{"id":11940,"date":"2025-09-11T16:58:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T16:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/?p=11940"},"modified":"2025-09-15T15:12:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T15:12:23","slug":"river-semester-sets-sail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/2025\/09\/11\/river-semester-sets-sail\/","title":{"rendered":"River Semester Sets Sail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2025\/09\/Launch_093.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11941 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2025\/09\/Launch_093-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Two green boats with red sails are seen floating on the Mississippi River, framed by leafy tree branches\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2025\/09\/Launch_093-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2025\/09\/Launch_093-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2025\/09\/Launch_093-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2025\/09\/Launch_093.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>In the fall of 2015, a hardy crew started paddling down the Mississippi for a learning adventure that took \u201cexperiential learning\u201d to a new level\u2014Augsburg\u2019s first River Semester. Ten years later, the sixth iteration of this one-of-a-kind study away program has set off once more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Associate Professor Joe Underhill will lead a group of 10 students, three staff, and periodic visitors from the headwaters of the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, mostly by boat. The students\u2014five Auggies plus students from Macalester College, the College of the Atlantic, and Agnes Scott College\u2014will each complete an individual research project, with topics ranging from benthic macroinvertebrates to sewage infrastructure in rural communities. Along the way, they\u2019ll be joined by researchers, artists, and experts on coastal restoration and environmental justice. In collaboration with partner organizations throughout the Mississippi watershed, they\u2019ll visit a wild rice harvesting camp, a life science research station, and a backwater flood control project. They\u2019ll camp and sail or paddle approximately 800 miles before concluding their voyage in Biloxi, MS, in mid-December.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mprnews.org\/story\/2025\/09\/13\/augsburg-students-learn-along-the-mississippi-river\">Minnesota Public Radio highlighted River Semester<\/a> in a piece on September 13, interviewing Underhill and Summer May &#8217;26. &#8220;It&#8217;s bridging the connection between knowledge and application, and mind and place. We are directly interacting with the river,\u201d May said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Follow along with the group\u2019s progress on the <a href=\"https:\/\/bigmuddy.rivertoday.org\/#\/2025\/default?center=39.725,-95.707&amp;zoom=4.074\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cBig Muddy\u201d interactive map<\/span><\/a>, where students will periodically post daily log entries with description of the day&#8217;s activities, sightings, adventures, learnings, and personal reflections.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Learn more about River Semester:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/river\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">River Semester homepage<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.startribune.com\/forget-study-abroad-these-college-students-will-spend-the-semester-on-the-mississippi-river\/600300224?utm_source=gift\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Forget study abroad. These college students will spend the semester on the Mississippi River.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014The Minnesota Star Tribune, August 2023<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/2022\/02\/22\/from-a-small-town-book-club-to-paddling-the-mississippi-river-learning-gets-bigger-outside-the-classroom\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From a small-town book club to paddling the Mississippi River, learning gets bigger outside the classroom<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014Augsburg Now, February 2022<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the fall of 2015, a hardy crew started paddling down the Mississippi for a learning adventure that took \u201cexperiential learning\u201d to a new level\u2014Augsburg\u2019s first River Semester. Ten years later, the sixth iteration of this one-of-a-kind study away program has set off once more.\u00a0 Associate Professor Joe Underhill will lead a group of 10 &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":499,"featured_media":11941,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[2462],"class_list":["post-11940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty","category-students","tag-river-semester"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11940"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11944,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11940\/revisions\/11944"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}