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Lillie News spotlights Teacher of the Year finalist Koua Yang ’99

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Lillie News - logoSt. Paul-area newspaper Lillie News recently profiled Koua Yang ’99, a social studies teacher and tennis coach at Harding High School. Yang was one of 11 finalists for the 2015 Minnesota Teacher of the Year Award.

Yang was assigned to Harding High School as a student teacher in 1999 while he was an education major at Augsburg College. He was so loved by his students that they petitioned the school’s principal and asked him to hire Yang. The principle told Yang that a job would be waiting for him the following school year.

Yang’s family immigrated to the U.S. in 1980 when he was 4 years old.

“I know what it was like to struggle as a student. I knew what it was like to not be proficient in a language — a foreign language,” Yang said. “Sharing that path, that navigation piece is absolutely crucial. It also gives them hope. Because then they realize, ‘Hey somebody went through it, too; somebody like me went through it and they were pretty successful at it. I can do it, too.'”

Read ‘I’m not afraid to be vulnerable’ on the Lillie News site.

Star Tribune examines history and future of broadcaster Diana Pierce ’16 MAL

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Minneapolis Star Tribune - logoA reporter from the Minneapolis Star Tribune recently was on campus to interview Diana Pierce ’16 MAL, a longtime Twin Cities news anchor whose retirement from KARE 11 News was announced Wednesday. Pierce completed her Master of Art in Leadership at Augsburg College in December, and she will participate in Augsburg’s 2016 Commencement ceremonies.

Although she will be retiring from KARE 11, Pierce has not finished her work of “helping shape stories that provide a voice for the underserved.” She will use her degree to move behind the camera and produce documentaries. “It’s a weird, wonderful transition,” she said.

Read ‘Pure class’: KARE’s Diana Pierce bows out the same way she rose to the top on the Star Tribune site.

Diana Pierce’s plans to use Augsburg graduate degree discussed in Star Tribune column

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Minneapolis Star Tribune - logoRetiring KARE 11 anchor Diana Pierce MAL ’16 recently credited the graduate degree she is scheduled to receive at Augsburg College for her optimism toward the future.

“We’ll see what doors are open that weren’t in the past, as a result of getting a master’s. For me, I look at it as an additional set of skills,” Pierce said. “I’m looking into several different opportunities. [The advanced degree] lets me think there is life after broadcasting. Now I feel prepared for it.”

Pierce recently announced her retirement after having worked for the station for more than 32 years.

Read C.J.: Diana Pierce is pleased her KARE11 exit included a little something extra on the Star Tribune site.

Kristin Anderson helps explain Norwegian church history

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Tri-State Neighbor - logoThe Tri-State Neighbor newspaper recently sought expert input from Kristin Anderson, archivist and professor of art history at Augsburg College, for an article about the history of Singsaas Lutheran Church, a historic Norwegian church in Brookings, South Dakota. The article points out many of the church’s historical connections, including its 1884 altar painting.

Occupying the central panel of the Gothic altar, the image was painted by artist Sarah Kirkeberg Raugland, who’s work Anderson has studied. Among the few women who were creating altar paintings during the period, “Raugland really stood out for both quantity and quality of her work,” Anderson said. The altar was one of the few furnishings retained when the church was rebuilt in 1921.

 

Dennis Donovan discusses cookbook created by Public Achievement students in KARE 11 segment

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kare 11 - logoKARE 11 television recently interviewed a group of 5th graders who created a multicultural cookbook as a way to promote diversity and tolerance. The students are part Public Achievement, an Augsburg College program designed to teach democracy and citizenship through service projects.

The segment also featured program director Dennis Donovan. “There are a lot of issues in the world, and we need people to come together and solve these problems,” he said. “Having young people participate in public achievement gives them a skill-set and process that normally they would not have.”

Watch and read Students create cookbook to promote diversity on the KARE 11 site.

Twin Cities media cover retirement of news anchor Diana Pierce ’16 MAL

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Augsburg Professor Phil Adamo on set with Diana Pierce at KARE 11.
Augsburg College History Professor Phil Adamo appears on set with Diana Pierce at KARE 11.

Longtime KARE 11 news anchor Diana Pierce ’16 MAL recently announced her retirement from broadcasting in the Twin Cities market after more than 30 years on air. In a story on the KARE 11 website, Pierce said, “The timing is excellent,” for the change because she will graduate from Augsburg College’s Master of Arts in Leadership program this spring and will pursue new opportunities with her master’s degree. To learn more about Pierce’s award-winning journalism career, read the following stories:

Students, alumnus talk with KARE 11 about need for accessible bathrooms

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Kare 11 - logoThree Augsburg College students and a recent alumnus sat down with KARE 11 reporter Adrienne Broaddus to discuss “bathroom bills” that are popping up across the U.S. concerning transgender rights. In Minnesota, proposed legislation would define which restrooms transgender people could legally use.

Jens Pinther ’15 and Duina Hernandez ’16 expressed the importance of gender-neutral bathrooms, and the story described Augsburg’s intentionality in offering these facilities on campus.

Watch Students at Augsburg College talk gender-neutral bathrooms on the Kare 11 site.

Harry Boyte writes for Education Week

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Education Week - logoHarry Boyte, senior fellow at the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship, recently published an article for Education Week about democracy in education. The article is part of a conversational series between Boyte and Deborah Meier, senior scholar at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education.

Boyte argues that we should view democracy as “an empowering way of life,” and not merely a decision-making process. “We need to combine the ‘head,’ which makes decisions, the ‘heart,’ moral imagination and emotion, and the ‘hand,’ civic muscles that power action in the world,” he writes.

In regards to education, Boyte offers an antidote to a culture that separates the hard sciences, the arts and the professional or vocational fields, parallels to the “head”, “heart” and “hand” metaphor. He argues in favor of Cooperative Education, “a method that combines academic study and classroom learning with practical work experience for which students can receive academic credit.”

Read the article, which also was published on the Huffington Post Education site.

Devean George ’99 offers his take on Kobe Bryant’s retirement in Star Tribune article

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Minneapolis Star Tribune - logoThe Minneapolis Star Tribune recently interviewed former Augsburg College basketball player and retired NBA star Devean George ’99 about the upcoming retirement of legendary Los Angeles Lakers player Kobe Bryant. George, who retired in 2011, played his first seven seasons in the NBA alongside Bryant.

George said that he knows Bryant is ready to retire from professional sports because he has seen familiar signs from his own retirement. “What I’ve seen him go through this year, you can see the flame is not there and he knows it’s time,” he said. “It’s the old cliché: Father Time, no one can beat it. There comes a time where no one wins. Basketball is a young man’s sport. It’s that simple.”

Read George: When it’s time, it’s time on the Star Tribune site.

Basketball program founded by Jennifer Weber ’11 gets specially designed uniforms, MN Daily reports

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MN Daily - logoThe Minnesota Daily recently covered the Cedar Riverside Community Traveling Basketball program, which provides coaching, practice, and competition for six teams of local boys and girls ranging from sixth to 10th grade.

The program was founded by Augsburg College alumna Jennifer Weber ’11, who recognized a need for such programs. “The kids here in the neighborhood need more quality programming,” she said. “The kids want it. They go to open gym all the time.”

Another need Weber recognized dealt with a lack of functional athletic attire that was culturally acceptable for the many Muslim girls in the program.

Luckily, design students from the University of Minnesota had already been working to solve that problem. Working with the players and other partners, the students designed uniforms with adjustable hijabs, knee-length skirts and breathable leggings. A grant from the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station provided funding to donate the completed uniforms to the program.

The article concludes with a statement from coach and co-founder Muna Mohamed ’16, an exercise science senior at Augsburg who grew up in the neighborhood.

“These girls are getting an opportunity to have culturally appropriate clothing, at the same time … [as] enjoying sports,” she said. “They don’t have to worry about fixing their scarves. They don’t have to worry about ‘How can I play basketball and also respect my culture?'”