The Augsburg Choir

On May 6, the Augsburg Choir, under the direction of Peter Hendrickson ’76, departed for a 12-day tour of the Midwest. With stops in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington state, the Choir will perform nine concerts and have opportunities to connect with potential Auggies and their families as well as alumni and friends of the College.

Teaching English as a Second Language in Thailand with Kathryn Swanson

This is the fifth year that English professor Kathy Swanson and her husband, Jack, have taken students to teach English in Thailand as part of a short-term study abroad course through the Center for Global Education. Years ago, the Swansons served in the Peace Corps in Thailand for two years and still have connections in the small town where they once taught.

Before departing, students learn about language and culture in Thailand and practice speaking some “survival Thai,” Swanson said. For the teaching week, students learn the pedagogy of teaching English as a second language—essentially what and how to teach. Some students on the program are English or education majors, but others are from other majors including business, religion, and the sciences. Students take Swanson’s class, she said, not only to learn more about teaching English to language learners but also to experience life in a country half way around the world from the U.S.

For the three weeks they are in Thailand, Swanson said the group has an intense schedule filled with a variety of experiences. They travel by plane, boat, train, taxi, subway, tuk-tuks (a small open motorized vehicle, like a rickshaw), and even have a chance to ride elephants. They also take in tourist activities such as visiting temples, rafting on the river, and visiting pottery and silk makers. Then for ten days, they teach in Prachuap Khirikhan, the town where the Swansons taught while in the Peace Corps.

Swanson said the students often comment in their travel journals that they are completely shocked by their experiences in Thailand—by the sights and sounds and by the stark contrast between the poverty and opulence that can be seen there. “The only way to understand anything about the world is to do it,” she said. “Word of mouth among students is that it’s exhausting but it’s worth it.”

Pictured above: Students on the 2008 Thailand program. See photos from the program on flickr.

Youth Movements and Social Change in Egypt with Joe Underhill and Mohamed Sallam

In this combined course in political science and history, students will explore the roots of Egypt’s largely youth-led revolution and ongoing efforts to rebuild Egypt. Students will examine the effects that the 2011 revolution has had on public discourse about environmental sustainability, police brutality, Muslim-Christian relations, and access to basic services. They will also observe the historic presidential elections taking place in late May, visit mosques and pyramids, Nubian villages, an ecotourism resort on the Red Sea, and a Bedouin camp in the desert.

Read about the group’s experiences on the authored by Joe Underhill.

International Management and Finance in Germany with Marc McIntosh

For four weeks in May and June, a group of German students and professors from Karlsruhe paired with Augsburg students and assistant business professor Marc McIntosh to study international business practices.

The group met for the first two weeks in Europe, visiting the European Parliament in Strasbourg and witnessing firsthand the financial crisis that was coming to a head in Europe at that time. They also went to the Frankfurt stock exchange and experienced the volatility in the financial market as a result of the crisis, McIntosh said.

While in the U.S., the students visited three companies with strong ties to Germany and gained insights into how to do business in overseas markets. Finally, the students participated in an intensive business simulation game with teams competing to maximize shareholder value through the launches of multiple product offerings.

The post Auggies abroad in the summer appeared first on News and Media.

Even before they arrive in the fall, new international students work closely with Jim Trelstad-Porter, international student advisor, to ensure that they have completed all of the necessary steps to studying in the U.S. International students have a special orientation following their arrival and before Auggie Days begins. At this orientation they tour campus and the nearby neighborhoods, meet with staff in many departments including public safety and the library, and also have dinner, often hosted in the homes of faculty, staff, and other students.

This year Augsburg welcomes more than 60 new students, including first-year students and transfers, from Norway, China, Belgium, Malaysia, Turkey, Vietnam, Palestine, South Korea, Yemen, Bahrain, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, India, Sweden, Thailand, Nigeria, Uganda, and Canada. Welcome! We are glad you’re here.

Read more about international Auggies in the Summer 2011 issue of the Augsburg Now magazine.

Photo (top) submitted by Regina McGoff: Anh Nguyen Pham (Vietnam), Marie-Aimee Ishimwe (Belgium), and Odin Akselberg (Norway)

Photo (bottom) submitted by Erika McCreedy: Kathrine Stav, Pauline Soevik, and Joar Kristiansen (all Norway)

The post Auggies are everywhere appeared first on News and Media.

I’m currently studying international business at DHBW Mosbach campus. My first course was an introductory language class in which I digested more practical German in the first week than I had throughout the three months I’d spent back in the states in my extracurricular studies. My second course was Human Resource Management (HRM) wherein we were taught the value of corporative HRM. After HRM came macroeconomics, international accounting, and then finance. Classes at DHBW are quite different from those I’ve taken at my home institution in the states.

On the weekends I have seized every opportunity to travel to and view the many fine sights Germany has to offer. My favorites have been the castles in Fussen. The Neuschwanstein Castle was absolutely thrilling to tour. It was grand and elegant, piercing proudly through the mountains. Also, I have made my way to many cities on the romantic road. From Wurzburg to Munich, Augsburg to Rothernburg, Stuttgart, Hiedbronn, and Trier; every city has been an unbelievable adventure filled with charm and beauty, each surpassing its reputation.

I also had the wonderful opportunity to visit Berlin. During our five days there, I learned a great deal about the German government and a few of Germany’s largest companies, not mention seeing countless attractions like the Berlin Wall. We started our tour with the Reichstag Parliament, climbing all the way to the top of the glass dome. I also learned all about Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s national railroad company, as we received a lecture from the head of human resources at the headquarters. We visited the STASI-prison too, the famous Brandenburg Gate, and Alexanderplaz.

Outside of Germany I have visited a few of the surrounding countries including Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Spain, and the Netherlands. Amsterdam was, as it is invariably said to be, an incredible adventure. I visited the Red Light District, as you are obliged to do in Amsterdam, went to the flower market, the Anne Frank house, and the exquisite Van Gogh Museum. Although I must say, our most extraordinary visit had to have been the notorious Prague in the Czech Republic. It was there that I walked through the old Jewish ghetto and learned much of the city’s history. Prague was simply a fairytale. One morning I woke up unusually early and beheld the sunrise on the Charles Bridge; a heavenly sight like none I’d ever set eyes upon.

This has been a wonderful experience that has allowed me to travel to places I would have shamefully never knew existed, meet and befriend delightful new people, and discover so much within myself that I never knew was there. It has been an education like none I could have ever wished to receive, and an experience I will always remember as the trip that so irreparably and fortuitously changed my life. I now possess that feeling you get after visiting somewhere new and knowing you could never be satisfied with just settling down to lead a “normal life.” I want to see more, to ingest every bit I can until I’m full and expired. For anybody considering spending a semester abroad to study in Germany but isn’t sure if it’s worth it, my advice is to not dare deprive yourself of the wonders that lay within the majestic, inexhaustible Deutschland. Es ist die beste Erfahrung.

The post Auggies aborad: Fia Goldfine in Germany appeared first on News and Media.

On the morning of August 22, 2010, Andrew and Sarah Wilson will depart from the Augustinian priory in Erfurt, Germany, taking the first steps of their thousand-mile pilgrimage to Rome. The Wilsons will follow roughly the same path Augustinian friar Martin Luther trod 500 years ago in 1510.

Augsburg religion professor, Hans Wiersma, will be among those sending the Wilsons off from Erfurt. Wiersma will walk with the couple as far as Coburg, Germany. After the close of their journey on October 31, the Wilsons will travel to Augsburg College to speak at the school’s annual Founders Day celebration in November.

The hike will take 70 days and will pass through southern Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Italy, before arriving in Rome in the last days of October.

Luther came to Rome with high expectations but was ultimately disappointed. Only seven years after his trip to Rome, he posted the Ninety-Five Theses, commonly regarded as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Only three years after that, in 1520, he was excommunicated by Pope Leo X.

But reliving old quarrels is not the Wilsons’ intent.

“We noticed this significant anniversary coming up,” said Andrew Wilson, who holds a doctorate in Church History from Princeton Theological Seminary and is a Fellow at the Foundation for Interreligious and Intercultural Research and Dialogue, “and thought it would be great to commemorate it by retracing Luther’s own steps. But what’s the right way to do that in an ecumenical age?”

The answer came to Sarah Wilson, who holds a doctorate from Princeton Seminary in Systematic Theology and is an ordained Lutheran pastor, after she joined the staff of the Institute for Ecumenical Research in Strasbourg, France. Dedicated to understanding the issues that divide Lutherans from other churches around the globe, the Institute for Ecumenical Research also seeks to work through such divisions and create broader cooperation in global Christianity.

“Incredible progress has been made on the scholarly level between divided churches,” she explained. “But this progress has hardly made its way to the people in the pews at all. It’s as if fifty years of dialogue never happened. How could we let people know about these amazing developments? How could we get them even to care?”

It was Andrew Wilson who realized the possibility of leveraging social media to spread the word on a grassroots level. “People are busy and won’t take time to read stiff academic studies or listen to impenetrable church statements. But they’ll read a hiking blog. They’ll ‘like’ things on Facebook. They’ll follow Tweets. So we’re using these media to share the news about our trip, educate about the Reformation, and highlight the amazing rapprochement that has already occurred between two churches that fought physical as well as theological wars for centuries.”

“The Reformation was a communication revolution where mass-produced polemical pamphlets spread fresh insights into Christianity across Europe,” he mused, “but also hardened a divided and dividing church. Perhaps our current communication revolution will reunite it in unforeseen ways.”

The Wilsons’ blog is called www.hereiwalk.org, a pun on the famous words “Here I stand” that Luther uttered during his trial in Worms, Germany.

Interest in pilgrimages has exploded among Protestants in recent years. Many European churches are setting up offices for pilgrimage and establishing routes for pilgrims to follow.

“Even non-believers can get into ‘pilgrimages,'” added Andrew Wilson, an experienced hiker and mountaineer. “It’s like hiking, but with the added layer of connecting to the past. I’m excited about crossing the Alps, but walking along Roman roads, slowly nearing towering steeples, wandering through silent abbeys, and imagining travel in an era before cars and planes that’s what sets this trip apart.”

“Actually walking the huge distance from Erfurt to Rome is essential to our goal,” commented Sarah Wilson. “The Reformation ended up severing the connection between Lutherans and Roman Catholics. We are trying to heal that broken link, reconnecting divided places with our own footsteps. We hope others will join us in spirit and in prayer, even if they can’t walk with us in person, on our quest.”

What lies at the end of the journey?

“Our final destination will be the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul,” responded Sarah Wilson. “Symbolically St. Peter stands for the Catholic church and St. Paul for the Lutheran church. Peter and Paul had their quarrels, but they had the same faith in Christ and both were martyred in Rome. The apostles’ witness invites Lutherans and Catholics today to reconcile on the basis of their shared faith.”

The post A Thousand Miles for Reconciliation with Rome appeared first on News and Media.

Backes [pictured left] arrived in Mannheim, Germany on Jan. 13 to attend a two-week German language course at Mannheim University. Following that program, she moved to Mosbach, a small town about two hours from Frankfurt, to begin her studies at Berufsakademie Mosbach.

She is enrolled in a junior business program consisting of 11 one-week courses. “I am in a class of about 35 students, about 20 of which are international students from around the world,” she writes. “The others are Germans that attend the BA (Berufsakademie).”

Backes is sharing an apartment in the Mosbach town square (read more on her ) with a female student from Finland and two male students from the UK and Hungary. She stayed with a host family for a week and says she was glad for the experience. “I learned a lot about German culture and food—I helped cook and ended up enjoying everything!”

Birkhold, [pictured right] who studies international trade at Berufsakademie, wanted to come to the U.S. to experience college life in a new environment. Though his school has partnerships with other U.S. colleges and universities, Birkhold chose Augsburg primarily because of its size. “At my school there are smaller classes like at Augsburg,” he said, “and I heard that I can live on campus.”

Though he is not a fan of the harsh Minnesota winter, Birkhold said he has been enjoying life in Minneapolis and at Augsburg. He has gone to the Mall of America, seen a Timberwolves game, and is participating in intramural sports including soccer.

Birkhold is taking general business courses this semester and says he has been impressed with the friendliness of Augsburg faculty, staff, and students. “I feel like the they care about me.”

The post The Minneapolis – Mosbach exchange appeared first on News and Media.

The idea for the trip began when deVries joined a Lilly grant-sponsored trip in Europe to study Martin Luther and the Reformation. There she met tour director Andreas Brecht, and the two discovered a common interest in post-World War II history.

Back at Augsburg, deVries shared her idea for a study abroad program with English and film instructor Bob Cowgill. The two created a curriculum combining post-modern film and literature to explore themes such as of the construction of memory, the discovery of moral lessons through art, and attempts to preserve the past.

“In Germany, the themes of division and reunification scream at you in the face,” said deVries. The aftermath of WWII is visible, from the bullet holes and graffiti that remain in the Reichstag to the building’s new mirrored glass dome, designed in the late 1990s by architect Norman Foster to symbolize Germany’s reunification.

Cowgill encouraged students to reflect on how horror has been commemorated in literature but also in places like the Jewish Museum, the Holocaust Memorial, and Auschwitz. There is a difference, he said, between a personal narrative that generates an emotional response and a rigorous analysis that asks the reader, or viewer, to come to his or her own realization.

Gabrielle Miller is a senior communications major who had never been to Europe before this opportunity. She wanted to learn about the Holocaust because she said, “I couldn’t believe that someone could hate another person so much just because of their religion, that they would want to kill them.” Seeing places like Auschwitz firsthand gave Miller a better understanding of life before and after the war.

“It’s one thing to read about history; it’s another to walk were the famous politicians, heroes, villains, geniuses, and musicians walked. You get an experience that can’t be equaled in the classroom,” Miller said.

Fifth-year elementary education major Teresa Barnhill went because WWII history has always been one of her favorite subjects. She’d also never been out of the country. “I was never interested in studying abroad until this trip came around,” she said. For Barnhill, the two-week trip was the best way for her to travel and study.

“Short-term study abroad programs are perfect for students who are working and paying bills, and even for students who want to travel but are apprehensive about being away from home for too long,” said Barnhill. She said she is looking forward to her next adventure, perhaps a trip to Japan.

The group toured the cities of Berlin, Leipzig, Wittenberg, and Dresden in Germany; Krakow and Auschwitz/Birkenau in Poland; and Theresienstadt and Prague in the Czech Republic. In addition to visiting memorials and museums, they also enjoyed sightseeing excursions and wonderful German and Polish meals, deVries said.

“WWII and its Aftermath” was a short-term study abroad program through Augsburg Abroad. For information about future trips or faculty resources for creating a short-term experience, go to .

The post WWII through film and literature appeared first on News and Media.