He has handled technology transactions there for nearly 17 years. “That’s an important part of my giving motivation. Wells Fargo is a huge corporate donor and has one of the largest community support programs in the country. It is ingrained in our culture, and they make giving very easy, especially to quality nonprofit educational institutions.”

In his younger years, Froyum adds, he had more time to donate. But today, with two young children, a busy career at Wells Fargo, and side projects dedicated to integrated alternative energy, financial contributions—especially when matched by his employer—are what he is best able to give.

“I feel an overall social responsibility to my Augsburg education,” he says. “I attribute some of those values to my grandfather, who was very progressive in many ways. At some point he turned over his farm acreage to conservation interests, and he chose to be cremated instead of occupying a piece of land.” Froyum lives his values at home, too, by driving an electric car, and tending an urban farm, and making his Golden Valley home completely energy-independent.

“To be part of your community and your world, you need to be responsible. I’ve done well in my career, and this is what I can do,” he says. There is, after all, no place like home.

Orville and Gertrude Hognander Endowment Fund

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“I guess you could say that if it weren’t for Augsburg, I wouldn’t be here,” said Joe (Orville C.) Hognander, Jr. with a chuckle. The retired naval officer and private investor has deep Augsburg roots: his grandfather, Reverend Lars R. Lund, graduated from Augsburg Seminary in 1912 and his parents, Gertrude Lund and Orville Hognander, met during their Augsburg Class of 1936 freshman registration.

Reverend Lars R. Lund, ’12

Gertrude and Orville shared a lifelong love of music. Gertrude began playing the piano when she was five and subsequently played the organ in her father’s church while still in her teens. Orville, who also grew up surrounded by church music, supported his dad’s ministry by serving as announcer for the family’s weekly WDGY radio program of music and the spoken word. Joe recalls hearing classical music regularly in their home, especially from their complete collection of New York Philharmonic Orchestra’s 78 RPM records in the pre-FM radio days.

Gertrude Lund and Orville Hognander

While students at Augsburg, both Gertrude and Orville were deeply involved in the newly formed choir, Gertrude as piano accompanist and Orville as the announcer/business manager. Most notably in 1935, he created and produced the “Hour Melodious,” a weekly radio program on WCCO featuring the 50-member choir. He also planned and arranged the choir’s first tour, which covered 20 concerts and more than 2,000 miles.

After Augsburg, the Hognanders served their communities in many ways. Gertrude became a teacher and music education supervisor in Escanaba, Michigan, before marrying Orville and moving to Minneapolis in the early 1940’s. She became organist and director of several church choirs and joined, among other groups, AAUW, the St. Louis Park Woman’s Cub, and the United Nations Association of Minnesota, eventually becoming president of those associations. In 1973, she received Augsburg’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

Orville began work for the Tennant Company as a salesman in the Detroit area, advancing rapidly to become vice president at age 31 and member of the Board of Directors eight years later. At the same time, he rose through the ranks of the National Sales Executives, becoming vice chairman in the early 1950’s. Sadly, at age 43 he suffered a major stroke that paralyzed his right side and required him to re-learn how to walk, talk, and write. Through great determination, he succeeded and was able to resume his responsibilities at Tennant, where he negotiated foreign business agreements that opened markets in Europe and Japan.

Joe (Orville C.) Hognander Jr.

Joe recalls how his father gave great thought to where his money should go when he was no longer here. It was a difficult decision but in the end he chose to support those organizations and causes that had been of greatest importance to him during his life.

After he died in 1997, his will provided money to Augsburg College to create the Orville and Gertrude Hognander Endowment Fund, which specifies full tuition funding for an outstanding junior and senior in the Music Department. The department faculty selects the recipient based on past performance during their freshman and sophomore years at Augsburg or another college as well as their potential for future distinction.

“The scholarship’s goal is to provide a strong incentive to encourage and reward excellence for those in the music field,” noted Joe. “I have been very impressed with each one of the past winners.”

Strong Behind-the-Scenes Supporters

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“Three old-timers” – The Egertsons and their 1930 Model A Ford Coupe.

David Egertson and his wife, Edith, never attended Augsburg College, but their family ties and commitment to the Lutheran Church certainly explain their enthusiasm for the place.

“When I was young, I wasn’t interested in college, and as it turned out, I did fine without it,” says David, a former railroad marketing executive whose extended family included several pastors and one bishop. “The idea of a Christian education meant a lot to my father, but he couldn’t afford to attend college. If one of his kids expressed an interest in college, Dad encouraged and helped to send them to Augsburg. Three of my brothers and two of our children went there.”

David and Edith Egertson celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary in June 2016.

To honor their father’s values, David’s brother, Darrell Egertson ‘55, an Augsburg Regent Emeritus, established the Ernest S. Egertson Scholarship in 1992 to provide encouragement and financial assistance to students preparing for a Christian service vocation.

“Christian service was what my dad stood for, and that’s what the family wants to honor,” says David. “Darrell and his wife Helga were the early supporters of the scholarship, but Edith and I soon became involved. At first we made smaller contributions, but now that we’re doing legacy planning, we want to include Augsburg College in our estate. Our Christian heritage means so much to us. We want to pass that along.

“Because of my work, we moved around a lot—we lived in seven cities and 12 different homes. Faith and church are the central focus of our life, so we always got involved with a Lutheran church. We are charter members of the congregation where we now worship here in St. Louis. Edith was the first organist at this church and is still engaged in music, including singing in a church octet,” he says.

Making lefse is an annual ritual for the Egertsons.

The Egertsons like that Augsburg is located in the heart of Minneapolis, where they once lived, and where students from all walks of life have the opportunity to be exposed to Christian faith and values that may influence them indirectly. “We hope the scholarship will help someone who couldn’t go to college otherwise. The idea is to make a difference, and to us, this is a way of spreading the gospel,” David says.

The Egertsons also like knowing that years from now, their endowment will change the life of someone they’ve never met by offering them an education and exposing them to the possibilities of Christian service. As David puts it, “To us, the endowment is a gift that keeps on giving—in perpetuity. That’s the beauty of it.”

Appreciation for the Interdisciplinary Inspires Art Sponsorship

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Scott D. Anderson

As a young man just out of high school, Scott D. Anderson ’96 had already developed a love for drawing and painting. He had artistic talent, but the skills necessary to make a full-time living pursuing art were then beyond his reach. He became a chemical technician at 3M instead, launching a career that has helped him come full circle, back to his first love through philanthropy.

“Art inspires me,” says Anderson, who is sponsoring “A Song of Dust” by collage artist Stephanie Hunder in the Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion through the Art & Identity program. “Ever since I got my chemistry degree, I’ve wanted to give something back to Augsburg. I’m very grateful to Augsburg for giving me the opportunity to obtain a degree in science. Now I can return the favor.”

With the support of his employer, Anderson completed his chemistry degree through Augsburg’s Weekend College. It took him about six years while working full-time. He has been a regular donor to the Augsburg Chemistry Alumni Scholarship ever since, and he has also devoted more than 36 years to 3M, where he is now a senior research chemist in the Infection Prevention Division.

The art he chose for Hagfors Center is a 6’ by 12’ piece comprised of five panels, one of which had already been sponsored. Anderson will sponsor two panels, and 3M’s employee matching gift program will cover the remaining two. Stephanie Hunder, gallery director and art professor at Concordia University in St. Paul, uses printmaking and photography to create images of actual objects, such as branches and grasses pressed into paper, that often mimic scientific recording in some ways. Anderson spotted her work while exploring an entire room of art proposed for the Art & Identity campaign.

“What she put on the canvas was partly scientific and partly artistic, so it represented the sciences and the arts at the same time. In fact, it represents what I do now at 3M—chemistry, engineering, biology. It all flows together. It meshes,” says Anderson. “To see art on the walls when you walk around campus is pretty inspiring, at least for me.” The piece will appear with a small recognition plaque in a prominent hallway near the physics area in the Hagfors Center.

The Hagfors Center is slated to open next January. Meanwhile, though he is not yet ready to retire, Anderson is beginning to rediscover his talent for art, using pen and ink, watercolor, and acrylics in occasional projects. “Sometimes I surprise myself,” he says. “I believe it is important to mix art with academics, as well as mixing humanity studies with science.”

— Cathy Madison

Stepping Up for the StepUP Fund

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Cindy and Tad Piper

About 25 years ago, young Toby Piper LaBelle ’96 had already learned a few things. He’d taken a year off after graduating from Breck School and gone west to teach skiing, which convinced him that he aspired to more than a minimum-wage job.  And he’d spent time in treatment for addiction, which taught him that staying sober was the only way to ensure success in college.

“Toby wanted a local school and chose Augsburg. It was the right place for him. He felt comfortable there,” says his mother, Cindy Piper. But he wasn’t comfortable sharing a dorm with students who drank alcohol, so he moved into an apartment off campus. Eventually he approached Don Warren, then director of the Academic Skills Center at Augsburg, about the need for a safe, sober place where students in recovery could live and support each other. In 1997, under Warren’s direction, the StepUP program was born.

The Piper family have been staunch supporters ever since. Cindy and her husband, Tad Piper, retired CEO and chairman of Piper Jaffray, recently pledged $500,000 to establish the Piper Family Executive Director of Recovery Advancement as well as to inspire others to contribute to the StepUP Program Endowed Fund. “We wanted to give a significant gift to get this program off the ground,” Cindy says. They have currently raised $5.2 million toward their $10 million endowment goal.

Thanks in part to Toby’s advocacy, StepUP became one of the first residential recovery programs in the nation and continues to be viewed as the gold standard for residential collegiate communities. Six months of recovery is required before students are admitted, and infractions are not tolerated. Today about 90 students are enrolled, and they maintain high abstinence rates and an average GPA of 3.2.

Cindy Piper at the 2016 StepUP Gala.

“Addiction is an ugly, cunning, baffling disease. Young people have to make up their minds they don’t want to be in it,” says Cindy. “I just feel so strongly about recovery for all people, especially young people who want to go to college. Toby’s business degree from Augsburg has served him well.” Now senior vice president at Northland Securities and a father of three, Toby is former chair of the StepUP Advisory Board and a member of the Augsburg College Board of Regents.

Cindy, who spent nine years as a trustee on the Hazelden Foundation, is now vice-chair of the StepUP board, where she organizes galas that gross half a million dollars a year. “That’s an unusual amount of money in recovery organizations. We’ve been able to add to the endowment through our proceeds,” she says. “As my son reminds me, we must keep in mind that we are changing lives. That’s the magic of the recovery community.”

— Cathy Madison

Historian and Art Sponsor Phil Adamo

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Photo by Stephen Geffre.

If you crossed paths on the Augsburg campus with history professor Phil Adamo, you would quickly learn of his enthusiasm for the history of the place. You may even hear him share one of the many stories that make Augsburg’s 150-year history so intriguing.

Phil Adamo came to Augsburg in 2001, after completing his PhD in medieval history at The Ohio State University. In 2015, he was named “Minnesota Professor of the Year” for 2015 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, the same year he began as Director of Augsburg’s nationally recognized Honors Program. Since 2013, he’s been working with students on a history of Augsburg for its sesquicentennial celebration in 2019.

When asked what made him decide to sponsor a work of art for the Hagfors Center Art and Identity initiative, here is what he said:

Adamo worked in the College archives with students, including Caitlin Crowley ’16, as part of a class documenting the history of Augsburg. Photo by Stephen Geffre.

“Most people don’t know I’m a bit of an art collector. I go to all the student shows and have purchased student self-portraits and other contemporary art. I’m a fan of art and want to support artists. When I found out about the Art and Identity initiative, I started looking at the portfolio of stories about the artists. In fact, I watched every video story on the various artists.

“I noticed the collection includes work by former campus photographer Stephen Geffre. Stephen and I have worked on several projects together over the years. In my current work, writing the history of Augsburg, Stephen took many of the images I’m using. I’ve also bought some of his photography. Then I found out he is a multi-dimensional artist, working as a sculptor. The piece he’s doing for the Hagfors Center appeals to me because it brings to life something of the College’s past. . Continue reading “Historian and Art Sponsor Phil Adamo” →

Lindstrom ’73 Supports Summer Research for Students

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Terry Lindstrom visits a chemistry lab and meets the students whose research he helped fund in the summer of 2016. Taylor Mattice ’18, Adam Pancoast ’18, Ellyn Peters ’18, and Josh Kuether ’18 all received funding from Lindstrom for their 10-week research experiences.

It makes perfect sense that Terry Lindstrom ’73 and his wife Janet look forward to funding Undergraduate Research and Graduate Opportunity (URGO) Summer Research students for the next three years, just as they have since 2013. Lindstrom found his passion while doing undergrad research at Augsburg, and he wants to make sure others have the opportunity that meant so much to him.

“Everyone deserves a passionate career,” says Lindstrom, who in 2010 retired his post as Distinguished Research Fellow at Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, where he spent 31 years doing drug discovery and development.

Like many young Auggies, he had no obvious career path in mind when he first ventured onto the Augsburg campus. He thought he might like to major in science, and Augsburg had a good science department. But would he choose biology? Chemistry? Physics? He wasn’t sure. He was sure of one thing: chemistry was a challenge.

“I loved it, but it was hard,” he says. “Within just a few weeks, it was very clear that the chemistry professors and staff were very personable, approachable, and interested in teaching. Their willingness to help really solidified its appeal for me, although it was still difficult.” By the time he was a senior, he was also doing biochemistry research, isolating a virus in fruit flies, studying the intersection of biology and chemistry in living systems.

Bingo.

“After that, my career was a foregone conclusion. I was fascinated by biochemistry,” says Lindstrom. He was also intrigued by the teaching methods of his chemistry professor, Courtland Agre, who never gave him a straight answer, thus prompting him to find his own. “He’d always push back with another question, an orienting question. It was very frustrating at first, but he was teaching me to think critically. He’d draw it out of you, and you gained confidence. It made an indelible mark on me.”

As much as he loved the sheer fun of learning science, he also realized he wanted to find real-world applications to benefit society. After earning his PhD in pharmacology and biochemistry at the University of Minnesota and completing a biochemistry postdoc at Michigan State University, he joined Eli Lilly. He now holds at least six patents for life-changing drugs, including Evista, for osteoporosis, and Cymbalta, an antidepressant also used to treat bone and muscle pain.

Still enthralled by complex science, Lindstrom is retired only technically; he is busy consulting and advising in numerous capacities. He also volunteers for URGO’s summer program, giving seminars, meeting students, and collaborating with science faculty members such as Assistant Professor Michael Wentzel, Associate Professor Vivian Feng, and Assistant Professor Matt Beckman. He notes

Augsburg College funds 21 summer research slots each summer through the Office of Undergraduate Research
& Graduate Opportunity (URGO).

that students are working with PCR (polymerase chain reaction), a DNA synthesizing technique that made headlines not that long ago. “It was state-of-the-art only in the best molecular biology labs in the country, and now it’s actually being taught and done in Matt’s lab,” he says. “I was thrilled to see that.”

By fully endowing several students for URGO’s 10-week program, which costs $5,500 per student, he hopes that they, too, get a chance to discover their passion. “I understand how things take hold. Fundamentals are absolutely essential, but it was the research experience, free of academic book-learning, that convinced me what I wanted to do. If someone wants to test it out and see if it interests them, I’m extraordinarily happy to make that opportunity available.”

— Cathy Madison

A Stairway to Art and AWE 

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Something special happens when three things come together.

  • Science, business, and religion.
  • An artist, a group of engaged Augsburg women, and dedicated financial resources.

At least that’s what Lisa Svac Hawks ’85 thinks.

The idea that art will bring lasting inspiration to the new Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion motivated Lisa to make the lead gift to help fund one of the two large-scale murals planned for the Center. She and the members of AWE (Augsburg Women Engaged) have set a goal to secure the $150,000 required to fully fund one of the planned stairwell murals.

In designing the new building, HGA’s architects and a team of college leaders set forth a central principle for it: to ensure it considered the neighborhood. The Center must express and reflect the importance of community and hospitality, values that live at the heart of Augsburg’s mission. The Center’s two external stairwells will serve as both beacons and open arms to the community.

These same ideas attracted Lisa and other members of AWE to explore what it would take to support the artist’s installation of one stairwell mural. AWE was founded on the idea that women want to connect and serve in different ways.

“Women think about connection and the social and collaborative nature of learning and living,” says Lisa. “What better way to express those principles than through a mural that is all about connection?” The resulting mural design is titled “Emergence.” It incorporates the image of a monarch butterfly along with references to symbiosis, textile traditions, geometry, faith, home, prayer and identity.

Sponsored by Augsburg Women Engaged (AWE).

Sponsored by Augsburg Women Engaged (AWE).

Muralist Greta McClain, the artist selected by the Augsburg Art and Identity committee, which is working to bring art into the Center, looked deeply into the challenge of combining three disciplines in one building. In shaping the design for her two stairwell murals she asked, “Do those “conflicting/disparate” ideas, all housed together, stand as a reflection of our community, Cedar Riverside? Are they a dynamic social experiment, and a view our very human experience?”

In McClain’s words, “The collaboration between space and artist, community and construction, can take many forms depending on the project. Inevitably it includes a close collaboration between me as artist, and those closest to the project. Together we gather history, ideas, and images. These conversations are the key to the development of a site/content specific work for the finished mural.” Continue reading “A Stairway to Art and AWE “ →

Pribbenows Sponsor Glass Artwork Inspired by Martin Luther Score

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A section of Stanislav’s design was printed for display in Oren Gateway Center. The music is taken from Martin Luther’s “Ein feste Burg is unser Gott” section 1, manuscript with signature 1527-29, from the online IMSLP Pertrucci Music Library (public domain).

What difference can art make in our experience of spaces and places? Does art add to the learning within a building?

These questions interested both New York City- and Minneapolis-based sculptor Andrea Stanislav and President Paul Pribbenow.

They met through the opportunity to commission a work of art for the Art and Identity initiative at Augsburg. Their answer to these questions, the glass fritting for the new building, will be among the first things you notice when you walk through the doors to the Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion, in January, 2018.

Delicately transformed light will stream through the three-story curtain of glass in the building atrium and onto a large, warm wood panel wall. Crafted from local elm, the wall offers both a welcoming tone and a tender reminder of many magnificent trees lost to disease including some on the Augsburg quad by Memorial Hall.

The glass fritting design by Stanislav is one of several artist commissions planned for the new building as part of the Art and Identity initiative, which invites sponsorship of original artwork in the new building. The glass design is sponsored with a major gift from President Paul and Abigail Pribbenow. Previously the Pribbenow’s provided major funding to support the Christ Commons initiative.

Stanislav’s conception of the glass fritting for the windows speaks to the Lutheran heritage of Augsburg. By incorporating elements of Martin Luther’s handwritten original musical score for his composition, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, the artist has rendered the original score, reduced and simplified it, and set it with the graceful shapes of cells from the ring of red elm.

Faculty and staff take note of Stanislav’s design, which will be printed on the glass of the Learning Commons in the Hagfors Center.

According to Stanislav, the hand-written notation speaks to another time and yet reveals itself today in the relevance and power of this hymn. It reflects an evolution of both language and notation with the mark making itself connecting us to Martin Luther the individual while also connecting us to the larger message of the music and the hymn.

Stanislav was attracted to this particular music and notation because Martin Luther’s hand notation is both simple and intriguing. To her eye, it functions as a kind of signature of the founding values of Lutheranism.

“I grew up in the 1970’s in Chicago living with my grandparents who spoke German. I was bilingual until I was 5 or 6 years old. But at the time, my family’s sentiment was to erase our heritage and disconnect from the past. I lost my bilingualism. Then I learned to read music by playing piano and trombone.  I discovered to be literate in music is to be literate in another language, a language of the world.”

In considering the request for proposals for the Hagfors Center, the artist drew on time and experience.

“One of my first memories is of the sound of a big tree rustling in the backyard. The sound is so musical. I love the cold of winter and the starkness and beauty of trees, especially their stillness and the way they create a graceful backdrop. When I considered the glass wall fit, I was thinking of the feeling of snow falling. Martin Luther’s notation of the musical notes falls in the same way.”

In considering her design, she said, “The cellular structure between the tree rings reveals the effects of time on growth and development. It shows the motion of music dropping out of the elm.

“I appreciate the clarity and complement of the goals for this building, Plus its location creates an immediacy of experience and a dramatic sense of time.”

Stanislav says, too, that glass itself is an exciting medium. “We live in a time when we must be responsible and sustainable in our making. The ceramic fritting is an important component of the energy savings required for this building to qualify for LEED Silver certification. Sustainability is where my morals and my creating come together.”

As she sees it, “There’s a play between the notes and the elm and they create a push and pull. The cellular structure and the music create a marvelous tension for design. It’s an intimate relationship between them.”

This intimacy will translate into the inspiring space of the Hagfors Center. As the light pours through the glass through the ceramic fit, the individual will see and feel the shapes on and around them.

For President Pribbenow, the combination of elements made sense.

“Music lives at the heart of Lutheranism and in the hearts of Auggies everywhere. When Abigail and I saw the way Andrea had found this remarkable notation by the hand of Martin Luther from 1527 of the great hymn, and the way she connected that image to the shape of cells in the ring of a red elm, we knew we wanted to make our gift to sponsor it.”

The artist is currently working in St. Petersburg, Russia, with the U.S. Consulate on work related to the 900-day Siege of Leningrad in 1941-1943, during which an estimated 1.5 million Russian citizens died. During the siege, art making and cultural production helped sustain the survivors.

“I’m interviewing siege survivors who are now in their 80s and 90s, learning about their will to survive during such terrible conditions.” She’s collecting their stories using interviews, diaries and objects they saved from that time and experience. “In May, I had a show at the Museum of the Defense of Leningrad, which is the Russian national museum of the siege.

Examples of her work included can be found on her website:

As President Pribbenow said, “Knowing that light will pour through the tall glass of the Hagfors Center, and that people will pass though the reflected shape of the notes of this stirring hymn, ties the whole idea of the building together for me. Science, business, and religion, drawn together in space, time, and rhythm of the ages.”