Each year, in my opening convocation address to our new students, I point out that, though much has changed in Augsburg’s 150-plus-year history, there are values that have not changed. Those values are about meeting students where they are in their lives, offering them a world-class education, embracing them, supporting them, and challenging them, so that they might go out into the world to live our mission as informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders.

As I write this, a new administration in Washington, D.C., is promoting a vision of higher education that threatens to undermine those abiding values. Claims that colleges and universities are elitist, woke, unaccountable, and irresponsible are grounding shifts in federal policy that have created chaos and confusion across the higher education landscape.

Here on campus, in our neighborhood, and wherever Auggies live and work, I see just the opposite of these claims. I see students who view education as a gift that carries with it a responsibility to give back. I see faculty and staff committed to our vision that students receive a three-dimensional education—an education that equips them to make a living, make a life, and build community. I see alumni and neighbors who care about each other and the world, and who are working each and every day to support a just and inclusive democracy.

In the midst of these difficult times for higher education, the Augsburg community is focused on a longer horizon—past, present, and future—a horizon that calls us time and again to believe that education is at the heart of a thriving society and to commit ourselves to the mission-based work that must never change.

The articles in this issue of the Augsburg Now surely offer many examples of that work on campus and in the world. As you learn about the work of these featured Auggies, may you be inspired to recommit yourself to Augsburg’s abiding mission. The horizon is long and as Dr. King reminded us, the arc of the universe bends toward justice for all. Thanks for all you do to make it so!

Faithfully yours,

Paul C. Pribbenow, PhD

Top image: Students studying on campus (Photo by Courtney Perry)

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Sometimes the life of one graduate reflects a university’s highest aspirations for its students. Such is the case with our dear friend John Schwartz ’67, whose generosity and legacy are highlighted in this issue of Augsburg Now. His was a life well-led, indeed!

I first came to know John as an engaged Augsburg alumnus—a distinguished health care administrator who generously shared his experience, wisdom, and networks with our students. As the years went by, John and I had opportunities to share our personal stories with each other, and we quickly realized how similar our paths were, both in our vocations and in our avocations. We were both liberal arts kinds of guys (majoring in business for John, sociology and political science for me) who found our true passion and purpose in choral music (John in the Augsburg Choir with Leland Sateren ’35 and me with the Luther College Nordic Choir under the direction of Weston Noble). We each found ways to balance our professional lives with opportunities to sing in choirs—for John in both Milwaukee and Chicago, where he performed for 15 years with the Apollo Chorus, and for me with various professional choirs in Chicago. We rejoiced in our shared experiences and love for choral music.

In recent years, John’s commitment to Augsburg only strengthened. He served on the Board of Regents, and his generous philanthropic support began to transform our music and arts programs through endowed professorships, scholarships, and innovation in the curriculum. Just a year ago, in one of the most joyful moments in my entire time at Augsburg, I sat together with John and his husband Jim in Chicago as John made a remarkable commitment to create the Schwartz School of the Arts, bringing together our visual, performing, and narrative arts programs under Augsburg’s first “school.”

In all of this, what I found most remarkable about John was his deep humility, his recognition of the gifts he’d been given in his life, and his commitment to being a good steward of those gifts. In many ways, the scripture readings for John’s memorial service depicted his way of being in the world—as the psalmist proclaims, “O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things!” (Psalm 98:1), while the Apostle Paul instructs the early Christians to live their faith with kindness, compassion, concern for others, and a sense of gratitude for life itself (Colossians 3:12–17).

This was our friend, John Schwartz, who now has joined the heavenly choir, having left a mark in this world that will live on through his blessed memory for years to come. I want to believe that John is up there in the tenor section, joyfully proclaiming in the words of Fred Pratt Green’s glorious hymn:

When in our music God is glorified,
and adoration leaves no room for pride,
it is as though the whole creation cried,
Hallelujah!

A life well-led, a vocation embraced, and an Auggie through and through.

Faithfully yours,
Paul C. Pribbenow, Ph.D.

Top image:��President Paul Pribbenow cheering on new students as they return to campus for Opening Convocation (Photo by Courtney Perry)

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“You belong here.” These three simple words are heard time and again on campus as we greet new students and welcome those returning. And with these words, Augsburg offers the gift of belonging to all of its students, no matter their diverse backgrounds and lived experiences.

So, what does it mean to give the gift of belonging? It means that we see you, we meet you where you are in your life, and we surround you with community. It means that we offer you an educational experience like no other. Over my 18 years at Augsburg, I have witnessed again and again how this university community meets our students where they are—with their remarkable life experiences and gifts—and then offers them, each of them, what they need to be successful. We walk alongside students with amazing faculty and staff members whose sole purpose is to offer them the support, the challenges, the love (I might say) that buttress their success.

And in return, our students bring their whole selves to our community—they bring their gifts and skills as scholars, as leaders, as artists, as advocates for justice and peace, as family and community members. All of these skills and more help to make Augsburg stronger. We are a small community, and we need these many gifts to help us live out our mission. We join together with our students on their life’s journeys—journeys that have already been underway with family, in schools and faith communities, in neighborhoods. It is our privilege to have students join us for a number of years so that their journeys—to a career, to their own families, to their communities—are shaped by what they learn here; by the lifelong friendships they make with fellow students, faculty, and staff; and by the experiences we offer here to help them find their path forward.

You belong here. This is what it means to be student-centered; to believe, as Augsburg has throughout its 154 years, that we are called to educate and equip our students for lives of meaning and purpose in the world. Throughout this issue of Augsburg Now, you will find stories of what it looks like when our commitment to belonging and to our students shows up in the world. A faculty member donating a kidney for a student, a legacy of community engagement serving our neighbors, a young alum taking on some of the world’s most pressing climate challenges, and an institutional policy that takes away barriers to students who deserve an Augsburg education. Read all of these inspiring stories with pride for the work of this remarkable university, for you, too, belong here!

Faithfully yours,

Paul C. Pribbenow

Top image: President Paul Pribbenow with students in Foss Center (Photo by Courtney Perry)

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For the past two years, I have worked with three of my Augsburg colleagues (Sociology Professor Tim Pippert, Associate Nursing Professor Katie Clark ’10 MAN, ’14 DNP, and former Sabo Center staff member Green Bouzard) on a volume that tells the story of Professor Joel Torstenson ’38 and his legacy at Augsburg in our curriculum, co-curriculum, and community engagement programs. Professor Torstenson, who passed away in 2007, spent his career as a professor of sociology here at his alma mater. Along the way, he was instrumental as Augsburg embraced its urban setting and transformed the university’s commitment to teaching its students at the intersections of mission and place, vocation, and location.

The book is titled “Radical Roots: How One Professor Transformed a University,” and it will be published later this fall (more to come on how you can order a copy!). As we have shared the manuscript with interested readers outside the Augsburg community, the response has been gratifying because it confirms Augsburg’s national reputation as a university that believes in the public purposes of higher education—a reputation that has been shaped by 60 years of innovation and genuine commitment to education for service.

As I read through this edition of Augsburg Now, I am struck again by how those radical roots, first tended by Professor Torstenson and his colleagues in the 1960s, continue to shape Augsburg’s latest innovations. Augsburg Family Scholars, led by Professor Pippert, is a perfect example of seeing a need in the world—in this case, students in the foster care system who need support to attend college—and organizing a program to meet those needs. The faculty and students in our distinguished Department of History lean into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Augsburg community and seek ways to document that impact for future generations. The staff and students who lead our on-campus art galleries forge close partnerships with area artists to tell stories of marginalized communities. And our Physician Assistant Studies faculty and students focus attention on the needs of rural and underserved communities, and get to work meeting those needs.

Radical roots, indeed. Roots that are strong and deep, and that will continue to ensure that an Augsburg education is always education for service!

Faithfully yours,

Paul C. Pribbenow, President

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One of the great misperceptions of American higher education is that colleges and universities are detached from the “real world,” ivory towers not concerned about the communities and neighborhoods that surround their campuses. I am not here to defend all of higher education—though there is plenty of evidence to rebut that misperception. Instead, I want to declare that for Augsburg University, there has never been a question of our commitment to what we call “leaning in” to the pressing and complex issues of our neighborhood, our country, and indeed the world.

It’s a commitment articulated in our Augsburg150 strategic vision, which states: “As a new kind of urban, student-centered university, we are educating Auggies as stewards of an inclusive democracy, engaged in their communities and uniquely equipped to navigate the complex issues of our time.” Leaning in so that our students are educated and equipped for the world that so needs their intellects, their passions, and their skills.

Surely this issue of Augsburg Now powerfully demonstrates an array of ways in which this commitment to “leaning in” is lived out by our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and allies. From Associate Professor Katie Clark ’10 MAN, ’14 DNP and alumna Emily Bastian ’07 MSW, and their groundbreaking work serving those experiencing homelessness; to our new data science major with its strong focus on equity and social justice; to the contributions of our colleague, Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz, helping us to prepare more teachers of color for our public schools; to the research of Assistant Professor Kao Nou Moua, shedding light on the experiences of Hmong entrepreneurs.

And the list could go on and on with the daily ways in which the Augsburg community—in its curriculum, community engagement, and public advocacy—is working to be good neighbors, to uncover and address systemic injustices, and to support a more robust democracy.

In 2019, as part of Augsburg’s 150th anniversary celebrations, Auggie alumnus and poet extraordinaire Donte Collins ’18 penned a powerful ode to their alma mater, entitled “We Are Auggies,” which concludes with these lines:

“When shared, when sharpened. Guided. Here a system of roots. Strong. Striving. A system of roots weaving a new world. Auggie, you are called into the world.

Into your wonder. Your why. To wrestle
with reason. To spot the problem. And propose new parts. To walk toward your fears. To find the heart.

We are Called. We are Auggies.”

May we all continue to lean in, to make our world more just, fair, and compassionate, to find the heart. I know we will, because we are called Auggies!

Faithfully yours,

Paul C. Pribbenow, PhD

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A few years back, I happened upon the work of Mark Federman, a Canadian scholar whose writings on innovation include this provocative suggestion: “Multiply your mind by giving it away.” And Federman means exactly what he says: be generous, be charitable, give instead of always taking.��Because when you are generous with your mind—with your knowledge and education and other gifts—you help to create organizations, neighborhoods, agencies, churches, and schools that are marked not by the scarcity of the world, but by the abundance of what is possible.

I was thinking about Federman’s challenge while serving on a panel about how Lutheran colleges and universities might apply lessons learned about vocation from work with our undergraduate students to other important constituencies. The following three themes emerged from our conversation:

On our campuses, beyond undergraduates

Many colleges and universities have graduate programs in professional disciplines like nursing, education, and social work, where the concept of vocation can play an important role in shaping a professional career and life. At Augsburg, we created V-Portfolio, an online vocation portfolio for undergraduate and graduate students to share artifacts from their personal, academic, and professional journeys. V-Portfolio has proved a helpful tool for students to narrate the many facets of a vocational journey. In addition to academic work, students share experiences as parents, as citizens, as neighbors, and as professionals—creating that many-layered story of a life.

Across the vocational lifespan

Other important constituencies for our campuses include prospective students and alumni. For example, Augsburg has hosted an annual Youth Theology Institute for high school students. Over the summer, these student learning communities explore pressing issues in the world through a theological lens.

Alumni are another important audience for our vocation lessons. At Augsburg, we organized the Centered Life Series, led by Jack Fortin, whose book, “The Centered Life,” has inspired many of us in our own vocational work. Fortin curates a series of sessions each semester (in person before the COVID-19 pandemic, but even more well-attended online during the pandemic) that address a particular vocational theme. For example, one series focused on the vocation of caregiving for a spouse with memory loss; another shared the concept of interrogating our institutional saga, the work of appreciation and accountability for what German theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer called our historical legacy.

Accompanying our faith communities

We also have shared our vocation lessons with faith communities, in some ways coming full circle to the traditions that have given us the gift of vocation. Many of those faith communities are now seeking new ways to support the vocational journeys of their members.

The work of the Riverside Innovation Hub, an initiative of Augsburg’s Christensen Center for Vocation, comes alongside local congregations seeking to become public churches. A public church is committed to��place-based vocational discernment in the public square for the common good. In other words, the partner churches are pursuing God’s call for them to be in relationship with their neighborhoods in ways that bring flourishing and life.��The Riverside Innovation Hub explores how the many resources of a college or university can be brought to bear in helping faith communities be more responsive to the vocational pursuits of their members. For example, leaders found that many young people care deeply about environmental issues and don’t feel that their faith communities offer them resources to pursue those commitments. The innovation hub brings scientists and artists and writers and theologians from the Augsburg faculty into conversation with faith communities to help expand their understanding of how they might accompany those young people in their passions for God’s creation.

Alumni living out their vocations

Multiply your mind by giving it away. In this issue of Augsburg Now, you’ll find stories of Augsburg graduates doing just that. Keenan Jones ’13 is driven to empower and educate Black boys, who fall behind in every category the United States uses to determine��academic success and wellness. After 13 years in the classroom, he started a nonprofit for Black boys in grades��5–12 that focuses on literacy, empowerment, social justice, and social/emotional health.��Other Auggies’ time and talents are focused on environmental justice: María Belén Power ’07 is an advocate and organizer for GreenRoots, an organization in her Boston-area suburb of Chelsea, Massachusetts, and was recently named to the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. Elan Quezada Hoffman ’22 pursues his calling through work as an environmental inspector for the City of Minneapolis.

We’re finding new ways to share the gift of vocation and those lessons we have learned with our undergraduate students with others at all stages of life. We all are enriched by the joy of lives faithfully led.

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My wife, Abigail, and I first met Anne Frame and Bill Frame, Augsburg’s ninth president, some 18 years ago when we were chosen to be part of a new program, sponsored by the Council of Independent Colleges and designed by Bill, that helped college presidents and their partners to explore the links between their callings or vocations and the missions of the institutions they served. At that point, I was president of Rockford College in Illinois, and of course, Bill and Anne were at Augsburg. It was a remarkable experience for all of us involved, and we remain friends and colleagues with many of those who shared the program with us. It was during this time that we first witnessed the delightful partnership that Anne and Bill had created—in their marriage, in their leadership of the program, and in their work at Augsburg. Those of us in the program came to count on Bill for thoughtful and weighty treatises (one of us once exclaimed, “Give me a thesaurus!” when Bill’s vocabulary got to be a bit much), while Anne’s gracious and calm presence brought us back to the joy of the work at hand.

Little did we know that just a few months after the program concluded, Abigail and I would be elected as Anne and Bill’s successors at Augsburg. It was during the leadership transition and over the past 15 years that I have come to know the many ways in which Anne’s presence and engagement with the Augsburg community during Bill’s presidency have made a lasting impact.

Anne Frame passed away this past summer, but her legacy lives on in the many ways her life and work have graced the Augsburg community. I would highlight just a few:

Anne and Bill made the case for and then created a place of wonderful hospitality and fellowship at Augsburg House, the residence for Augsburg’s president and family, but more importantly a place at which to gather students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends to celebrate and build community. In fact, Anne and Bill set important traditions at the house that we still celebrate, including a festive holiday party for neighbors who are often inconvenienced by all the cars parked along West River Parkway for our gatherings!

Anne loved to engage with students, participating in activities like Late Night Breakfasts at the end of each semester and City Engagement Days at the beginning of each academic year. It was deeply meaningful to students to see the president and family involved in the life of the campus.

Anne also served as a board member for the Augsburg Associates, a group of committed volunteers who organized fundraising events to support student scholarships. The annual Velkommen Yul celebrations remain a highlight of the academic year, lifting up our Norwegian heritage.

Finally, Anne accompanied Bill on many international trips—to Augsburg’s sites in South Africa and Namibia, to Norway as part of our relationship with the Norwegian Nobel Institute, and perhaps most memorably to China with a group of Minnesota private college presidents and partners to explore a relationship with a newly formed liberal arts college on the mainland, now known as United International College.

After Bill and Anne retired from Augsburg in 2006, they continued to be engaged in the Augsburg community, attending events, visiting donors, cheering us on in our various efforts to make Augsburg the remarkably diverse institution it is today. At the same time, it was a joy for me to see the meaning that Anne found in returning to her chosen profession—her calling—as an accountant for various organizations in the Tacoma, Washington, area. In that way, Anne continued to model for all of us what it means to follow the divine call, wherever it leads us—even when the call is surprising and unexpected.

We celebrate the ways in which presidential leadership over 150 years—shared in partnership with remarkable spouses—sets a foundation for the work we do today!

Faithfully yours,

Paul C. Pribbenow, President

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As we enter a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and plan for our return to campus for our 152nd academic year at Augsburg, I am often asked what we have learned during the past 16 months that will be part of a “new normal” for our community.

Certainly there is much that we have learned about the use of technology for teaching and learning, and for doing our administrative work—technology that will be an abiding and effective tool for the ways we work into the future. We also have learned important lessons about public health and not taking for granted our individual and common well-being. And then there are lessons about the fragility of our economic lives and the need to be laser-focused on our mission as we make decisions about revenue and expenses.

But perhaps the most important and striking lesson we learned during the pandemic is that all of the work we have done the past few years to chart a strategic path for Augsburg—work that culminated in the creation in Fall 2019 of Augsburg150: The Sesquicentennial Plan—provided us with a framework for both navigating through these unprecedented times and for pursuing a sustainable future for our university. In other words, our planning deliberations, grounded in Augsburg’s mission to educate students to be “informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders,” got it right as we named our highest aspirations and our strategic priorities.

In particular, I am proud of the vision we cast for our future, which says that “As a new kind of urban, student-centered university, we are educating Auggies as stewards of an inclusive democracy, engaged in their communities and uniquely equipped to navigate the complex issues of our time.”

Consider the claims we make in this vision statement: to embrace our urban setting, to keep students at the center of our lives, to pursue democratic engagement, and to equip our students to take on the most complex problems we all face. And we honored those claims as we lived through the pandemic: responding to the many needs of our students and neighbors as we kept each other safe and healthy; focusing on the flexibility our students required as they pursued their education primarily online; working together as a community of faculty, staff, and students to navigate an uncharted path; and leaning into the incredibly complex issues raised by the pandemic so that we might all learn from them.

As I begin my 16th year as Augsburg’s 10th president, I am so proud of our community and excited about the future we will create together. It may not be normal, but it will be grounded as always in our mission and vision. Enjoy this issue of Augsburg Now with its engaging stories that make my case for Augsburg’s future.

Faithfully yours,

Paul C. Pribbenow, President

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I am particularly struck by the claim made in that��centennial motto, and I wonder what it might mean��to explore how “Through truth to freedom” shapes our��teaching and learning community in the midst of these pandemic times.

In a recent presentation, Professor of Religion Mary��Lowe offered a provocative challenge when she asked us��what it might mean to educate our students for freedom.��What a countercultural notion! Educated for freedom from��ignorance, from oppression, from division and hatred and��violence. Educated for freedom to make the world more fair��and just and healthy, to be good neighbors, to take care of��creation. Educated for freedom for the sake of the world, for��the good of others, for the promise of wonder and creativity.

At Augsburg, the possibility of this education for freedom��is grounded in claims of truth. Above all, a theological��claim of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ—stated so��powerfully in that founding scriptural motto from the first��chapter of John’s gospel—a truth that makes all things��possible in our lives and work in the world. At the same��time, it’s the truth we find in our commitment to a liberal��arts education—to the belief in scientific knowledge, in��social analysis, in artistic expression, in cultural wisdom.��And finally, it’s the truth we find in the lived experiences of��our students and the communities from which they come,��truths that reside in rituals and traditions and practices that��invite us into worlds rich in knowledge and wonder.

“Through truth to freedom” strikes me as a compelling��response to this moment when we find ourselves living��at the intersection of three pandemics. The COVID-19��pandemic has disrupted all aspects of how we live and��work, and it has pointedly illustrated the tension between��public health and economic well-being. Following in the��wake of that pandemic, an economic pandemic threatens��our social fabric with massive unemployment and business��closures worldwide. And, most recently, the racial inequities��exacerbated by the senseless murder of George Floyd by��Minneapolis police officers—along with countless Black,��Indigenous, and other people of color who’ve experienced��similar racism and violence—have created a third pandemic��that threatens to tear our country apart. Surely this��uncharted intersection of crises presents unique challenges��for all of us as citizens, trying to imagine how we will��navigate to some as yet unknown future.

The question we will ask at Augsburg—a question at��the heart of our academic mission and our commitment��to social justice—is, “Where is the truth in the midst of��these pandemics?”

What is the truth about keeping each other healthy��in the face of a novel coronavirus? What is the truth in��an economy that, more and more, deepens remarkable��inequities What is the truth in centuries of systemic��racism and oppression? And the truths we will find, always��evolving and emerging and transforming, will free us for the��work we are called to do as “informed citizens, thoughtful��stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders”—Augsburg’s mission!

Let us go forward together into the next 150 years of��Augsburg’s life recommitted to education guided by the��belief that through truth there is indeed freedom. I can only��wonder what such a countercultural belief will mean for��stories yet to be told.

Stay strong, safe, and well.

Faithfully yours,

Paul C. Pribbenow, President

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This summer, Assistant Professor Joaquin Muñoz from our education department greeted our incoming students with a powerful message. He said that every one of them deserved an adult who loved them unconditionally. He then looked out at our remarkable students and told them that he loved them. He said, “I see you,” and “I will do all I can to ensure that you are successful at Augsburg and beyond.”

Joaquin was speaking to students of color and indigenous students in particular, but this is our promise to all our students: “We see you” is at the center of Augsburg’s commitment to meet students where they are and walk alongside them as they pursue their educational goals. What does it mean to say that “we see you”? It means that your life experience, your vocational journey, your path to Augsburg is important to us and will be taken seriously as we work together to ensure your success.

It seems especially fitting as we launch our 150th anniversary—our sesquicentennial—that we renew our promise to meet our students where they are, to see them in all of their astonishing and diverse life experiences, and to accompany them as they pursue an Augsburg education.

Our promise to see our students is evident in all of our celebrations of our 150th anniversary. For example, the remarkable “Each, Together” art project—part of an international initiative known as “Inside Out”—is featured in this issue of Augsburg Now (see “Face value”). More than 1,200 photographs are displayed on buildings across campus: images of current students, faculty, staff, and alumni alongside those of historic figures like Bernhard Christensen ’22, Augsburg’s fifth president, who looks at me each day as I pull into my campus parking spot! Every time I look at those photographs, I think about how they reflect our commitment to seeing each other, to recognizing that our various journeys to Augsburg and beyond are part of a remarkable narrative that has unfolded over the past 150 years.

Since our founding in 1869 and through the decades that followed, our institution has grown and changed, yet our commitment to our foundational promise has remained the same. We see you, we love you, and together we will fulfill our abiding promise that Augsburg is “small to our students and big for the world.”

Faithfully yours,

Paul C. Pribbenow, President

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