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. 

On May 25, PBS NewsHour featured William Green, M. Anita Gay Hawthorne professor of critical race and ethnic studies, in the story “Examining efforts toward police reform in Minneapolis amid crime spike.” Green addressed barriers to police reform efforts in Minneapolis, including the fact that not much can be accomplished at the city level. “The power of the police federation, for example, really comes from the state, for all intents and purposes,” he said.

President Paul Pribbenow was featured in the article, “What Is Equity?” in the May/June 2021 issue of Currents, the magazine for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. He spoke about Augsburg’s work toward “equity-mindedness,” the role that advancement professionals can play in this work, and what it’s like to lead a private university in pursuing equity. Speaking of his experience as Augsburg’s president, he said, “I recognized that it was not good enough to say we had that commitment, and that we were doing good things in the community. We had to do the internal work of a community that truly aspired to be inclusive and anti-racist.” 

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.