In August 2020, the Rev. Sonja Hagander, Augsburg University Vice President for Mission and Identity, will lead a hike to the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway—a pilgrimage made by travelers for more than 1,000 years. Along the way, you will learn about history and culture, and experience firsthand some of the most beautiful nature in the world. This trip is intended for experienced mountain hikers. Hagander has hiked parts of this trip twice and will be joined by a ground guide who will travel with the group. This trip will be limited to 22 participants and it is expected to sell out quickly.
This trip includes 19 meals, all entrance fees for the Peer Gynt Festival, all motorcoach transfers, gratuities, and lodging. It does not include airfare.
Over 10 days you will hike over 70 Kilometers from Dovre Church to the Trondheim Cathedral. The group will also attend the Peer Gynt Festival and will explore Lillehammer and Trondheim.
“Augsburg is linked to ministry in the city.” – President Pribbenow
Gather with fellow Auggies on October 19-21, 2019, for special services with music from Augsburg choirs and guest preachers President Paul C. Pribbenow and University Pastor Justin Lind-Ayres.
“Augsburg University’s long partnership with Central Lutheran Church will be celebrated during this special Augsburg Weekend,” said Mark Sedio, Director of Masterworks Chorale and Cantor at Central Lutheran Church. “2019 marks not only Augsburg’s Sesquicentennial but also Central’s centennial, as well asthe 40th anniversary of Advent Vespers which has always taken place in Central’s sanctuary. The intertwining of history goes back five decades with the Augsburg Choir holding its annual home concerts in Central’s sanctuary, the founding of the Augsburg Central Health Commons, and many other programming initiatives.”
Saturday, October 19
5 p.m. – preaching by President Pribbenow; music by Cedar Singers
President Pribbenow’s message will explore how Augsburg’s mission is a version of helping students to “wrestle with angels,” playing off the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel in Genesis.
Sunday, October 20
8:30 a.m. – preaching by President Pribbenow; music by Riverside Singers
10:30 a.m. – preaching by President Pribbenow; music by Augsburg Choir
President Pribbenow’s message will explore how Augsburg’s mission is a version of helping students to “wrestle with angels,” playing off the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel in Genesis.
Monday, October 21
11 a.m. – preaching by University Pastor Justin Lind-Ayres
Augsburg students will also be involved in the congregation’s Monday morning worship with the Restoration Center.
Stop by the Pop-Up Bookstore
Browse and buy special edition sesquicentennial swag, books by Augsburg faculty, and a variety of items to show your Auggie pride and celebrate 150 years of Augsburg.
Donate to Augsburg University Health Commons
The Health Commons at Central Lutheran is a nursing-led drop-in center. Their mission is to promote health and healing in marginalized populations. Please help them in their efforts by making a monetary donation to the Health Commons Fund which supports the purchase of a variety of health-related items distributed to persons seeking assistance and support at the Health Commons. You may also donate needed heath-related items including diapers, socks, and hygiene supplies. If you have any questions, please contact Katie Clark at centralhealthcommons@augsburg.edu
I am so excited and honored to be co-leading this tour to southern Germany, including the Oberammergau Passion Play, in July of 2020. Hans Wiersma, Katie Koch Code, and I have led a group together before and I cannot wait to travel with them again!
The trip itinerary is bursting with amazing sites and experiences, but I am most excited (and a little overwhelmed, if I am being honest) about the stop we will make at the Flossenburg Concentration Camp where Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor, theologian, and Nazi resister, was executed on April 9th, 1945. I first read some of Bonhoeffer’s works as an undergraduate student and have spent my entire academic career studying his life, his work, and his legacy. I have visited all the Bonhoeffer sites in Berlin on numerous occasions, but I have never been to Flossenburg.
The last few months I have been re-immersed in Bonhoeffer’s texts as I finished my own chapter for the book I am co-editing with David Hall on the political theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It is a collection of essays by Bonhoeffer scholars from around the world. Some of the chapters tend closely to historical-critical analysis of Bonhoeffer’s texts in light of questions and themes pertinent to the field known as political theology; some of the chapters use Bonhoeffer’s work constructively to address contemporary issues and concerns including climate change, mass incarceration, and interfaith cooperation; and, some of the chapters detail ways that Bonhoeffer’s thought has inspired and supported political action or church life. We hope the book will be in print by late spring or early summer of next year.
My chapter is the one addressing possible ways Bonhoeffer supports interfaith work even though he was not an interfaith activist. I look very carefully at his idea of Stellvertretung (or vicarious representative action) and trace the ways he talks about this idea as a theological and Christological concept based on Christ’s vicarious death on behalf of humanity and then look at the ways he talks about this idea as an ethical idea that shapes how Christians (disciples who follow after Christ) are called to act on behalf of other people in need. These ideas were important in Bonhoeffer’s own life, and played a role in his decision to get involved in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler; a choice which led to his own execution.
We will also get to visit the Abbey of Ettal, a Benedictine Monastery, where Bonhoeffer lived from November of 1940 to February of 1941 and worked on his Ethics. His encounter there with St. Benedict’s Rule, and the mandate to “greet each stranger as Christ,” had an impact on my reading of Bonhoeffer as a graduate student and helped shape the questions I addressed in my dissertation on Bonhoeffer titled, “Love Your Enemies? Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Question of the Other.” It is another Bonhoeffer site I have never visited.
I am very much looking forward to sharing my knowledge and love of Dietrich Bonhoeffer with the group when we meet in advance of the trip and, of course, while traveling. Really, I can’t wait!
The Augsburg Podcast features voices of Augsburg University faculty and staff. We hope this is one way you can get to know the people who educate our students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders. Subscribe on Itunes.
Lamont Slater, instructor and program coordinator for the Center for Global Education and Experience, remotely joins the Augsburg Podcast from Windhoek, Namibia to discuss the perspective-altering value of study abroad programming — and how it changed his own life as well as the lives of current students studying abroad with him in Namibia.
The Augsburg Centennial Singers, a senior men’s, 50-voice chorus, would like to invite alumni and friends to attend their fall concert series.
Carrying on the rich tradition of quartets from Augsburg’s past, The Centennial Singers were founded in 1993 to celebrate the centennial of the first singing tour of Norway by an Augsburg College Gospel Quartet. Centennial Singers concerts feature well-known gospel music, spirituals, folk, and patriotic songs, familiar hymns, sacred selections, and a barbershop tune or two.
Centennial Singers 2019 Fall Schedule
Saturday, September 21 at 6:30 p.m.
United Redeemer Lutheran Church
560 West Third Street, Zumbrota
Sunday, September 22 at 3 p.m.
Bethel Lutheran Church
810 Third Avenue SE, Rochester
Saturday, September 28 at 10:30 a.m.
Augsburg Homecoming Chapel
Saturday, October 5 at 6:30 p.m.
St. Philip’s Lutheran Church
1401 15th Street W., Hastings
Sunday, October 6 at 4 p.m.
Christ the King Lutheran Church
1900 7th Street NW, New Brighton
Sunday, October 20 at 7 p.m.
House of Prayer Lutheran Church
7625 Chicago Ave S., Richfield
Sunday, October 27 at 1 p.m.
Normandale Hylands United Methodist Church
9920 Normandale Blvd., S., Bloomington
Saturday, November 2 at 7 p.m.
Oak Grove Presbyterian Church
2200 Old Shakopee Road, Bloomington
Sunday, November 3 at 3 p.m.
St. Philip the Deacon Lutheran
17205 County Road 6, Plymouth
A free-will offering is received at each concert to defray expenses and advance our mission of encouraging our listeners to establish and deepen their personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
You can find more information about the Augsburg Centennial Singers on their website. To arrange an appearance by the Singers, email manager, Mike Walgren at Michaelwalgren@comcast.net.
The Augsburg Podcast features voices of Augsburg University faculty and staff. We hope this is one way you can get to know the people who educate our students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders. Subscribe on Itunes.
Stacy Freiheit, Associate Professor of Psychology, trains the next generation of mental health care providers to be inquisitive researchers, sensitive observers, and keen auditors of evidence-based practice.
There are only 8 spots still available for this 11-day trip! Please contact Katie Code (codek@augsburg.edu) if you’re interested in learning more.
The alps above Berchtesgaden
Bavaria is known for many things, including soaring peaks, very large mugs of beer, and “Grüß Gott!” Mountains and beer you can get in many other destinations, but “Grüß Gott” you’ll only get in the German-speaking regions that surround the Bavarian Alps. (The odd-looking “ß” is actually a double-“s”.) If you want to try greeting someone with Grüß Gott you’ll want to say it like this: GrooS GoT—landing hard on both the “S” and the “T”.
Grüß Gott is shortened from “Grüß dich Gott,” an old way of saying “God bless you” in German. The phrase is more religious than “Guten Tag” so it’s a phrase befitting Germany’s most religious and most Roman Catholic region. The closer you get to Bavaria’s majestic mountains, the more you’ll be greeted with Grüß Gott instead of Guten Tag. It’s as if those dramatic elevations naturally give rise to spiritual yearnings.
Bavaria is Germany’s largest state, covering one-fifth of the country. It may not be obvious from looking at a map, but our tour’s wide-ranging itinerary falls entirely within Bavaria (not including our dip into Salzburg, Austria). From the Castle Coburg (where Martin Luther resided during the time of the “Augsburg Confession”) to Berchtesgaden/Obersalzburg (where the Third Reich constructed its infamous mountain fortress), we’ll span a land filled with great natural beauty and complicated human history.
Still, you may wonder: What does Augsburg University—a school with deep roots in the heritage of Norwegian Lutheran immigrants—have to do with the most Roman Catholic region of Germany? Only a lot!
Consider first our name, Augsburg University. We are called Augsburg because of a specific historical development that took place in Augsburg—today Bavaria’s third most populous city. (Our tour ends in Augsburg!)
Second, Bavaria has many cities and sites that are important to the ongoing Reformation of the Church, including Nuremberg (the largest “printing center” of the Reformation), Flossenbürg (where the great 20th century theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was martyred), and Salzburg (yes, the “City of Mozart” but also the city that once expelled its entire Lutheran population).
Third, Oberammergau’s Passion Play dramatizes the very events that unite all Christians, Catholic, and Protestant: the last week of the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
Fourth, Bavaria’s topography—ranging from rolling hills to high mountains—is reminiscent of the topography those Norwegian Lutheran immigrants longed for as they settled the flat spaces of the Upper Midwest. (Okay, I know this last one is a stretch.)
I’ve been fortunate to travel in Bavaria many times over the years. I’ve exchanged Grüß Gott! with Bavaria’s über-friendly people many, many times. So I’m excited to co-lead a group of travelers through Grüß Gott territory! Interested in learning more about this one-of-a-kind travel and learning opportunity? Don’t hesitate to send me an email at wiersma@augsburg.edu.
– Hans Wiersma, associate professor of religion at Augsburg
The full and melodic harmony reminiscent of male quartets that represented many Lutheran colleges in the first half of the 20th century will be on full display at the Silver Auggies lunch on Saturday, September 28, when the Augsburg Male Quartet from 1959 provides special music.
The luncheon music will feature Rennard Svanoe ’59, MDiv ’62; Victor Svanoe ’62; Jim Svanoe; and Donald Gilberg ‘60. Intended for Augsburg graduates from 1968 and earlier, the luncheon is one of many events scheduled for Augsburg’s Homecoming and Reunion Week, Sept. 24-28.
In the late 1800s, Augsburg was among the first Lutheran colleges to discover the value of these “singing ambassadors,” whose four-part a cappella harmony and spiritual messages inspired many in congregations, youth conventions, and a variety of other venues. Augsburg’s history of male quartets (1885-1961) has been documented in the 2004 book, The Augsburg Quartets: A Mission-Driven Tradition, written by David M. Larson and Merton Strommen ’42. The book includes pictures of most of the Augsburg quartets, whose early participants included F. Melius Christiansen, whose distinctive mark on Lutheran a cappella choir music is indelible.
Of the three Svanoe brothers who sang with Gilberg in the 1958 quartet—Alfred, Rennard, and Victor, two will sing at the luncheon. Alfred has passed away, and his cousin, Jim Svanoe, a Luther College graduate, will fill his role on Sept. 28. Joe Nystuen MDiv ’62, who sang with the 1959 (touring) quartet, is living with one lung, and so Gilberg will take his part.
Starting Early
Growing up in a “singing family,” the three Svanoe brothers got a good head start in the art of harmonizing by performing at family gatherings, where they would sing three-part treble harmony—before their voices changed. In their high school years, their uncle Dick Svanoe sat at the piano and added his barbershop-trained voice, thus providing the fourth part.
At college, singing in the Augsburg Choir put the Svanoe brothers in touch with Don Gilberg (from Carpio, North Dakota)—a connection that led to formation of the quartet, and eventually to an audition with Augsburg’s Leland B. Sateren in order to enable them to officially represent the College as the Augsburg Male Quartet.
Often, the quartet sang at the Svanoes’ home church, Oak Grove Lutheran in nearby Richfield, Minnesota, where Merton Strommen (a member of an earlier Augsburg quartet) had served as the brothers’ high school Sunday School teacher, and as youth choir director. The relationship with Strommen led to the quartet’s opportunity in summer 1958 to sing in Green Lake, Wisc., at the convention of the Luther League Federation, for which Strommen served as director.
A year later, after worship one Sunday, the quartet gathered in the sanctuary where another Oak Grove member, Norman Kaupang, set up his equipment to record the quartet’s songs for a 33-RPM record, which was later remastered for the CD that now appears if you Google “Augsburg Male Quartet.” By then, Joe Nystuen had replaced Gilberg in the group, adding an inspirational verbal component between musical sets at each concert.
Touring
Of his experience touring with the quartet, Rennard Svanoe says his Midwestern horizons were “considerably broadened.” Their travels allowed the quartet to meet nearly all the pastors of the Lutheran Free Church (a predecessor body of the ELCA), and to explore a variety of really interesting places—the Rocky Mountains, Puget Sound, the Columbia River, Norwegian fjords, and the English Channel. Their experiences even included a visit to Svanoe Island, the brothers’ ancestral home on the west coast of Norway.
The quartet appeared at homecoming events at Augsburg (even after graduating), and at various congregations in the Twin Cities area. At one concert, traveling Lutheran evangelist Oscar Hanson heard the quartet sing and was so impressed that he offered to arrange for a tour of Norway in 1961. Hanson (late father of ELCA Presiding Bishop Emeritus Mark Hanson) had served as pastor of a church in Oslo, Norway, and had enough connections to set up a tour that included 55 appearances in the U.S., followed by 25 appearances in Norway.
Most of the group’s concerts in Norway were held in state Lutheran churches, and three in cathedrals. They found their largest crowd in a hall in Bergen, where they filled the facility. That concert holds a special memory for Rennard Svanoe as he recalls one young man climbing onto an open window sill seeking a better view of the quartet, only to land on the ground outside—unharmed, thankfully.
In the Long Term
One notable offshoot of the quartets’ success over the years has been the coming together, since 1993, of numerous former quartet members, to unite in song by participating in the Augsburg Centennial Singers, an all-male choir organized by Strommen, and for some years, directed by him. The group of about 50 continues to perform, and membership has been expanded beyond the former quartets.
Such opportunities can build memories for a lifetime—not to mention long-term friendships. Musical groups tend to have powerful potential to do so. Rennard Svanoe says that singing in the quartet with brothers and a best friend “built in a long-term effect, as we often referred to our experiences over the years.”
When asked if any particular quartet experience stands out as something to truly relish, Rennard Svanoe described a Sunday afternoon concert in Abercrombie, North Dakota, in 1959. As an electrical storm brewed during the first set, the quartet was singing the classical number, “Creation.” As they sang about darkness covering the face of the deep, the lights in the sanctuary went out. Nonetheless, they continued singing—memorization does pay off! The piece continued with words about the Spirit moving over the face of the waters in a prolonged passage that ended with the quartet singing in unison, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light, light, and there was LIGHT.” At that moment the lights came back on in perfect timing with the song.
As the saying goes, God has a sense of humor—and certainly delights in music. The sense of timing on that blessing was absolutely perfect to the Quartet.
The Augsburg Podcast features voices of Augsburg University faculty and staff. We hope this is one way you can get to know the people who educate our students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders. Subscribe on Itunes.
Language is so much more than vocabulary and grammar. For Sarah Degner Riveros, Lecturer in Spanish, languages are inseparable from their history, community, and culture. In this discussion, we explore many ways the teaching and learning of Spanish opens doorways to a wider world and into the deeper self.
Tyler Heaps at training in the UK prior to the opening of the World Cup competition in France.
Tyler Heaps ’13 has loved soccer since he was a boy, kicking a ball around the back yard with his older brother and three sisters. The memories don’t get much better, however, than those made this summer, when his professional work in data analysis allowed him to be embedded with the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team as it competed for the World Cup in Lyon, France.
On July 7, all the hard work paid off when the U.S. team triumphed over the Netherlands, 2-0, winning its second consecutive World Cup championship. Heaps says playing a tiny part in helping the U.S. win the seven-game series—and the World Cup—was “one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences” of his life—and something he will never forget.
Not unlike football and baseball teams’ use of video coverage and data analysis to enhance skills on the field, coaches and staff at U.S. Soccer are discovering the value of reviewing their own team’s playing habits, as well as those of their opponents, through data collection, video, and studying trend lines. As Heaps says, “No one can recall every action that happened during a game (and especially not 10-15 games), so being able to apply objective data to identify key areas can help in preparation.”
Heaps, who played soccer as an Augsburg student, is now manager of analytics and research for U.S. Soccer, where he oversees the initiatives of the organization to both analyze sports data and help staff scout potential talent. While he loves the excitement of the uncertainty, flow, and freedom of soccer, Heaps feels that the development of new technology—iPads on the bench, data availability, VAR (video assistant referee), etc.—makes for greater precision, helps referees make the correct decisions, and ultimately improves the game.
Heaps with Coach Jill Ellis and the World Cup trophy.
Jill Ellis, head coach of the U.S. Women’s National Team, is one of the soccer coaches who has developed an appetite for this information and has worked to apply it and learn more from it. Ellis, who just announced her retirement from U.S. Soccer on July 30, is only the second coach (first female) to have led a soccer team to two consecutive World Cup championships (Pozzo—Italy, 1934, 1938).
Heaps feels very fortunate to have this opportunity to explore the sports analytics world, especially after having spent most of his time at Augsburg either on the soccer field or behind a computer or math book.
Prior to taking on his responsibilities with U.S. Soccer in 2016, Heaps worked in the human resources firm, Ceridian, where he fine-tuned his skills in programming and data management. During his off-hours, he coached soccer teams—an experience that he finds very helpful in creating relationships with the technical staffs at U.S. Soccer.
As with many college athletes, he continues to enjoy friendships forged on the Auggie soccer field—a great benefit that he credits to the leadership of head coach Greg Holker and his staff. He takes particular satisfaction in seeing the game continue to grow here in the U.S. What better way to see it generate excitement in the U.S. than a huge win in France?
Led by Rev. Sonja Hagander August 4-13, 2020
At college, singing in the Augsburg Choir put the Svanoe brothers in touch with Don Gilberg (from Carpio, North Dakota)—a connection that led to formation of the quartet, and eventually to an audition with Augsburg’s Leland B. Sateren in order to enable them to officially represent the College as the Augsburg Male Quartet.
