This video was created as a public thank you to the anonymous donors who generously funded the Bernhard M. Christensen Professor of Religion and Vocation at Augsburg University.
Watch this video with audio descriptions at https://youtu.be/xuAZEwYDcm4
The Agre legacy at Augsburg University is well-established. The late Courtland L. Agre accepted the position of chairperson in the chemistry department in 1959 and became a beloved professor, inspiring hundreds of admiring students to stake out careers in science. His lessons were not lost on his three sons, all of whom majored in chemistry: Nobel prize winner Peter Agre ’70, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute; Jim Agre ’72, professor of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Minnesota; and Mark Agre ’81, a rehabilitation medicine specialist in St. Paul. (Their sister, Annetta Agre ’69, majored in elementary education and taught in the Minneapolis school system.)
So when Jim Agre and his wife, Brenda Gauvin-Chadwick, designated a planned gift of $1.25 million to Augsburg in their estate, it certainly fit the family tradition. But this couple also has deeply personal reasons for committing their funds to the StepUP program. Alcoholism contributed to the early deaths of Jim’s first wife and Brenda’s sister.
“We saw how awful the disease of addiction can be. Now we are in a position to be able to give back,” says Jim, who also serves on StepUP’s board of directors. “The StepUP program offers recovering students an opportunity to regain control of their lives and become fulfilled and productive citizens.”
Health and wellness have long been a touchstone for him. He majored in biology and chemistry and participated in team sports; both he and Peter joined Augsburg’s original men’s soccer team in 1968. After graduating at the end of soccer season a few years later, Jim spent five months in Hamburg, Germany, where he played on a Hamburg soccer team, brushed up on his German language skills, and worked at a light fixture manufacturing plant.
He came home to attend the University of Minnesota medical school, then one of the few in the country that offered a specialty in physical medicine and rehabilitation. He recalls being drawn to that specialty because its treatments were focused on the recovery of individuals who had experienced severe loss of function due to medical illness. Becoming part of the medical team that restores function and quality of life to those individuals proved very fulfilling.
“As I look back on my career, I am very happy with the decision I made,” he says.
Jim plans to retire this spring but has no plans to slow down. He takes Swedish classes and returns often to Sweden and Norway to visit family and participate in cross-country ski competitions; he and his wife are both avid skiers. At home, he takes part in Loppet Nordic Racing at Theodore Wirth Park.
He also remains connected to Augsburg. Back in medical school, he coached men’s soccer after his classes and labs were done for the day. Last fall, he volunteered as an assistant coach. “It was nice to see those young boys so full of enthusiasm and energy,” he says.
The supportive environment he encountered on campus 50 years ago has not changed, he adds. Although he had considered attending the University of California, Berkeley, where he lived with his family while his father was on sabbatical, he feels blessed to have chosen the smaller school. “Even as a freshman, I knew my professors, and I could go to them if I had questions or a problem. They knew me as a person, not just a number in a class. That personal touch was very helpful.”
The sense of caring still pervades the campus, creating a firm foundation for StepUP, one of the first comprehensive programs in the country to emphasize and support students in recovery. Services range from sober living space to sobriety pledges to counseling as needed. “They are helping folks who have various challenges that the average student doesn’t have. It makes me feel good to be a part of Augsburg,” Jim says, “and doing wonderful things to help folks along also helps our society.”
A serial entrepreneur who relishes new challenges and opportunities to share his leadership expertise, John Fahlberg ’68 has not forgotten what it is like to work hard, play hard, and struggle to afford a college education. He and his wife have designated $375,000 as a planned gift to establish the John A. and Martha C. Fahlberg Scholarship, which will support students who have financial need and enjoy participating in extracurricular activities.
Extracurricular activities marked Fahlberg’s early life, but they were not always the fun kind. Yes, he played sports as far back as he can remember, and he was happy to serve as student council president and captain of the football team. But he also started pumping gas at his father’s filling station at age 13, shoveled snow, and did whatever odd jobs needed doing in the small town of Alexandria, where his family moved when he was in the third grade. He also spent a college summer as a spot welder on the assembly line at the Ford plant in St. Paul.
“I learned about the world of hard work at a very young age, and it stuck with me my whole life. I was very lucky. I chose the right parents,” says Fahlberg, who is now a business consultant and executive coach in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. “My dad was a stoic Swede and my mom an outgoing Norwegian. They married in the early ‘30s, during the Depression, and they had a rough life. They never got a chance to finish college, but they taught me great values.”
One of those values was education, of course. Sportsmanship was another. Both Fahlberg and his brother, ten years his senior, were very competitive and became outstanding athletes, following in their father’s footsteps. Fahlberg’s prowess in football and baseball attracted offers from several good liberal arts colleges. He chose Augsburg because he wanted to live in the “big city” and “hit it off immediately” with the late, legendary coach Edor Nelson ’38. A scholarship paid his tuition.
Fahlberg pitched baseball for the Auggies throughout his college years and earned several division honors as football quarterback. He was inducted into the Auggie Hall of Fame—a surprise he was not expecting—in 2001. “In retrospect, it was a great four years, and the late ‘60s was an interesting time, to say the least,” he says, recalling Seven Corners and the funky Cedar-Riverside neighborhood during that turbulent time. “I got a good education on all fronts.”
A business administration major, he grew fond of assistant professor Bruce Budge, who “really looked after us, really cared about us,” and treasured his connection with the late Jeroy Carlson ’48, “one of those genuinely great, warm human beings who supported any and all of us. He made the Augsburg experience a real plus.” These and other faculty members became a community of friends who shared the value system his parents had instilled in him: treating people fairly and well, respecting honesty and diligence, admitting mistakes, trying again after failing, doing the right thing no matter what.
Those values would also serve Fahlberg well in the business world. Getting a job was difficult in the late ‘60s, but a chance opening in the University of Minnesota’s MBA program gave him a degree and 15 job offers from around the country two years later. His financial planning and analytic skills took him to Exxon in Houston before friends eventually convinced him to move back to snow country. He joined Target, where he met his wife, Marty, and became director of accounting by the time he was 31. Preferring scrappy start-ups to large corporations, however, he quit to embark on an eclectic entrepreneurial journey that took him from freight services (Murphy Transportation) to supercomputers (Zycad, where he became CEO), retail signage (Insignia Systems), and golf courses (LinksCorp).
Tired of long winters at last, Fahlberg and his wife decamped to Chapel Hill 19 years ago, although they return to Alexandria every summer. He stays busy as an angel investor, a member of several boards, and a coach who helps young executives plumb their strengths and weaknesses.
“We all have our ups and downs, but I have always felt that if I do it right, even if I fail, then I will be all right. My Augsburg experience really helped me solidify my values and live my life. I have never wavered from that,” says Fahlberg. “I can’t think of anything better than to help students get into and get through Augsburg University.”
With his planned gift to Augsburg University’s music department, Duane Esterly ’75 has come full circle in his musical life, helping to ensure that future students who share his passion can pursue similar dreams.
By the time he reached fourth grade, Esterly had teaching goals clearly in sight. A church choir director had named him a boy soprano and instilled in him a love for music, and his parents sang in the senior choir at Calvary Lutheran Church of Golden Valley, where he took organ lessons as a high school sophomore from the church organist. The senior choir at Calvary was directed by Dr. William Halverson, professor of philosophy at Augsburg from 1959 to 1967, and often performed anthems by Leland Sateren ’35, who headed Augsburg’s music department from 1950 to 1973 and directed the choir until retiring in 1979. By the time Esterly was ready to choose a college, it was evident that Augsburg was “a good place to get a music degree.”
Such a pursuit was “challenging then. They had nowhere near the facilities they do now,” Esterly recalls. In those days the music department was housed in a group of renovated churches deeded to Augsburg by dwindling congregations. Recitals were held in an old white church where one could also hear toilets flushing throughout the building. The organ studio was housed in a converted grocery store, and the band building was located across the freeway on Franklin Avenue in another former church with a questionable heating system during the winter months.
“By the time I graduated in 1975, I figured the college had better do something about their facilities in order to stay competitive,” says Esterly.
His music education, however, was top-notch. He took voice lessons, sang in the choir, and learned much about choral technique, conducting, and interpreting text through music. As a senior, he directed the student production of Oklahoma, facing the formidable task of turning the old music building into a theater in a mere three weeks. He made good friends, such as Peter Hendrickson ’76, who became artistic director of the Masterworks Chorale and recruited Esterly, who sang for the Chorale from 1996 to 2015. “I’m very appreciative of the tools I learned while at Augsburg. They taught me quality, first and foremost,” he says.
Esterly worked in sales administration, market research, training, and finance with such companies as Sandoz, Novartis, and Nestle for 35 years, but he never left music behind. For 27 years he taught privately—adults mostly, whom he deems often more difficult than elementary or high school students. He has held church music positions with various congregations throughout his working life, and, since retiring from the business world in 2016, he claims he is now “down to one job.” That means working with three different churches at present, fulfilling principal organist duties at each on alternating Sundays, directing a vocal choir and a handbell choir, and being on call for plenty of weddings and funerals.
When he is not working on choral arrangements for his choirs in his home office in Plymouth, Esterly fills his time with books, concerts, plays, flower and auto shows (in season), and dining out with friends. Because he has no children to inherit his financial legacy, he has chosen Augsburg’s music department as one of its worthy recipients. “I am so pleased to see what’s happening there now. Almost all the professors I had are no longer living and my contemporaries are retiring, but I am very impressed with what I currently see,” he says. “Their degree of dedication is deep, and I believe in all the possibilities they can offer to the students to come.”
Checking your email can get tedious, right? But for two Augsburg students, the digital chore yielded unexpected benefits. Informed that they had been selected as recipients of this year’s Augsburg Women Engaged (AWE) scholarships, they registered both shock and delight.
“I was very, very surprised. It was not something I had applied for, so I was very excited to hear I got it,” says Nayra Rios ’20. After earning an associate degree at Century College in White Bear Lake, she decided to transfer to Augsburg to major in biopsychology, the next step on her way to becoming a physician’s assistant. Unfortunately, the deadline for obtaining a transfer scholarship had passed.
“I was disappointed, but I figured I would just have to find other ways to pay for school. Then a month later, this email arrived,” Rios says. She was familiar with financial challenges. Her parents are laborers who grew up in Mexico but immigrated to California, where they met, married, and had three children. They moved to Minnesota when Rios was seven years old. She attended a charter school for Hispanic students before transferring to Tartan High school in Oakdale, a transition that carried its own culture shock. But Rios found friends and pursued academic success.
Although her older brother is now pursuing a degree in law enforcement, she was the first in her family to attend college. As a child, she had encountered health issues that scared her, but compassionate treatment relieved that fear; she has wanted to pursue a career in health care ever since.
“My parents always supported my dreams,” she says. They had their own dreams—her mother wanted to be a nurse and her father a lawyer—but lacked resources. In Mexico, she points out, families had to pay for everything related to school: books, uniforms, etc. These days, Rios helps support herself through her off-campus work with STAR Services, which supports young people with disabilities.
She has enjoyed meeting the women involved with AWE, which was formed in 2009 to unite women with shared interests and passions through events, mentorship, and philanthropy. “They are very kind, and they made me feel important,” says Rios.
Her sentiments are echoed by Sydney Fields ’22, who describes her benefactors as “really cool.” She, too, was surprised by the scholarship award, although she recalls meeting the person who recommended her through a multicultural diversity engagement group. A graduate of Champlin High School in Brooklyn Park, she chose Augsburg for its diversity, its proximity to home, and a chance to play on the basketball team. She is #10, a guard.
“I love playing at Augsburg. It’s such a welcome and supportive program,” she says. And although she got good grades in high school and was expecting to work hard at college, she was not quite prepared for the amount of schoolwork she would encounter. Studying, on top of basketball practice and her work as a housing specialist, “gets really exhausting!”
With four older and two younger siblings, all of whom have or are pursuing some sort of college degree, Fields did come to Augsburg prepared with goals. Currently a finance major and management minor, she wants to launch two businesses. One would be a college prep class for teens, to help them prepare for the onslaught of responsibility she is discovering. The other would be a nonprofit 24-hour childcare center, designed for low-income families who need extra help because they work nights or have other scheduling challenges.
As she navigates her college years, Fields is grateful not only for the financial support AWE has provided, but also for the connection to people who understand the various situations she will experience at Augsburg. “We participants know we have a resource in this group of women. They will help us with anything we need.”
Lisa Zeller ‘81 has long been a vocal and enthusiastic fan of Augsburg. She was part of the first class to complete the Master of Arts in Leadership (MAL) degree in 1989, and she was a founding member of Augsburg Women Engaged (AWE). She volunteers regularly for both and supports their fundraising initiatives regularly. But her latest effort—to support the endowed AWE scholarship with a substantial estate gift—is born of a deeper connection.
The first in her family to attend college, Lisa did not have the usual college experience. Shared dorm or house living, evening study sessions, weekend parties, and fun with friends were not for her. Her mother was a single parent who “struggled her whole life. Money was always a worry,” Lisa recalls. Yet “my earliest memories are of her instilling in my sister and me that we get an education and become self-sufficient. She planted those seeds early and strong.”
At church, Lisa had noticed two posters, one for Pacific Lutheran University and the other for Augsburg. Pacific Lutheran was too far away, so Augsburg became her alma mater. But tight finances meant she was living at home, working several jobs, getting parking tickets on a regular basis, and devoting all spare time to her studies. “I was shy and introverted, although I loved college. The one thing I regret is that I had no social life. I think that is actually a big part of why I’m involved now.”
Lisa majored in communications and religion, the latter surprising her. While taking the requisite classes, she discovered that she loved studying religion and philosophy that went beyond Lutheranism and Christianity. Undecided about her future, she considered going into the ministry until one of her business professors explained that “the business world needs good, ethical people, too.” She pursued an advanced business degree elsewhere but found that accounting and statistics classes felt “like sticking needles in my eyes. I hated every second.” Augsburg, on the other hand, was “talking about creativity and a whole new liberal arts approach to leadership. If I could have designed my own program, MAL would have been it.”
As part of the first cohort, Lisa made the lasting friendships and connections she missed the first time around. “It was such a great experience,” she says. “I give so much credit to Augsburg for my self-discovery and becoming who I am today. No one had told me I was smart before. Augsburg helped me cultivate my passion and interests.”
She embarked on an eclectic business career and in 1994 founded the Phaedrus Group, a training and consulting firm she still runs with her husband. As a member of AWE, Lisa has observed that women approach philanthropy differently from men, seeking more connection with causes and recipients. Her planned gift to the AWE endowed scholarship provides just that. This scholarship exists to support Auggie women, especially those who are first-generation, students of color, or other underserved populations, so perhaps they will be able to earn a degree without giving up friends and fun. It is her way of paying it forward.
“I’ve had an opportunity to meet the first two AWE scholars, and these young women inspire me and give me hope for the future. It is so fun to cheer on this generation of women!”
In memory of his parents and in celebration of his brother, Augsburg professor emeritus Stuart Anderson, Brian J. Anderson ’82 and his wife, Leeann M. Rock ’81, are donating $50,000 to endow a scholarship designed to encourage future students’ “rigorous education and academic excellence.” Yet the rich legacy that accompanies this gift goes far beyond those lofty goals.
Brian’s father, the late Dr. Raymond E. Anderson, joined Augsburg in 1949 as a speech and communications professor, helping to establish the department now called Communication Studies, Film, and New Media. Students adored his wry sense of humor as well as his warmth and compassion. He made his speech classes “fun” while maintaining high standards.
“He was very committed to his students, but he demanded the best from them,” says Brian, naming several who used those formative public speaking classes to build acclaimed careers: the late U.S. Representative Martin Sabo, who served Minnesota’s 5th District for 14 terms; Rev. Mark Hanson, former presiding bishop of the ELCA; and Minnesota District Court Judge Bev Benson. “He was also committed to honesty and integrity. When a student once admitted almost proudly that she would say anything in a job interview just to get the job, my father explained that if he were asked to write a recommendation letter, he would disclose that fact to the interviewer. He had standards, and he stuck to them.”
Brian remembers his dad coming home and “working like a dog” till 9:30 at night, listening to speeches so he could grade and return them promptly. Brian also remembers him confessing that he loved his job so much that he felt guilty getting paid to do it. A man with many interests, including trumpet, piano, painting, woodworking, and writing, Ray retired in 1990 and died in 2013.
Brian’s mother, the late Margaret J. Anderson, joined Augsburg in 1967, using her master’s degree in library science and the college’s limited resources to make Augsburg’s library the best it could be. She became library director in 1977, and, after retiring in 1990, continued to volunteer for cataloging and archiving projects. She, too, was known for diligence and deep commitment to community and family as well as her own violin, cuisine, and literary pursuits. She died in 2017.
That Brian should follow his older brother, Stu, to Augsburg is little wonder. Stu was to become a physics professor; Brian majored in math, physics, and religion. In recent years, Brian strongly supported the Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion and has followed closely Stu’s leadership challenges and successes with its development. “All of my majors were right there, which made it special. It was fun to be in on it from the inside,” says Brian.
During college, grammar had not been Brian’s strong suit. He confessed his strategy in freshman English: “raise your hand immediately if you knew the answer so later the teacher would skip you when you did not.” The girl who sat behind him, alphabetically in Old Main’s narrow classroom, always knew the answers, he reports. That was his future wife, Leeann Rock ’81, who had accompanied a friend pursuing a music major to Augsburg’s Discovery Day. Leeann had planned to attend a different college, but when she heard biology professor Neal Thorpe speak, she was hooked.
Brian earned his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Minnesota in 1987 and taught briefly at Augsburg before joining The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where he often hosted summer interns referred by Augsburg physics professor Mark J. Engebretson. Leeann obtained her M.D., also from the University of Minnesota, and is a pathologist at Frederick Memorial Hospital. Now living in Mount Airy, Maryland, both want to honor Brian’s parents, who were so instrumental on campus during their lives. Endowing a scholarship seems like a natural next step, Brian says. “It’s a formal way of maintaining our relationship with Augsburg while ensuring more opportunities for students in the future.”
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.”
Genocide in Darfur. United Nations peacekeeping missions in Syria. Those were only two of the relevant issues Grant Dasher tackled while on the debate team at Edina High School. But they made a lasting impression.
“Those issues are still relevant today, unfortunately,” says Dasher, whose positive experience in the debate world has prompted him to donate $10,000 to endow Augsburg University’s Minnesota Urban Debate League. About half of his donation will be matched by his employer.
The opportunity to learn about topics that are both interesting and important to society is just one of the many benefits debate offers, Dasher explains. It also develops critical thinking skills, expands global knowledge, and provides a chance to become active in the school community. As with sports, debating in a league that also promises tournaments, awards, and trophies simply makes it more fun.
“Research suggests that students who debate often pursue higher education and have better outcomes. There’s even evidence that debate may foster higher learning potential,” adds Dasher, who earned a math degree at Harvard, consulted with the U.S. Digital Service at the White House, and is now a senior staff software engineer at Google. He also notes the positive effects debate has had on his career, as it has helped him work through issues, manage people, and articulate ideas clearly.
After graduating from college, Dasher became involved in Boston’s Urban Debate League, where he enjoyed meeting with and coaching the students as well as judging the debates. Now a resident of the Bay Area, he wanted to extend the same opportunities to students in his home state.
Dasher has fond memories of his debate coach, Joe Schmitt, a labor and employment attorney at Nilan Johnson Lewis, Minneapolis. “He was a great coach. Although we had good relationships with our parents, he was a second father figure to all of us on the team. And we were pretty successful,” says Dasher, who won the state tournament with his partner. “He taught us learning skills and how to be effective. He also taught us how to use debate to become a better person. It was not just a competitive thing.”
Both Dasher and Schmitt are strong supporters of Augsburg’s MN UDL program, which debuted in 2004 and now supports more than 900 students at 39 partner schools across the Twin Cities. Led by executive director Amy Cram Helwich and faculty advisor Robert Groven, an Augsburg communication studies professor, the MN UDL boasts a 100 percent on-time high school graduation rate and 99 percent college acceptance rate among its debaters. The Augsburg Promise Scholarship also offers incoming first-year students full tuition if they have debated for three or more years, have a GPA of at least 3.25 and an ACT score of 20 or more, and are eligible for a Pell Grant.
“Debate is really valuable to people. I have seen firsthand the impact it can have on kids,” Dasher says. “I wanted to help the kids in Minnesota, both in rural areas and in the Cities, have that same experience I have had and seen.”
Endowed by two doctors who met in medical school and want to include Augsburg University in their estate plan, the Rachel and Bruce A. Julian Scholarship will help yet another generation of chemistry majors follow their dreams.
Rachel Hendrickson Julian ’71 grew up in Clarkfield, a small southwestern Minnesota farming town where her father was the Lutheran minister and her mother an elementary school teacher. Both had attended Gustavus Adolphus College and valued education highly, although their finances could not cover college expenses for five children. Their oldest followed their footsteps, but the other four, including middle child Rachel, chose Augsburg for its more traditional values and culture.
Scholarship support was essential. A chemistry major, Rachel admired the school’s top ranking in that field as well as its excellent teachers. One of her favorite professors was Dr. John Holum, who taught chemistry from 1957 until his 1993 retirement and was known for his kindness and generosity as well as teaching excellence and commitment to service. He inspired many, including Rachel’s classmate, Peter Agre ’70, who later won a Nobel Prize in the field.
But Rachel soon found that one major was not enough. She added music.
“I wanted to go to medical school, but I also starting taking organ lessons. I had played piano since I was 6, and I fell in love with the organ. It was practical, too, since I could earn extra money playing on weekends,” she says. “I was very, very busy.”
Armed with her double major and again aided by scholarships, Rachel earned her M.D. at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “My med school preparation at Augsburg was very good. It not only helped me get in, but also prepared me to thrive in that environment,” she says. It was there that she met her husband, Bruce, an Indiana native with similar values and background.
“We have always been interested in education,” says Bruce, the grandson of a Methodist minister. “My father was an adjunct college professor, and although my mother did not complete college, she was a stickler for grammar and word choice. She used to cringe at newscasters.” He notes that Rachel’s siblings also “speak fondly and highly of Augsburg, which is literally in the shadow of the University of Minnesota. But any school with a Nobel winner must have something going for it.” In addition to Augsburg, the couple will donate to their medical school alma mater as well as Berea College, which serves Appalachia area students and is located near Lexington, Kentucky, where the Julians completed their medical training and practiced for several years.
Affiliated with the University of Alabama Birmingham since 1984, Bruce is a professor emeritus of medicine in nephrology and Rachel an assistant professor of psychiatry. They have four children and four grandchildren. Rachel is also an ordained Methodist minister who serves in the church-sponsored counseling center and still plays the organ, too, monthly at the local Lutheran church and yearly in a family recital that includes her older son on piano, her older daughter on organ, and one of their twins on French horn.
Rachel returns occasionally to Augsburg, such as in 2013, when she served on a science symposium panel. “The campus has changed a lot. Some of my old haunts, like the organ studio, are gone now. But I am amazed at the serious research the students are doing now, and doing very well,” she says, recalling her participation in summer research programs. “It goes way beyond anything we could have imagined. It really matters for something.”
And for a future chemistry student who needs financial help, the Rachel and Bruce A. Julian Scholarship will really matter, too.
