Edelen was awarded both BA and BS degrees on Saturday with majors in environmental studies, chemistry, and biology. She was also called to the podium to accept the Marina Christensen Justice Award, presented to the graduating senior who best exemplifies Augsburg’s motto, “Education for Service,” and has demonstrated a dedication to community involvement. The award honors 1965 graduate Marina Christensen Justice, who lived in Chicago and reached out to serve disadvantaged people and communities.

An Honors Program graduate, Edelen was a Sabo Scholar in civic engagement and a Peace Prize Forum Peace Scholar. Throughout her four years, she challenged herself to find opportunities that would provide her knowledge across disciplines and hands-on learning. She seeks a career that combines application of science to public policy decisions that will improve the lives of people in countries lacking services, equal access to resources, and just policies.

Edelen decided against a medical career as she discovered how treating disease can ameliorate its symptoms but doesn’t remove the underlying structural causes. As an intern in both rural India and Uganda, she saw how lack of access to clean water extenuates the effects of disease and poverty. This led to internships with the White House Task Force on Climate Change and Energy Policy and with local environmental groups to learn how to translate and bring science to community issues, and how to build common interest to create change in public policy.

For almost three years as a Sundquist Scholar and with national grants, Edelen carried out research in atmospheric chemistry with Professor David Hanson, investigating the oxidation mechanism and atmospheric interactions of isoprene, a volatile, organic compound. She presented the research in the student session at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting and is awaiting a decision on publication.

For the next year, Edelen’s Fulbright will take her to Oslo, Norway, continuing research that she began last summer as a Peace Prize Forum Peace Scholar at the Oslo Peace Research Institute. She’ll study the relationship between lack of access to water and armed conflict in the world.

Edelen received word last week that she has also been awarded a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship for the following year, 2012-13. The scholarship covers all expenses for one year of graduate study.

She does not yet know at which of the five institutions she selected—in England, New Zealand, South Africa, Denmark, and Egypt—she will be placed. All five programs study environmental management and policy, some focusing specifically on water resources. Her first choice is Oxford University’s Master of Science in Water Science, Policy, and Management.

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Editor’s Note: On Tuesday afternoon, the Cedar-Riverside and Seward neighborhood will be filled with first-year Auggies, faculty members, staff members, and members of President Pribbenow’s Cabinet. Why is service important?

In his latest blog post, President Pribbenow addresses that question. A copy of the blog post is below. Find “Paul’s Blog” on the Augsburg College President’s .

Education and service

On Tuesday, the Augsburg community will honor its historic commitment to “Education for Service” as we participate in our long-standing “City Service Day.” On that day, more than 500 Auggies—students, faculty and staff—will fan out across the Twin Cities to be of service to our neighbors. It is a wonderful spectacle as we don our colorful t-shirts and work with our hands—painting, tending gardens, packing school supplies, doing whatever is asked of us at one of 25 sites where our volunteer efforts will illustrate our deep belief that education and service are inextricably bound together.

But this is more than a show of voluntarism (as impressive as it is!), this is a powerful way in which we begin to model for our students what it means that learning and service go together, a relationship that is central to their Augsburg education and experience.

So what is it that we believe “City Service Day” teaches us?

First, it is the important value of mutuality. If service is simply our meeting the needs of others, then we have missed a critical point. When we engage in service, we are entering into a relationship that is premised on shared needs and aspirations. Tending the garden of the Korean elders who live in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood is not simply about getting rid of weeds, it is about our shared commitments to adequate and nutritious food. It is about the herbs grown there to help heal. It is about the peace and calm that we find in a garden in the midst of a busy city.

Second, it is the importance of engaging those who are different than we are and learning from them. In the city, we encounter strangers from all walks of life and backgrounds. As we meet and work with them in these service projects, we are introduced to their cultures, experiences and values. We learn about what it means to live in a homeless shelter or what it is like to be an immigrant in a new land. We learn how important it is to be open to learning from the many and diverse experiences we share with our neighbors who are negotiating their lives with us in the city.

Finally, it is the value of self-reflection. Our service projects include time during and after the experience for all of us to consider how I felt, how my values were affirmed or challenged, what I learned about myself as I engaged in serving my neighbor. Here is the heart of a liberal arts education—the life well-examined. Here is where education and service are bound up together, offering us the tools we need to live as informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers and responsible leaders.

All of these important lessons—and a lot of fun as well!

The post A word from the President—Why is service important? appeared first on News and Media.

Stacy, a mother of two, began her college career at Augsburg in 2006 and completed her program, graduating with highest honors, in just over 2 years. She not only moved through the degree program with unusual swiftness, she did so while maintaining the roles of full-time employee at Mayo Clinic, mother, wife, and community leader.

In the last couple of years, she has worked to develop an active neighborhood association in Rochester. When first out of high school and living on her own, Stacy experienced a series of break-ins and robberies that heightened her sensitivity to the issue of personal safety. Given, as she observed, that close neighborhoods produce safe neighborhoods, she got involved in starting and leading a neighborhood association.

She serves today on the Meadow Park Neighborhood Association board as its marketing director. Last year, she developed a neighborhood newsletter and then the business plan that allowed the newsletter to be printed, folded, and distributed in exchange for ads by local businesses.

Identified by the Post-Bulletin newspaper as the city’s largest, most informative neighborhood association, Meadow Park received Rochester’s “Project of the Year” award for its neighborhood newsletter. Several Post-Bulletin articles have included pictures of Stacy and quotes from her, one in which she named Augsburg College’s Rochester location as the place where she developed ideas for the organization’s projects.

In her responsibilities at Mayo Clinic, Stacy is involved in developing an integrated supply chain system to increase efficiencies and contribute to the viability and strength of healthcare providers. The goal is to have a uniform international code, allowing all providers to compare and contrast vendor products with regard to quality, availability, and price.

This spring, Stacy completed an internship related to this project. She began a process where six regional Luther Midelfort hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies will be included in Mayo’s electronic resource program, thereby integrating them with Mayo’s supply chain, disbursement, accounts payable, travel, and human resources functions.

Stacy cited Augsburg business courses as beneficial to the project. “I was able to complete this large task within an aggressive timeline with skills learned in computer application and project management courses at Augsburg. Furthermore, using skills learned in management, I designed a plan to standardize and add the remaining 17,000 Luther Hospital items to the Mayo platform.”

As a requirement for graduating summa cum laude, Stacy completed a paper and oral examination. During her summa interview, Stacy was asked what she envisioned herself doing in 10 or 20 years. Though she said she felt a bit embarrassed about it, her response to the committee was that she had begun to look at being the president of Mayo Clinic as a worthy objective.

Karl Wolfe, director of the Rochester program, said, “After she left and the committee discussed her interview, we agreed that president of Mayo may be shooting too low. We think president of the country may be an attainable goal for Stacy.”

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During her years at Augsburg, Florence distinguished herself as an active citizen with a passion for service. Her long-term commitment to responding to the needs of people around her embodies Augsburg’s efforts to promote student involvement in urban communities.

After studying in Mexico during her junior year, Florence returned home with a determination to apply in her daily life what she had learned. She volunteered at La Conexión, first assisting with tax returns and offering translation support for Spanish-speaking, low-income families. With her Augsburg Lilly internship, she developed a role at La Conexión as a Referral Center intern, helping to update the resource manuals of services used by Latino immigrants. She also helped develop their Kitchen Connection program in which Latinos and non-Latinos cook and share a meal together.

Last summer, Florence interned with the Campus Kitchen at Augsburg, preparing and delivering meals, working with local food banks, and managing student workers, often engaging them in reflection about their work.

In their letter of nomination, Florence’s professors wrote that what truly distinguishes her, however, is how she “deliberately and thoughtfully used the classroom as a space in which to examine inequity. Her eager participation in service- and immersion-learning opportunities suggests the depth of her effort to gain a more thorough understanding of the circumstances others find themselves in, as well as her commitment to those less fortunate.”

In her classroom work, Florence completed a research project in Latin American history that traced the intellectual history of the emergence of liberation theology in Latin America. That project evolved into a thesis for departmental honors in Spanish.

For her keystone seminar, Florence organized an ELL tutoring project with Somali teenage girls and women, which continued well past the semester’s end and through the summer. Florence continues to include the girls in activities with her family.

The recipient of the Marina Christensen Justice Award must have demonstrated a dedication to community involvement as characterized by the personal and professional life of Marina Christensen Justice, who courageously and effectively reached out to disadvantaged people and communities.

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