Legislators need to hear from you about the importance the State Grant program to your education. Without those funds, what would you do? Tell them!

Augsburg College Day at the Capitol

Wednesday, March 14, 9:15 a.m.- 2:15 p.m.

9:15 a.m. Boarding bus in front of Music building

10 a.m. Meeting with Minnesota Private College Council representatives with training on what to say to each Representative and Senator during this session. Learn more about the Minnesota State Grant program.

11:30 a.m. Meeting with State Representative or State Senator from student’s home district.

12:15 p.m. Lunch break. Augsburg pays for lunch.

1 p.m. Meetings with State Representative or Senator and Governor or Governor’s staff.

1:30 p.m. Augsburg students gather at the meeting room along with Concordia College, Gustavus Adolphus College to discuss what worked during the day and future challenges. Legislative leaders from both political parties attend

2 p.m. Bus back to campus

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This year Augsburg College will be represented by two McNair program scholars:

Building an Infrastructure to Recognize an Image’s Evoked Emotion

Chue Xue Lee, computer science, with Prof. Shana Watters

Facial emotion recognition is a subfield of computer vision. A facial emotion recognition system is a computer application for identifying or verifying a person’s emotion from a digital image or a video frame. This research focuses on building a facial emotion recognition infrastructure. A facial emotion recognition algorithm is implemented and used to analyze images to determine whether a given facial image is classified as “happy” or “not happy.” This type of research is important to the development of robotic systems that interact with humans and is also being used for advertisement studies.

Mesoscale Nanopatterning Using Lipid Surfactant Templating

Nana Owusu, physics, with Prof. Kevin Landmark

Contemporary research in the field of nanotechnology has demonstrated the self-assembly of nanoparticles. They spontaneously form patterns guided only by interactions among themselves and with their environment. There are various methods being investigated by researchers to template nanoparticles and transfer the patterns onto a solid substrate. This project explores the use of lipids on a Langmuir trough to organize nanoparticles at the air-water interface as well as the Langmuir-Blodgett technique to deposit the resulting monolayer. The model system that was created employed the lipid dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) as a templating agent for dye-loaded polystyrene nanoparticles with a negatively charged surface. Both fluorescence microscopy and atomic force microscopy analyses of the deposited monolayers show evidence of nanoparticle patterning by DPPC. The results of this study

warrant further investigation of the technique by extending the system to different lipids, nanoparticle compositions and nanoparticle surface chemistries.

Scholars at the Capitol

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

State Capitol Rotunda

Find more information on the Minnesota Private College Council .

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Anthony was one of 700 applicants who were selected to present his research at the Capitol. Mathematics professor John Zobitz, who was Anthony’s research adviser, said that the council chose projects that represented good examples of undergraduate research and also highlighted government support.

Anthony’s project, which was funded through the Undergraduate Research and Graduate Opportunity (URGO) program at Augsburg, involved modeling carbon uptake of a forest in Colorado. He used wavelets (a math function) to understand the relationship between carbon uptake and environmental variables like air temperature.

While at the Capitol, Anthony and Zobitz met with Senators Franken and Klobuchar and with Congressman Ellison. “Congressman Ellison had a background in statistics so we had a really good conversation about my research,” Anthony says. Later in the day, he presented his poster to a large crowd of Washington staffers and other guests.

Zobitz was very pleased with Anthony’s presentation and with all of the people who were interested in hearing about his work. “He represented himself, Augsburg, and the research really well.”

Anthony says conducting research and presenting in Washington helped him solidify his future plans. “Before I did the work I didn’t know what I wanted to do after college. Now I know I really want to go to graduate school, and this is really preparing me for that.”

This summer, Anthony will conduct research at Virginia Tech through the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduate program. Next year he’ll begin applying to graduate programs in mathematical biology.

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Last fall Benanav was hired as Augsburg’s Director of Government Relations, a role his illustrious career helped him fill easily. “One thing that helps me is that I have some credibility. I’ve known these people for more than 20 years.”

Since he completed law school in the late 70s, Benanav has been counsel to the Minnesota Senate, was a practicing attorney, was the deputy commissioner in the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, served as president of a private insurance agency, sat on the St. Paul city council, and manages a consulting agency that helps students and families get into college and avoid unmanageable debt.

As for this most recent career change, Benanav says he was ready for a move that combined his experience in government with support of higher education. “I talk to a lot of families,” he said, “and the thing they all want for their children is an education.”

Now that the Minnesota Legislature is in session, Benanav spends his days in St. Paul meeting with legislators. “My role is basically to keep Augsburg in the front of people’s minds,” Benanav said. “It’s important that our elected officials know who Augsburg is and what Augsburg does.”

Benanav said he occasionally brings students and even President Pribbenow along for meetings with legislators. “That human interaction—putting a face to the story—is really important as they make decisions that affect higher education,” he said.

At stake this year is the Minnesota State Grant program. According to the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, this program provided $156.1 million to more than 80,000 Minnesota undergraduates in 2006-2007. More than 500 Augsburg students in both the Day and Weekend programs received $1.8 million of that money.

Benanav is working with Megan Benrud, the Day student body president, to organize an Augsburg Day at the Capitol this semester. Students from all programs are encouraged to attend to meet with legislators from their home districts and to tell their stories. “Our representatives need to see that this is an important project and that changes will impact real students,” Benanav said.

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Kari Aanestad with English professor Dal Liddle — Ragnvald Aanestad and the Lutheran Sermon

Examines Ragnvald Aanestad’s attempts to interpret world events of the 1940s and 1950s to a small, traditional Lutheran congregation in the Midwest.

Chau Nguyen with business administration professor Steven Zitnick — Economic Impact of Vietnamese Businesses in Minnesota

Considers the impact of Vietnamese businesses to Minnesota’s economy finding that they benefit by supplying and creating new jobs for Vietnamese immigrants.

Holly Tapani (pictured) with music therapy professor Roberta Kagin — Supporting College Students with Brain Injury through Music and Movement

Identifies the need for intentional social mentoring for college students with brain injury and highlights alternative learning approaches using music and movement.

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