Professor Amin Kader honored by his department

Professor Amin Kader was honored on March 11 by the Department of Business Administration for his role in founding the department and in serving for 16 years as the department's first chair. In his honor and to his surprise, an Amin E. Kader Business Scholarship was established by his faculty colleagues, friends, and alumni.

Department of Business Administration chair John Cerrito spoke about the significant role Kader played in building the foundation and leading the growth of the department over the past two decades, and of the atmosphere of respect and dignity that he fostered among faculty and students.

Kader's leadership as chair, followed by that of Milo Schield and John Cerrito, has helped the department grow to be the largest major at Augsburg College, currently with 716 majors.

From card catalogs to art catalogs

Bill Wittenbreer, reference librarian at Lindell Library, works all day with words, but it's visual images that occupy much of his free time—especially Minnesota landscapes. Wittenbreer is co-curator of the current exhibit at the Minnesota Museum of American Art, "An Artist's Paradise: Minnesota Landscapes 1840-1940." This exhibit, for which he researched and located works, contains some images painted by visiting artists seeking the "exotic" on the mid-19th century northern plains, as well as commissioned works portraying the growing prosperity of Minnesota's cultural centers.

This is Wittenbreer's first adventure as an art curator. His interest in Midwest history, culture, and politics for many years was focused in literature, perusing old diaries and items of literary historical interest. About a decade ago, however, at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, he saw an exhibit about art and life of the Upper Mississippi, and began appreciating and seeking Minnesota landscapes, especially those depicting Minnehaha Falls.

He was drawn to works at the Minnesota Museum of American Art in St. Paul, and became a volunteer in the library and a docent, and more recently has worked with the museum's curator, who invited him to collaborate on the current exhibit.

He began this project by considering attitudes held by Minnesotans toward their landscape over a century, and how national trends played into the state's artistic history. He sought to discover how deep and how strong the influences were—in other words, how they played out here, he said. He then researched catalogs and vendors to find works for the exhibit.

His own collection includes seven or eight images of Minnehaha Falls, from a small, romantic Currier and Ives print to a more contemporary wood block print. The exhibit runs through June 22.

Looking closely at Shakespeare

English professor Doug Green joined teachers and researchers from across the country at the annual meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America in April. There, he participated in a workshop to examine small portions of texts in Shakespeare's plays, not for understanding of the play, but for the language itself, in isolation from the play¹s meaning. The workshop was led by Professor Stephen Booth, a Shakespearean sonnet expert from University of California-Berkeley.

Learning to read the numbers

Two years ago, business administration professor Milo Schield received a $500,000 grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation to develop statistical literacy as an interdisciplinary curriculum in the liberal arts.

In terms of student learning, becoming statistically literate means gaining understanding of the use of statistics as evidence in an argument. In an age of numbers and technical information, it means helping students to develop a comfort level in the use of statistics in much the same way they become comfortable using words.

As part of the Keck grant, Joel Best, author of Damned Lies and Statistics, visited Augsburg in November to meet with faculty and students in several departments and give an invited talk.

Students reported that while Best's book takes a somewhat cynical look at the use of statistics, it helped them become more aware of what they read. "Within 24 hours of reading the book, I found myself questioning statistics being thrown around by the current crop of [political] candidates," said student Jim Humbert.

Schield is collaborating with faculty in several departments to develop teaching materials to include a greater focus in the statistics curriculum on reading and interpreting data. Schield has also collaborated with the Royal Statistical Centre for Statistical Education at the University of Nottingham-Trent. Peter Holmes, a senior researcher there, visited Augsburg in late March to review Augsburg's curriculum.

A coral reef aquarium for neighborhood kids

Back in 1999, when biology professor William Capman set up the two coral reef aquaria in the biology department, he probably had no idea where this project would lead.
One direction it led was right into the neighborhood, to the Seward Montessori School, where he has worked with staff to build aquaria for their science classrooms. The first project was a small, low-budget tank furnished with spare parts from Augsburg's biology department.

Over the past year, however, he has helped construct and populate a reef system containing live corals in a much larger 70-gallon, four-foot long tank. "We had our share of problems for a while—the water was pea soup green with algae for six months before we figured out what the problem was," said Capman, "but we did a 'transfusion' of sorts from our tanks at Augsburg ... and we fixed a problem with their water purifier." Since last fall, he said, the tank has been "beautiful and healthy."

The Web site that Capman created for the biology department's aquaria has attracted attention from an active community of reefkeepers who share their knowledge and ideas, as well as offer materials and funding where needed. For Seward Montessori School, Capman was able to supplement their grant funds with donations of both money and livestock from Augsburg and other reefkeepers to outfit the school's system.

In March Capman led a day-long workshop at Augsburg on marine aquaria for grammar school, middle school, and high school teachers. Six teachers attended, with one bringing a student along, and received continuing education credit for their participation. Among attendees was John Roper-Batker from Seward Montessori, who spoke about his use of the new aquarium in teaching middle school science.