Augsburg Professor Terrance Kwame-Ross and retired Education Department chairwoman Margaret “Peg” Finders noticed their department meetings would get tense at times, the Star Tribune reported July 24.

Kwame-Ross, a Black man in the mostly white and female department, was convinced his race was the reason that his opinions got pushed aside, according to the Star Tribune story. Finders, a white woman leading the department, struggled to navigate the racial tension in their department meetings. They both came together to examine the discomfort with academic rigor. The result is a framework they call “White Talk Moves”, a workshop to address the moves white people make that tend to silence and discount people of color.

Read their interview with the  Star Tribune here.

Jamil Stamschror-Lott ’16 M.S.W., an adjunct professor in Augsburg’s Master of Social Work program, was featured in Diverse Issues in Higher Education on June 17. “How This Minneapolis Man Is Healing Collective Trauma Through Creative Counseling and Mentoring” focuses on his work leading trauma-informed community healing through Creative Kaponya, a therapy practice founded by Stamschror-Lott and his wife, Sara. Speaking about the importance of healing sessions that include meditation, art, and body movement as well as traditional therapy, he said, “Microaggressions and discriminatory encounters can take a mental and physical toll on your body.”

Annie Heiderscheit, director of Augsburg’s Master of Music Therapy program, was one of three featured guests on Angela Davis’ MPR talk show. MPR’s June 1 show focused on the increase in physical pain that many people have experienced during the pandemic. Heiderscheit spoke about how music can help people manage pain and recommended types of music that can be especially helpful.

Augsburg alumni Olivia House ’20 and Silent Fox ’18 were featured in the Pioneer Press story “Billboards across Twin Cities by Augsburg alums promote call for racial justice” on July 1. House and Fox are creators of billboards that memorialize George Floyd and other Black people murdered due to police violence. The billboards will be on display in 30 Twin Cities-area locations through mid-July.

House and Fox worked in partnership with copywriter Jalen Cannon. The project was made possible by a grant from the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation.

The Sun Current also ran a story, “After growing up in Richfield, artist collaborates on racial justice billboards,” which focused on House’s work on the billboard campaign.

Augsburg University is once again set to welcome one of its largest and most diverse classes this fall. Augsburg’s largest incoming class was in Fall 2019, when 636 first-year students enrolled. In 2020, it welcomed its second-largest class. This year’s incoming class is on track to be approximately the same size as the previous two years. 

In addition, the percentage of BIPOC students at Augsburg has increased significantly since 2008. That year, 18% of incoming students identified as BIPOC. More recently, approximately 65% of first-year students have identified as BIPOC.

A recent KARE-11 News report on fall 2021 enrollment at local universities included a brief interview with Robert Gould, Augsburg’s vice president for strategic enrollment management.

The Monitor published “Diverse, record breaking classes at Augsburg,” covering a May 19 speech by President Paul Pribbenow to the Midway Area Chamber of Commerce Leadership Summit. In addition to mentioning three leadership lessons that Pribbenow shared with his audience, the story described Augsburg’s growth, both in terms of diversity and overall numbers, and its community engagement. 

Augsburg had 636 first-year students in fall 2019, its largest entering class. That first year class also reflected more diversity than the decade before; in 2019, 65% of new students identified as BIPOC as compared to 18% in 2008. The university had its second-largest entering class in 2020 and is on track to enroll one of its largest classes again this fall. 

In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, mental health experts have seen a rise in Black people seeking therapy. Jamil Stamschror-Lott ’16 MSW and his wife are the founders of Creative Kuponya, a mental health practice in Minneapolis. They have seen many overwhelmed and exhausted residents.

“We’ve seen everything that the nation has seen from afar, from folks in civil unrest and devastation, despair,” Augsburg Instructor Stamschror-Lott told The New York Times.

Read the full article at The New York Times website.

Margaret Finders, a former professor in Augsburg’s Department of Education, Joaquin Munoz, an assistant professor in the American Indian Studies Department, and Badri Mohamoud ’19 MAE, a licensed secondary mathematics teacher serving as an academic coach at Wellstone International High School, wrote the opinion piece “Think twice, Minnesota teachers, about a ‘cameras on’ rule for remote students” in the Pioneer Press. They explained why “cameras on” rules do not necessarily help with student engagement and how such rules can be culturally insensitive. They offered tips to support engagement during remote learning, including offering students the option to use the chat function and creating breakout rooms where students can interact.

Chris Stedman ’08, an adjunct instructor in Augsburg’s Department of Religion and Philosophy, was interviewed by Simran Jeet Singh for Religion News Service’s series, “Anti-Racism as a Spiritual Practice.” He spoke about his experiences as an atheist community builder supporting religiously unaffiliated people, about the pros and cons of moving work formerly done in religious communities to a digital space, about his concerns regarding the alt-right’s appeal to some atheists, and about the importance of recognizing the limitations of your own experience and engaging in relationships with those who have a different worldview.