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Pioneer Press profiles Ted Bigos ’74

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Pioneer Press - logoThe St. Paul Pioneer Press recently published an article about real estate leader Ted Bigos ’74 and the current climate of urban living in downtown St. Paul. Bigos owns five buildings in the area and many others across the state.

“I put a lot of my back into those buildings,” Bigos said. With the help of his father, Bigos began purchasing, renovating, and reselling apartment buildings at age 19 while he was a student at Augsburg College. Eventually, he retained some of the renewed properties and began renting them to tenants himself.

About the current state of the downtown area, which has seen many development projects in recent years, he said, “In all the years I’ve been in St. Paul, it’s never felt as good as it feels today.”

Read: Ted Bigos: ‘I think the city has really come into its own’ on the Pioneer Press site.

Stan Nelson ’43 to receive Bud Grant Distinguished Minnesotan Award

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Legendary Minnesota athlete and coach Stan Nelson ’43 will add another honor to his career, having earned the Bud Grant Distinguished Minnesotan Award  from the National Football Foundation. The award, named after the former Minnesota Vikings coach, will be given at the ninth Minnesota Football Honors event April 17.

Nelson had a successful athletic career at Augsburg College, having earned letters in football, golf, baseball, and basketball. In 1942, he served as the football team captain and was named all-MIAC. After graduating from Augsburg, he earned a master’s degree from the University of Minnesota and began a career as a coach. He held coaching positions in Zumbrota, Farmington, and Anoka, where he coached for 26 years.

Read Award in honor of Bud Grant to go to Anoka legendary coach on the ABC Newspapers site.

Minnesota Daily interviews Yasameen Sajady ’11 for story on Sisterhood Boutique

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MN Daily - logoMinnesota Daily, the student newspaper of the University of Minnesota, recently published an article about Sisterhood Boutique, a secondhand clothing store in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis that serves as a hands-on entrepreneurial experience for young women in the area. The program, which offers four-month internships that help build and develop the business skills of young women aged 16-21, recently celebrated its second anniversary.

Included in the article was an interview with Yasameen Sajady ’11, an Augsburg College alumna who was hired as the social enterprise manager at Pillsbury United Communities, which owns the store and oversees the internship program as the business grows. The internships begin in the classroom, but quickly shift to the storefront. “In the first two weeks, we really hit hard on the skills that you would need to be successful,” Sajady said. “And then they’re put on the job.”

Read A ‘multilayered’ enterprise on the Minnesota Daily site.

Nic Thomley ’15 MBA earns Harry Crown Fellowship from Aspen Institute

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Aspen Institute - LogoAugsburg College alumnus Nic Thomley ’15 MBA was one of 22 entrepreneurs inducted as 2016 Harry Crown Fellows by the Aspen Institute, an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C.

Over a two-year period, the fellows explore their leadership, core values, vision for a “Good Society,” and desired legacies by spending four weeks in structured retreat. They then put their learning into action with a new venture designed to stretch them and to have a positive impact on their communities, their country, or the world.

Thomley’s career began in 1999 when he founded Pinnacle Services to provide vocational, residential, and financial management services to seniors and people with disabilities. He was 19. Since then, he has gone on to form Morning Star Financial Services and Summit Fiscal Agency.

Read Aspen Institute Mobilizes New Generation of Leaders on the PR Newswire site.

Harry Boyte remembers Martin Olav Sabo ’59 in Huffington Post article

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Huffington-Post - logoHarry Boyte, senior scholar in public work philosophy for the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship, shared in a recent Huffington Post article his experiences working with the Center’s namesake: the late Martin Olav Sabo ’59. Prior to the 2009 merging of the Sabo Center and Augsburg College’s Center for Democracy and Citizenship, Boyte had met Sabo while working for the Reinventing Citizenship initiative in 1993.

Boyte writes of Sabo’s reputation as a respectful, bipartisan advocate for democracy. He states that Sabo exemplified the values of Augsburg College “in extraordinary ways, believing in the positive role of government and also the need for a much bigger environment of civic interaction.” He further notes that “Martin was enthusiastic about our work to… create public discussions on the purpose and future of colleges and universities that can reframe what is now often a polarized and narrow debate.”

Read Martin Olav Sabo and the Spirit of Democracy on the Huffington Post site.

Star Tribune story shares Hagfors Center specs

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Minneapolis Star Tribune - logoThe Star Tribune recently published an overview of the forthcoming Norman and Evangeline Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion. Augsburg College will break ground on this new academic building featuring classrooms, offices, and laboratories in April.

The article said, “The inclusion of scientific and religious disciplines within the same building is meant to express ‘a firm belief in the intersections and fluidity of boundaries’ on Augsburg’s campus.”

Learn more about Augsburg’s campus improvements in Hot Property: Hagfors Center for Science, Business and Religion in Minneapolis on the Star Tribune site.

Minnesota Women’s Press covers interfaith work of Fardosa Hassan

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Minnesota Womens Press - logoThe Minnesota Women’s Press recently published an article on Interfaith Youth Connection, a program for high school and college-age youth that promotes interfaith understanding and service. The article includes comments from Fardosa Hassan ’12, Muslim student program associate at Augsburg College and program coordinator of IYC.

By holding regular conversations and yearly service events, the group seeks to give youth “a way to be proud of who they are in whatever faith background they believe in, while reducing prejudice and misconception,” Hassan said. “In the midst of what is going on today, this is something we need.

High school student and IYC participant Sarah Mason agrees.

“It will make a lasting impact in the way we see the world and each other and the way we handle conflict,” she said.

 

Teachers learn coding through Augsburg College program, KARE 11 reports

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kare 11 - logoKARE 11 news recently aired a segment covering “Makers: Small to Big,” a series of workshops sponsored by the Augsburg College physics department. The workshops are open to the public but are designed to help educators incorporate hands-on physics and computer programming projects into their classroom activities.

The segment featured a coding workshop led by Nora Helf, a Master of Arts in Education student, who saw teachers using software to coordinate blinking LED lights. Helf was assisted by 10-year-old programmer Jack Tavakley who demonstrated some of the projects he has made.

Watch and read Teachers learn new technology to inspire students on the KARE 11 website.

Auggies are Teacher of the Year candidates

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Lillie News - logoLillie News recently reported that Koua Yang ’99, a human geography and Asian American studies teacher at Harding Senior High School in St. Paul, is one of 114 candidates for Education Minnesota’s 2016 Teacher of the Year Award. The award is one of the most prestigious given to educators in Minnesota and will be awarded May 15.

“I am very, very much humbled by the candidacy,” said Yang. “There are so many great teachers.”

The full list of nominees was published by the Star Tribune. Fellow Auggies Julie Swanson ’85 and Aaron Olson ’11 also have been nominated for the award.

Read Two East Side teachers are candidates for Teacher of the Year on the Lillie News site.

KARE 11 news airs segment on development project spearheaded by Devean George ’99

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Kare 11 - logoKARE 11 news staff recently interviewed former NBA player Devean George ’99 about The Commons at Penn Avenue, a mixed-use building development in north Minneapolis that George has been working on for four years. The building includes upscale low-income housing and will be the site of a co-op grocery store that will open this summer.

George compared the complexity of completing the project with the effort required to join the NBA.

“This has been really difficult. It was a little bit like pre-draft for me,” George said. “Coming from a small school I had to prove myself and play well all the time. It was similar to that.”

Watch and read Retired NBA players builds housing complex in north Minneapolis on the KARE 11 site.