Becky Bjella Nodland ’79 was once a young person yearning to put her passion for music into practice but lacking the means to do so. Being able to face and overcome that challenge changed her life, just as she hopes the endowed music scholarship that she and her husband, Jeffrey Nodland ’77, are donating will change other young lives.

Growing up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Becky was one of the “middle kids” in a family of eight. All were musicians, but college funds were lacking. Without a “great scholarship—all four years” and robust work-study program, Becky, who played string bass and organ and sang in the Augsburg Concert Choir, could not have attended Augsburg at all. She chose the school because it was then one of only two in the country that offered a music therapy program, which intrigued her.

“Augsburg was so innovative that way,” she recalls. “But the program was so new that it scared me. I talked to the seniors, and they were not finding jobs. I really needed a job when I graduated, so I switched to music education.” Today, of course, music therapy is a vibrant field. “There is a real need for it in the world,” Becky adds, although she has no regrets. Music education proved a flexible and rewarding choice; she taught for 10 years before her son was born. She is a choral arranger, organist, and accompanist as well as a music educator, has directed adult and youth church choirs, and currently serves on Augsburg’s Music Advisory Council. She has also instilled a love for music in her son and daughter, Emily Nodland ’18, an elementary education major.

Her years on campus were a “very positive experience. I made lifelong friends. The professors were incredible and very strong mentors for me,” says Becky, citing choir with Leland Sateren, organ with Stephen “Gabe” Gabrielsen, and orchestra with Robert Karlén, all now deceased but renowned for their decades of service to Augsburg’s music department. She was also involved in Lutheran Youth Encounter, and, as a freshman, met transfer student Jeffrey Nodland, a junior business major immersed in campus leadership activities. After graduating, Jeff attended night classes to earn his MBA at the University of St. Thomas. He and Becky married in 1980.

Jeff spent the first 17 years of his career in various management positions with the Valspar Corporation, which transferred the young family out of Minnesota in 1982. He recently retired as the president and CEO of KIK Custom Products (CIP), one of North America’s largest manufacturers of national-brand consumer products, such as Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, and L’Oreal. Although the Nodlands have lived in The Woodlands, Texas, since 2001, Jeff joined the Augsburg Board of Regents in 2010 and is happy to once again be involved with their alma mater.

“I have been extraordinarily impressed with President Paul Pribbenow’s leadership and how they have leveraged themselves in the marketplace,” Jeff says. Such innovative programs as CLASS (Center for Learning and Accessible Student Services) and StepUP are “very inspiring. It’s so great to see the commitment. Paul has done an amazing job.”

When the couple began talking about endowing a scholarship, music made perfect sense. “Becky got her music degree at Augsburg, and music is a part of my life, too,” says Jeff. Adds Becky: “I am so happy to be able to do it. Hopefully it will help someone else the way someone helped me.”

When Hazen and Kathy Graves toured Augsburg with their son, Sam Graves ’16, they immediately felt they had found the right place. “We were totally impressed,” says Hazen, a retired partner at the Faegre Baker Daniels law firm, where he advised nonprofit organizations and handled legal matters related to charities and charitable giving. “Just walking through the campus, we found students very respectful, friendly, and eager to engage.”

They also found that Augsburg offered the unique assistance Sam needed as a young man with cerebral palsy who uses a power wheelchair. “As we learned more about the support Augsburg offers to students with various kinds of challenges, we came to understand that Augsburg had been doing this for a long time, long before ADA,” says Hazen. “The University’s attitude—that’s the way the world is, here we all are, let’s get on with it—came through loud and clear, and it was reinforced as Sam went through four years there,” he adds.

Education is a high priority for the Graves family. Sam had a very good experience at Minneapolis South High School, where he excelled in academics and played in South’s robust adapted athletics program. After graduation, however, the choices were more difficult.

“Sam is very bright and has always done well in school. One of our goals was to make sure he could really capitalize on that,” says Hazen. He and his wife, Kathy, a principal in the communications and planning firm of Parenteau Graves, quickly learned that not every higher education institution was able to—or even seemingly wanted to–serve students with physical disabilities.

A tour of Augsburg was all it took. Sam agreed with his parents’ assessment and enrolled in 2012. He graduated with a degree in psychology in 2016. Now 26, Sam manages social media and creates digital content for the Minneapolis-based technology company Accessible360. He fondly recalls Augsburg’s CLASS program as well as his favorite teachers, Michael Lansing, Bill Green and especially his advisor, psychology professor Bridget Robinson-Riegler. “She was really fun and really, really smart. Plus she talked about the Twins a lot,” Sam says. An ardent sports fan, he is the co-author of the baseball blog “Two Men On.”

Sam’s parents applaud Augsburg’s “great services, great students, great faculty, and great accommodations made for those with disabilities. And they appeared happy to provide them,” Hazen says. “We had the overarching feeling that Augsburg embraced differences and made sure everyone has an opportunity to get a good education.”

The idea of supporting Augsburg financially occurred to both Hazen and Kathy independently, and they decided to donate $50,000 to endow a scholarship. “This is the most open community that I’ve experienced anywhere, with the possible exception of South High, and it’s pretty clear that this attitude permeates the place,” adds Hazen. “Access to higher education is a big issue, and we’re just doing our little part.”

The difference between college then and college now is a key factor that motivates Tom Peterson ’69 to honor his father by contributing regularly and often to the Clifford A. Peterson Scholarship endowment fund.

“A small scholarship throws off enough to buy books. I would like to get to where I can make a material dent in someone’s tuition,” Tom Peterson says. He figures it takes about a million dollars to fund an endowment that pays for one person’s full scholarship each year, and he speaks with a deep knowledge of finance. As former chief investment officer for the Good Samaritan Society, he was in charge of two privately held mutual funds and managed $1.5 billion in capitalization.

He was not, however, an academic star. “I was an extraordinarily ordinary high school and college student, with average grades at best,” Tom recalls. He grew up in Richfield and initially enrolled at Bemidji State University, which invited him to play on its tennis team. He studied hard there but again earned only average grades, and the tennis team’s mediocre performance coupled with the frigid climate convinced him to move closer to home and enroll at Augsburg, his father’s alma mater.

“My father always held Augsburg in high regard. He used to drag us kids along to basketball, football, and baseball games,” Tom says of Clifford Peterson ‘49, whose successful career included marketing stints at Standard Oil and SuperAmerica as well as nursing home administration in later years. Tom’s younger brother, Jim Peterson ’78, was inducted into the Augsburg Hall of Fame for his prowess in both baseball and hockey.

At Augsburg, Tom majored in finance and sociology and played for two years on winning tennis teams, which placed second in the conference. (His son, Christopher Olson ’91, later lettered four times in tennis at Augsburg.) Tom also graduated in four years with no debt, an accomplishment that seems impossible today. That was college then, when tuition was $1200 a year.

“I put myself through Augsburg, had an apartment off campus, and paid for it all myself,” he says. “I had one of the best jobs a student could have at that time—I drove truck.” He made deliveries throughout the state, working 30 hours a week during school and 60 hours a week during summers and breaks. When he graduated and got his first job as an accountant at Honeywell, he almost had to take a pay cut (but got to work a shorter, 40-hour week).

Even though he would sometimes come home too tired at night to study, he found time to connect with and admire his sociology professor, Joel Torstenson, and several adjunct business professors, one of whom he later mentored in the business world.

“I had good teachers, and they were fun people to be around. Here’s the thing: I felt comfortable there,” Tom says. Now retired and living in Edina, Minnesota, where long walks with his dog have replaced tennis, he recalls, with fondness, those college days in the past. He also remains committed to ensuring that students will be able to meet the financial challenges and enjoy the faculty support at Augsburg in the future.