George Johnson ’65 counts his time at Augsburg as “the days of Courtland Agre.” In those days, Johnson was on a mission to pursue chemistry.
Johnson came to Augsburg determined to do something good with his life, and for the cum laude chemistry graduate from Annandale, Minn., science was the path to that goal. He remembers the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood as a dicier place than the small town where he grew up, and his urban education was eye-opening. The community work he saw happening on and around campus struck a chord with Johnson, who, growing up, was eager to help people. He pursued a career as a research scientist to do what he could to help better lives.
These days, thanks to a mission of another kind, he keeps up with Pakistani English-language newspapers, and has a new perspective on a world he knew nothing about six years ago. He came to know more—and to teach, another thing he’d never done before—when his church in Bethesda, Bradley Hills Presbyterian, connected Johnson and his wife, Leslye, with Forman Christian College University in Lahore, Pakistan.
In January of this year, he helped organize a workshop on chemical pharmacology in Lahore, Pakistan, after he and Leslye spent the past three-and-a-half years teaching in the sciences, from undergraduates to PhD students.
Both hold PhDs in biochemistry, and though they’d never taught before, that didn’t deter the couple who saw their mission trip there as an opportunity to learn about the world as it really is, through direct engagement.
Road to Lahore
After spending more than 35 years at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Maryland, where he worked as a laboratory investigator and as a research grant manager in drug discovery and development, Johnson and Leslye, also a career research scientist, were ready for a new adventure.
They weren’t looking for a cruise. Continue reading “Nothing Retiring About Life after Research”
Early in life, Grace Dyrud tested seven standard deviations above the mean on a measure of endurance, she joked at her retirement reception in May. Dyrud began teaching in the psychology department at Augsburg in 1962, and in more than five decades at Augsburg she exemplified not only endurance but a deep commitment to her students. 
Neil Paulson ’77, a psychology graduate, initiated an effort to honor Dyrud on her retirement from Augsburg with a scholarship for a female psychology student.
