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Congratulations to Auggies Named to the 2022 Summer Dean’s List

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University SealMore than 50 Augsburg University undergraduate students were named to the 2022 Summer Semester Dean’s List. The Augsburg University Dean’s List recognizes those full-time students who have achieved a grade point average of 3.50 or higher and those part-time students who have achieved a grade point average of 3.75 or higher in a given term.

View the 2022 Summer Semester Dean’s List.

Students who wish to notify their hometown newspapers of their achievement can do so at their discretion using a news announcement template.

Center for Global Education and Experience Expands to Northern Ireland

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A group of nine students look out over a valley with their arms around each other and their backs to the cameraStudents study abroad for many different reasons. For those who are passionate about social justice, Augsburg’s Center for Global Education and Experience (CGEE) has long offered unparalleled engagement with local communities in Mexico, Central America, and Southern Africa. 

Now that portfolio includes a fourth global site in Northern Ireland. 

In Spring 2023, CGEE will welcome its first cohort of students to a new semester program in the vibrant city of Derry–Londonderry. Based at Ulster University, the Conflict, Peace, and Transition program will critically examine the work of justice, reconciliation, and repair in relation to the history and legacy of the Troubles. 

“This program will give students a unique opportunity to wrestle with the question of building a shared future from a divided past and to witness the hard work of reconciliation after conflict,” said Patrick Mulvihill, assistant provost for global education. Coursework will focus on understanding the politics of the Northern Ireland conflict and the transition to a sustainable democracy. Students will also participate in internships at local peacebuilding organizations and engage in field visits to Belfast, the Antrim Coast, and the border counties of Fermanagh, Tyrone, and Armagh.

Augsburg CGEE programs are open to students from any undergraduate institution. Prior to its transition to CGEE, the Conflict, Peace, and Transition in Northern Ireland program—formerly known as Democracy and Social Change in Northern Ireland–was delivered through the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs (HECUA), with the first group of students participating in 2002.

“After the disruptions to study abroad over the past two years, we’re thrilled to be in a position now to expand our offerings,” said Mulvihill. “We’re particularly grateful to our program partners in Northern Ireland, whose commitment to experiential learning reinforces everything we’re about here at Augsburg.” 

To learn more, request information, or apply for the spring semester, visit go.augsburg.edu/northernireland.

Augsburg University Announces Comprehensive Supports for Foster Care Students

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Introducing Augsburg Family Scholars with campus photo in the backgroundAugsburg University is launching a new program to beat the odds for students with foster care backgrounds. With funding for the program’s initial year from the Sauer Family Foundation, the Augsburg Family Scholars program aims to reduce students’ financial vulnerabilities, nurture their academic progress, and build community throughout their college journey.

“Students with foster care backgrounds have extraordinary strengths and capabilities. But because of the opportunity gap, less than three percent of youth who age out of foster care will earn a college degree,” said Tim Pippert, the Joel Torstenson endowed professor of sociology at Augsburg, who developed the program and will serve as its faculty mentor. “To help students succeed, we need to invest in meeting their unique needs for stability and community once they get to college.” 

Augsburg Family Scholars layers comprehensive support on top of Minnesota’s Fostering Independence Higher Education Grant, a new state initiative that covers tuition, room and board, and fees for students who were in the Minnesota foster care system after age 13.

Augsburg’s program targets the complex challenges young adults with foster care backgrounds face in higher education. Participants will have access to guaranteed year-round housing, support for food and other basic needs when school is not in session, help navigating public assistance programs, and access to a laptop. The program also seeks to strengthen a sense of community from the outset, offering help moving to campus and outfitting students’ living spaces, regular cohort events, and opportunities to participate in peer mentoring and leadership activities. Academically, participants will benefit from a dedicated faculty mentor and support to explore undergraduate research programs and post-graduate options.

“College is a privilege,” said Justin Tverberg, a junior exercise science major from Hastings, MN, and a linebacker on Augsburg’s football team. “But my freshman year was the covid year, and it was a very tough time. I moved off campus sophomore year to save money. Then this new program came out, and I thought, I can get a restart on campus and enjoy my experience. Literally, my mouth dropped. This puts me in a position where I can go to college almost stress-free.”

“The state grant is a fantastic step forward, but cost is only one barrier,” said Katie Bishop, Augsburg’s vice president for student experience and success. “Augsburg Family Scholars is a promise to these students that their specific gifts and challenges are seen, valued, and supported on our campus.”

“The Sauer Family Foundation is excited to support the creation of the Augsburg Family Scholars Program to help students with foster care backgrounds not only make a successful transition from high school to college but also to complete their college degree,” said Colleen O’Keefe, executive director of the foundation.

This summer, the Sauer Family Foundation awarded Augsburg a $53,000 grant to support the initial program cohort this fall. Both new and returning students are eligible to participate.

Learn more at augsburg.edu/augsburgfamilyscholars.

Congratulations to Auggies Named to the 2022 Spring Semester Dean’s List

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University SealMore than 850 Augsburg University undergraduate students were named to the 2022 Spring Semester Dean’s List. The Augsburg University Dean’s List recognizes those full-time students who have achieved a grade point average of 3.50 or higher and those part-time students who have achieved a grade point average of 3.75 or higher in a given term.

View the 2022 Spring Semester Dean’s List.

Students who wish to notify their hometown newspapers of their achievement can do so at their discretion using a news announcement template.

Alyssa Parkhurst ’23 Named 2022 Udall Scholar

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Alyssa ParkhurstAlyssa Parkhurst, a senior majoring in environmental studies and American Indian studies, has been named a 2022 Udall Scholar. Only 55 students across the United States are selected each year, and Parkhurst is only the second Auggie ever to have received this scholarship.

As a Udall Tribal Public Policy Scholar, Parkhurst will receive $7,000 and spend five days in Tucson, Arizona, at Scholar Orientation, where she will extend her professional network, meet other scholars and alumni, and learn new skills.

The Udall Foundation awards scholarships to college sophomores and juniors for leadership, public service, and commitment to issues related to Native American nations or to the environment.

Parkhurst is an Act Six Scholar, summer intern and farmer at Dream of Wild Health, environmental stewardship coordinator at Augsburg, oshkaabewis (ceremonial helper) to her Elder, Noodinesiikwe, and an old-style jingle dress dancer and educator. Congratulations, Alyssa!

Learn more about the 2022 Udall Scholars.

Augsburg University Honors Nurses for Excellence in Transcultural Care

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Two headshots of dark-haired, smiling women. Valerie DeCora Guimaraes (on the left) is wearing a red-striped shirt. Jenna Nelson is wearing a black shirt and gray cardigan.
Augsburg nursing students Valerie DeCora Guimaraes (left) and Jenna Nelson.

Jenna Nelson and Valerie DeCora Guimaraes, two nurses pursuing advanced degrees at Augsburg University, have received the inaugural Nilsson Transcultural Nurse of the Year Award. Transcultural nursing emphasizes care in culturally diverse settings, including outreach to people who are underserved by traditional care systems and who exist outside of the social mainstream. The award is named for professor emerita Beverly Nilsson, who chaired Augsburg’s Department of Nursing and championed care for people living in poverty.

Nelson has spent the majority of her career working with marginalized communities as an emergency department nurse. While working to become a family nurse practitioner, she has engaged extensively as an intern and volunteer at Augsburg’s Health Commons. These nurse-led drop-in sites provide hospitality and care to guests from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, many of whom are unhoused or living with mental illness. When the pandemic closed the drop-in locations, Nelson joined a team making weekly food deliveries to local encampments. “Jenna truly accompanies people on their journeys, wherever the path may bring her,” said Health Commons Executive Director Katie Clark.

Guimaraes is the Mayo Clinic’s first Patient Experience Ambassador to work solely with Native American patients. In this role she works to dispel myths about Native American patients and educates colleagues across the Mayo enterprise about health disparities and spiritual care practices. She established a medication initiative to coordinate care with the Indian Health Service upon patient discharge from Mayo, developed a Native American family fund to address food and transportation needs, and successfully advocated to hire additional Native American Patient Navigators in Minnesota and Arizona. “These successes for Native American patients have not been easy,” said Guimaraes, who is pursuing a doctor of nursing practice degree at Augsburg. “It is my passion to help my people that keeps me going.”

Augsburg offers a comprehensive set of programs for nurses who want to advance their careers, including bachelor’s degree completion, master of arts in nursing, and doctor of nursing practice. Health equity and inclusion have been a major focus of the curriculum and experiential learning both locally and globally since the program’s founding. Augsburg’s doctor of nursing practice was one of the nation’s first programs to focus on transcultural nursing leadership.

Learn more about Augsburg’s nursing programs and Health Commons sites.

Advisory: Augsburg Celebrates Classes of 2022, 2021, and 2020 at In-Person Commencement

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Augsburg UniversityAugsburg University will celebrate the classes of 2022, 2021, and 2020 at an in-person commencement ceremony at U.S. Bank Stadium in downtown Minneapolis on Wednesday, May 4 at 6:00 p.m.

Augsburg’s commencement ceremony reflects the diversity of its community, as graduates traditionally wear stoles and cords of different colors that represent affiliation with various communities and programs. Flags displayed at commencement represent sovereign nations of American Indian students and countries of the international students graduating in the ceremony.

Tickets are required to attend in person, but the ceremony will also be live streamed via YouTube. Follow the celebration through the hashtag #AuggieGrad on all social media platforms, where students will be sharing images of the celebration.

For more information, including accessibility information, visit the commencement website.

Augsburg Student Justin Holewa ’23 Wins Boren Scholarship

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Justin Holewa ’23Augsburg University biology major Justin Holewa ’23 has received a $25,000 Boren Scholarship to study Korean in South Korea for a full year.

Boren Scholars study a wide range of critical languages, come from diverse fields of study, and immerse themselves in the language and cultures of selected world regions through study abroad. Scholarship recipients make a commitment to work in the U.S. federal government for a minimum of one year. Having recently completed a summer of research under the mentorship of Dr. Leon van Eck, Holewa envisions working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including on a plant disease called citrus greening.

An initiative of the U.S. Defense Language and National Security Education Office, the Boren awards focus on geographic areas, languages, and fields of study critical to U.S. national security that are not emphasized in other U.S. study abroad programs. Applicants are selected through a national merit-based competition that emphasizes both academic achievement and a strong commitment to public service.

Augsburg Sociology Students Visit Holocaust Museum

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Fourteen Augsburg sociology students recently joined the Jewish Community Relations Council’s annual trip to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Tim Pippert, the Joel Torstenson endowed professor of sociology, led the Augsburg group, who were also joined by a group from Minnesota Hillel.

“For us, it provided the opportunity to show how sociology is applicable in lots of different ways,” Pippert said in an interview with TC Jewfolk about the group’s experience. “So I asked [the students] to think about this trip and the experience in the museum, as how does their sociological training inform what they witnessed? How did the theories that they’ve read about, how does that play out in the symbolic representation of a horrific tragedy? How do you choose to tell that story? And what are the symbols that are used to tell that story?”

Pa Her ’23 Named Newman Civic Fellow

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Pa Her '23Pa Her ’23 is one of 173 students from the United States and Mexico who have been named 2022-23 Newman Civic Fellows by Campus Compact. Her received the fellowship in recognition of her contributions to ​​community building, equity, and food justice through her work with Augsburg’s Campus Kitchen and Campus Cupboard, as well as her leadership of Augsburg’s work on a National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant focused on food access research, advocacy, and service.

“In response to food insecurity made worse by the pandemic, Pa and the team built new partnerships with food providers and community-based organizations to make fresh, healthy food available to neighbors and students,” wrote Augsburg President Paul C. Pribbenow in Her’s fellowship nomination. “Pa shows up to work every day eager to collaborate, solve problems, and do whatever is needed to best serve students and our surrounding community.”

The Newman Civic Fellowship recognizes students who stand out for their commitment to creating positive change in communities locally and around the world. Fellows benefit from learning and networking opportunities, including the two-day Annual Convening of Fellows.