To a humanities scholar like Dal Liddle, $6,000 is a lot of money. Ask him and he’ll joke, in an imitation of Austin Powers’ Dr. Evil, about his glee at receiving such a meager amount compared to the research grants won by his colleagues in the sciences. “Six THOUSAND dollars!”
But that $6,000, in the form of a National Endowment for the Humanities summer stipend, will help Liddle test a hypothesis he’s been formulating for a while. The question: What if literary history turns out to change in some of the same ways that technological history changes? Could the history of novels and poems show some of the same patterns as the history of steam engines, microchips, and jet airplanes? Continue reading “Off to England to test a theory”
It isn’t Commencement, but Saturday, May 22 is almost as significant a day for the members of the Tribal Special Education Cohort that is a partnership between Augsburg and the University of Minnesota-Duluth.
Research isn’t all test tubes and laboratories. This summer at Augsburg, students will create music, study Medieval history, compare Minnesota theatres, and even attempt to determine if a BMI can be established for dogs. For the 2010 URGO summer research projects, students will spend 200 or 400 hours conducting research with faculty from Augsburg and other institutions. Many will present their findings in May 2011 at Zyzzogeton, Augsburg’s year-end festival of academic and artistic achievement. 
In April, 20 Augsburg MBA students led by Professors Magda Paleczny-Zapp and Steven Zitnick embarked on a 9-day international experience to Santiago, Chile. The purpose of the trip was to expose the students to the thriving business climate of Chile and to allow students an opportunity to understand the culture and environment of a South American country that has built a stable, just, and democratic society after nearly 30 years of unrest. 
When hundreds of Augsburg College students don caps and gowns for either the May commencement for Day College and Physician Assistant students or the June commencement for Weekend College and remaining graduate program students, the focus will be on civic engagement.
Professor Tugen Hao heads back to China next week after spending four months at Augsburg as a visiting professor and researcher. During these four months he observed three classes, pursued his own research, and taught Chinese. He found time to travel coast-to-coast, visiting Los Angeles, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C.—and he discovered where to find Chinese food in the Twin Cities. 
From a speech delivered by Peter Miller ’10 at the 2010 scholarship and donor brunch. 
David Tiede is retiring as Augsburg’s Bernhard M. Christensen Chair in Religion and Vocation at the end of this academic year. But he has – in his words – flunked retirement again.
For some of us, civic engagement means participating in the democracy by exercising our right to vote. But others might take the charge to be an active member of a community a bit farther. That’s certainly the case for Nou Chang, the 2010 Day commencement student speaker.
At the recent Honors convocation, the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Office of the Dean recognized the 2010 recipients of awards for Distinguished Contributions to Teaching and Learning.